Nail the ToneThe Police

Message in a Bottle

The Police · Reggatta de Blanc · 1979

Summers cut the riff on his heavily modified early-'60s Telecaster Custom, bridge single-coil, into a Marshall 100-watt run clean and bright rather than dirty, with an MXR Dyna Comp in front and an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress doing the shimmer everyone hears as chorus. Keep gain low, treble up, mids pulled back, and let the compressor and modulation do the work. The guitar and the Electric Mistress are documented for this song; the exact studio amp is not, so the knob values come from the documented Reggatta de Blanc-era Marshall settings.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning in concert C# minor; the record layers a second guitar playing the same rhythm with added thirds and upper extensions, so one guitar alone will sound thinner than the mix.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender Telecaster Custom (1961/'63, modified) · Tele single-coil bridge / Gibson PAF humbucker neck, onboard preamp boost and phase switch · bridge pickup

Amp

Marshall JMP 1959 Super Lead + 1960A 4x12

GAIN
5.0
BASS
4.0
MID
3.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
3.0

Values are Guitar World's documented Reggatta de Blanc-era numbers for the sister single "Walking on the Moon" (low input, Volume I at 5), carried over to this track; the Super Lead has no gain or reverb control, so keep it clean and loud rather than driven.

Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

GAIN
4.0
BASS
4.0
MID
5.0
TREBLE
7.0
REVERB
2.0

Second credible account: fan-compiled equipment histories say Summers still had a Twin Reverb and an old Ampeg in the studio for Reggatta de Blanc, and engineer/producer Nigel Gray tracked him through two amps at once, close-miked left and right with a room mic up the middle.

Pedals

  • Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress · flanger/chorus · Documented for the album era: Rate 6.5, Range 8, Color 3; for this track set it shallower and more chorus-like (Filter Matrix off). Some write-ups credit an MXR Phase 90 instead.
  • MXR Dyna Comp · compressor · Output 6, Sensitivity 6 — always on, evens out the arpeggios
  • Maestro Echoplex EP-3 · tape delay · Short single repeat, echo well under the dry level; the preamp adds gloss

Tone character

bright glassy chime · scooped mids · compressed pick attack · shimmering chorus wash · clean with edge-of-breakup

hard

The riff is one stretched add9 shape moved up the neck with the index and pinky far apart, picked note by note in steady time for almost the whole song, so the hand tires and any sloppy note shows.

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.

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Sources