Walk
Pantera · Vulgar Display of Power · 1992
The main riff is Dime's Dean ML with the Bill Lawrence L-500XL bridge pickup into Randall solid-state heads, with two EQ units in front acting as one giant boost and a hard noise gate doing much of the tightening. Set gain maxed, bass fat, mids pulled back at the amp with a narrow boost around 800 Hz from an EQ pedal, treble and presence up for the buzzsaw edge. Get the tuning right first — D standard a hair flat — because no amount of knob twisting will fix playing it in E.
Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record
Tuning
D standard (D G C F A D), tuned roughly a quarter step flat
The record sits between D and Db, so tune the whole guitar to D standard and then pull everything down about 20–40 cents to play along with it.
Guitar
- 1981 Dean ML "Dean From Hell" · Bill Lawrence L-500XL · bridge pickup
Amp
Randall Century 200
Producer Terry Date says the band tried tube heads on every record but always ended up with the Randalls, naming the RG100H and the Century 200, so accounts differ on which head is on which track; Guitar World credits the Century 200 for Vulgar Display of Power. Knob values are inferred from the recording plus his documented habits (gain maxed, presence high, mids pulled back at the amp while the outboard EQs put a narrow mid boost back in).
Amp
Randall Century 200 (second stack)
Date describes two stacks tracked together: one straight, one through an MXR Flanger/Doubler for width. If you only have one amp, skip this and add a short doubling/chorus to taste.
Pedals
- MXR M-109 Six Band EQ · graphic EQ / boost · Sliders in an upside-down V with 800 Hz at the peak, output pushed to overdrive the amp's front end
- Furman PQ-3/PQ-4 · parametric EQ · Level near max; frequencies cut here were boosted on the six-band and vice versa, per tech Grady Champion — the two EQs acted as one big gain stage
- MXR Flanger/Doubler · flanger / doubler · Slow, subtle — on the second amp only, for stereo width
- Rocktron Hush / Guitar Silencer · noise gate · Threshold set tight so the rests in the riff slam shut
Tone character
tight palm-muted chug · biting solid-state attack · big controlled low end · 800 Hz mid poke · hard gated note cutoffs · buzzsaw high gain
Slow, wide-open power chords with heavy palm muting, so the whole difficulty is rhythmic — the stabs and the silences have to be dead on the grid and the gate-tight releases have to be clean.
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 gearSources
- Terry Date interview — Tape Op
- Dimebag Darrell's guitar gear — Guitar World
- Grady Champion interview — MusicRadar
- Dimebag's MXR MX-109 Six Band EQ — Ground Guitar
- Dimebag's Randall Century 200 II — Ground Guitar
- Dimebag's 1981 Dean ML "Dean From Hell" — Ground Guitar
- Walk guitar lesson — Guitar Lessons 365
- Dimebag Darrell gear — Equipboard