Riff Tone

Black Star

Radiohead

Guitarrock1990s

Original Gear

GuitarFender Telecaster (likely 1980s/early 90s, as used by Jonny Greenwood on The Bends)

AmpFender Eighty-Five (solid state combo, used for distortion on The Bends era)

PickupsSingle-coil (Fender Telecaster stock pickups)

Amp Settings

gain5.5

bass6

mid7

treble7

reverb3

presence5.5

Effects & Signal Chain

No effects used for this tone

Notes

Studio recording, 1994-1995. Gear inferred from The Bends-era interviews and forum consensus. No direct evidence of pedals for the riff section; Greenwood's Telecaster and Fender Eighty-Five amp are widely cited for this album's rhythm tones.

Tone Character(10)

crunchy and dynamicbright and articulatetight, punchy attackslightly gritty edgeclear single-coil presenceopen, airy chordsmodest amp reverbpresent upper midsdistinct Telecaster snapnot heavily saturated

Difficulty

The riff requires tight, syncopated rhythm playing with dynamic picking and clean chord articulation at a crunchy gain level, making it moderately challenging for intermediate players.

Sources

Why does The Bends have such good guitar tone? : r/radiohead how to tune my guitar for Black Star? isnt it between standard and a ...Anyone knows what effects/pedals were used in black star? - Reddit Why does blackstar sound different from the rest of the bends? - Reddit

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