Nail the ToneThe Who

Won't Get Fooled Again

The Who · Who's Next · 1971

The riff is a 1959 Gretsch 6120 on the bridge Filter'Tron, both volumes wide open, through an Edwards volume pedal into a cranked tweed 3x10 Fender Bandmaster — the guitar, amp and pedal Joe Walsh gave Townshend, not the SG-and-Hiwatt stage rig people picture. Set the amp's instrument volume at max with treble around 7 and bass and presence around 5 for that boxy, honking midrange and loose tweed crunch. Hit it hard with a heavy pick and let the volume pedal handle swells and feedback control.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning in A; Townshend strung the guitar with Gibson Sonomatic .012s and famously used a second plain .016 B string in place of the G, so bends on the third string take real effort.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins (1959) · Filter'Tron · bridge pickup, both volumes on 10, master tone switch centered (off)

Amp

Fender Bandmaster (1959 tweed 3x10)

GAIN
10.0
BASS
5.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
5.0

Gain here is the Instrument Volume (input 1, mic volume at 0); tweed Bandmaster dials run to 12, so these are documented positions on that taper, and there is no mid or reverb control. Tech Alan Rogan gave a conflicting account, saying Townshend ran the Gretsch through a Fender Twin and a Bassman on this track rather than the Bandmaster.

Amp

Hiwatt Custom 100 stack

GAIN
8.0
BASS
5.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
6.0

Not the album tone: this was Townshend's live rig with a Gibson SG in this era, listed only as a fallback if you're chasing the stage version of the riff.

Pedals

  • Edwards Light Beam volume pedal · volume pedal · Used as a swell/level control and to push the amp to the edge of feedback; its capacitance also rolls off harsh high end. A long (50-100 ft) cable gets a similar high-end shave.

Tone character

boxy honking midrange · tweed-era breakup · hollowbody chime with bite · edge-of-feedback dynamics · tight, controlled low end

easy

Open A, D and G shapes with sus4 hammer-ons and a suspended-chord intro figure — easy grips, but the whole thing lives or dies on hard, dead-accurate downstroke rhythm and clean stops between stabs.

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Sources