Nail the ToneOld Crow Medicine Show

Wagon Wheel

Old Crow Medicine Show · O.C.M.S. (Old Crow Medicine Show) · 2004

"Wagon Wheel" has no amp on it — it's an all-acoustic string band track cut to analog tape at RCA Studio B and Woodland with David Rawlings producing and Matt Andrews engineering, so the rhythm sound is a mic'd steel-string flat-top in a live room. Willie Watson plays the driving rhythm guitar, capo 2 in G shapes for the key of A, with Critter Fuqua on second guitar and Rawlings adding his 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop. The exact make of Watson's guitar on the session isn't documented; any mahogany OM or small dreadnought, played hard with a flatpick and recorded dry, gets you there.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo · Capo at fret 2

Capo 2 with G-D-Em-C open shapes puts you in A, the key of the record (Secor's harmonica is in A); the rhythm part is a flat-top acoustic played with a driving bass-note-plus-strum feel, with a second acoustic and Rawlings' archtop answering it.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Steel-string flat-top acoustic (model undocumented; Watson's period guitar was a Larrivée OM) · none — mic'd acoustic
  • 1935 Epiphone Olympic archtop (David Rawlings) · none — mic'd acoustic

Amp

None — microphone into console, to analog tape

O.C.M.S. was cut to analog tape at Woodland and RCA Studio B with David Rawlings producing and Matt Andrews engineering, so there is no guitar amp on the track at all; the tone is guitar, room, mic and tape. Credits list Willie Watson on guitar and vocals, Critter Fuqua on guitar and bottleneck, and Rawlings himself on guitar.

Amp

Acoustic combo (Fishman Loudbox / AER-type) — live substitute

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.5
REVERB
1.0

Only for playing the part live through a pickup or DI: pull the bass back to keep the strum tight, leave mids up so the guitar sits under the fiddle and vocal, and keep reverb almost off — the record is dry and up close.

Tone character

dry, close-mic'd flat-top · forward mids · bright strum attack · almost no reverb · percussive, driving rhythm

easy

Four easy open shapes behind a capo, but the whole part lives on keeping a fast, unbroken bass-note-and-strum groove steady for nearly four minutes without speeding up.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

Adapt it to my gear

Sources