Nail the ToneThe Lumineers

Ho Hey

The Lumineers · The Lumineers · 2012

"Ho Hey" has no electric guitar tone to chase: the rhythm track is a strummed steel-string acoustic recorded live-feeling at Bear Creek Studio by Ryan Hadlock, with close mics plus his trademark distant room mics, then mixed nearly dry by Kevin Augunas with tape slap and an echo chamber. The specific guitar is not confirmed anywhere primary — secondary sources and photos put Schultz on a Martin 0-18/00-18 and on a small-bodied Yamaha in that era, and his Guild archtops came later — so treat the model as unsettled and aim for a small-body acoustic with a bright, dry, mid-forward voice. If you're plugging in, go dead clean, cut the boom, push the mids, and keep reverb small; the character comes from a tight, muted, percussive right hand.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

The record sits in concert C major, so open C-F-Am-G shapes match the pitch; several popular tabs instead put a capo at the 5th fret and use G-C-Em-D shapes, which sounds the same key but is not what the record needs to be played that way.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Small-body steel-string acoustic · none (mic'd)
  • Martin 0-18 · none (mic'd)

Amp

Acoustic combo amp (clean channel)

GAIN
2.0
BASS
3.0
MID
6.5
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
2.0

There is no guitar amp on the record — the rhythm part is a mic'd acoustic, close plus room, in Bear Creek's big barn room, so these controls are a reproduction target: clean, low end pulled back, mids up, a touch of small-room reverb. Live, Schultz amplifies his acoustic with an L.R. Baggs M1 soundhole pickup.

Amp

McIntosh MC240

Wikipedia states this vintage McIntosh tube amp was "used in the recording," citing a Wall Street Journal piece on Bear Creek; the WSJ framing is that everything the band tracked there passed through Hadlock's MC240, which is a hi-fi power amplifier in the studio's chain, not a guitar amp with tone controls — treat it as studio color, not as a rig you dial in.

Pedals

  • Studer B67 · tape slap delay (studio outboard, not a pedal) · Short slap used sparingly by mixer Kevin Augunas at Fairfax Recording, mainly on vocals; the acoustic is essentially dry with room sound and the studio echo chamber.

Tone character

dry small-body acoustic · mid-forward, light low end · percussive, tight pick attack · natural room ambience · compressed and upfront · no dirt, fully clean

easy

Four open chords with no barres if you use a small F shape, but the strum is fast and percussive and the C-to-F changes land right on the "ho" and "hey" hits, so the challenge is clean, tightly stopped strumming rather than the shapes.

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