La Grange
ZZ Top · Tres Hombres · 1973
The main riff is a guitar plugged straight into a cranked 100-watt Marshall Super Lead — no pedals, all tube breakup. Set a Marshall-voiced amp to edge-of-fizz crunch with mids up and bass moderate, dig in on the bridge pickup, and keep the picking hand loose enough to swing. On the record the riff is doubled and spread wide, so a short slap of reverb or a second take panned opposite gets you closer than more gain will.
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 A; the overdriven riff is doubled on the record and panned left and right, so one guitar alone will sound narrower than the mix.
Guitar
- 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard "Pearly Gates" · PAF humbuckers · bridge pickup
- 1955 Fender Stratocaster (hardtail) · stock single-coils · in-between "mystery setting"
Amp
Marshall Super Lead 100 (1969)
Gibbons says the dirt is "just pure tube distortion" from a cranked Super Lead into 4x12 cabs with Celestion Greenbacks; the amp has no master volume or reverb, so the Volume I control on the high-treble channel is the gain figure here and the knob values are inferred from the record, not documented.
Tone character
cranked plexi crunch · forward mids · tight low end · gritty pinch harmonics · doubled rhythm tracks
An open-position A shuffle you can play with two fingers, but the swing feel, the tight palm muting between hits, and the squealing pinch harmonics are what take practice.
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