Nail the ToneSinéad O'Connor

Nothing Compares 2 U

Sinéad O'Connor · I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got · 1990

Sinéad O'Connor's 1990 version has no credited guitar: engineer/co-producer Chris Birkett and programmer Gota Yashiki built the track from programmed drums, sampled strings and a synth pad, and the single sleeve credits strings, drums and piano only. Marco Pirroni's electric guitar on that album belongs to "The Emperor's New Clothes," not to this track. So everything below is a playable reconstruction: a clean combo with a soft, chorused, reverb-heavy voice that stands in for the string pad under the vocal.

Where these numbers come from: an educated guess from the sound of the record — a good starting point, not the official setting

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Record is in F major at a slow 60-ish bpm; no guitar is credited on it, so there is no original capo position — a capo at 5 playing C–G–Am shapes (or capo 3 with D–A–Bm) gets you open-string ring instead of barres.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Single-coil electric (no guitar credited on this track) · single-coil · neck pickup, tone rolled back slightly
  • Steel-string acoustic (dreadnought or OM)

Amp

Clean tube combo, 1x12

GAIN
2.0
BASS
4.5
MID
5.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
4.0

No amplifier is documented because the released Sinéad O'Connor recording has no credited guitar part — the backing is Gota Yashiki's programmed drums, Akai S1100 sampled strings and synth pad, with bass and piano. These numbers are a category setting built to sit under the vocal the way the pad does: fully clean, soft attack, nothing that bites.

Pedals

  • Analog chorus · modulation · Not documented; suggested — rate low, depth 2–3, subtle, to mimic the record's string pad
  • Hall/plate reverb · reverb · Not documented; suggested — long decay, mix around 25–30%
  • Volume pedal · volume/swell · Not documented; suggested — swell chord entries so nothing has a pick attack

Tone character

fully clean, no dirt · soft attack, pad-like · warm mids, gentle treble · long reverb tail · sparse and spacious

easy

Four chords (F, C, Dm, Bb/C) at a slow tempo, with the barre or three-finger F held cleanly through long sustained bars — the work is in keeping the strum quiet and even, not in the fingering.

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