It all starts with the guitar, Jonny Greenwoods Telecaster plus may just look like a standard telecaster but definitely doesn't sound like one. This is mainly due to the pickups he has wired in it, in the bridge he has a blue lace sensor and in the bridge a lace sensor red dually pickup. The bridge is where he gets his crazy distortion tone on earlier works. For example, the guitar tone on 15 step is created through the use of the bridge pickup on his Tele plus. If you don't have an ac30 or 15 and want a Jonny Greenwood like tone then just give up because this amp is literally the sound of Radiohead, all 3 guitarists in the band are vox amp users. Ideally, you want to have alnico blue speakers in the amp, as the highs will be crisper when overdriven also you'll be able to get more mileage out of the speaker. Setting’s wise on the amp you want to have the amp breaking up just slightly but not so much that its audible on every note, but just enough so that it's pushing the boundaries. Have the EQ set at around about these settings Bass 75%, Treble 25%, Cut 60%. Using the top boost channel is going to get you closest to Jonny’s tone.
On the record Nigel Godrich and the engineers used either an Audio Technica 3060, U87 or Sennheiser MD421 or combo of these. Some pedals Jonny uses frequently are the boss OD-3 for his overdrive, a Boss RV-3 for his reverb and delays. For phaser sounds he uses an EHX Small Stone, the Digitech Whammy is also a part of his arsenal of pedals.
Comments