Nail the TonePink Floyd

Comfortably Numb

Pink Floyd · The Wall · 1979

Both solos are the Black Strat on the bridge pickup, hit with an MXR Dyna Comp and a Ram's Head Big Muff, then split into a Hiwatt DR103 through a WEM 4x12 and a Yamaha RA-200 rotary cabinet driven by an Alembic F-2B preamp. The sustain comes from stacking moderate gain in three places — hot bridge pickup and compressor, Big Muff, then a loud clean amp — rather than from one high-gain setting. Keep the fuzz around midway on Sustain and Tone, the amp clean but cranked, and add a quiet 370 ms delay; note there's no reverb on the Hiwatt, so any wash you add belongs after the amp.

Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Solos are in standard tuning with Gibson Sonomatic .010–.044 strings; the verse rhythm bed is a separate Ovation acoustic in Nashville high-strung tuning, so don't try to cover it on the lead guitar.

Part: Solo

Guitar

  • 1969 Fender Stratocaster ("The Black Strat") · DiMarzio FS-1 (bridge) · bridge pickup

Amp

Hiwatt DR103 Custom 100 head + WEM Super Starfinder 200 4x12

GAIN
7.0
BASS
6.0
MID
4.0
TREBLE
5.0
PRESENCE
6.0

Gain value is the Normal Volume on Gilmour's linked-input DR103 (Brilliant Volume 4.5, Master 5); the amp has no reverb. Knob values as published in Guitar World's tone breakdown of this track.

Amp

Yamaha RA-200 revolving speaker cabinet (via Alembic F-2B preamp)

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.0
MID
4.0
TREBLE
5.0

Values are the Alembic F-2B preamp (Input 1, Bright on) feeding the RA-200 with its own solid-state preamp bypassed; it sits low in the mix under the Hiwatt but supplies the light rotary shimmer and extra body.

Pedals

  • MXR Dyna Comp · compressor · Output 7, Sensitivity 4
  • Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (Ram's Head) · fuzz/distortion · Volume 4, Tone 6, Sustain 6
  • MXR Digital Delay System I · digital delay · About 370 ms, 3–5 repeats, mix low (~30%); extra long delay and room ambience added at mixdown

Tone character

singing violin-like sustain · thick fuzz in the mids · heavily compressed attack · subtle rotary shimmer · long ambient delay tail

hard

The notes are few and slow, but the part lives or dies on wide whole- and step-and-a-half bends landing dead in tune, hand vibrato added on top of already-bent notes, and controlled feedback on the long held notes, plus a faster repeating pull-off lick in the outro.

Want this on your own amp?

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Sources