Riff Tone

All Day and All of the Night

The Kinks

Guitarrock1960s

Original Gear

Guitar1962 Gretsch G6121 Chet Atkins Jet Firebird (double-cut, red, stock pickups, bridge position)

AmpElpico AC55 (slashed speaker) into Vox AC30

PickupsGretsch Filter'Tron humbucker (bridge position)

Amp Settings

gain6.5

bass5

mid6.5

treble7

reverb0.5

presence4.5

Effects & Signal Chain

No effects used for this tone

Notes

Studio recording, 1964. Dave Davies ran a slashed Elpico AC55 into a Vox AC30 for the signature distorted tone. No evidence of pedals or additional effects; distortion is from amp/speaker abuse. All sources confirm this unique setup for the original studio riff. No evidence of live/touring substitutions for this recording.

Tone Character(9)

aggressive, buzzy distortiontight and punchy attackraw, uncompressed soundmid-scooped EQ for claritysharp, cutting bridge pickup toneminimal ambience, dry soundpercussive, palm-muted power chordsvintage-style breakup from damaged ampdirect, in-your-face presence

Difficulty

The riff is built on fast, repetitive power chords with tight palm muting and requires aggressive picking, but no advanced techniques or complex chord voicings.

Sources

Dave Davies | Equipboard Kinks – All Day and All of the Night – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture DIY distortion: Get Dave Davies' Kinks guitar tone in seconds – you'll just need a razor blade and an amp you don't give a s**t about Tone Settings for You Really Got Me by The Kinks (guitar and amp) - Guitar Chalk

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