Riff Tone

Bullet With Butterfly Wings (Remastered 2012)

The Smashing Pumpkins

Guitarrock1990s

Original Gear

Guitar1994 Fender Stratocaster (Billy Corgan's main studio guitar for Mellon Collie sessions)

AmpMarshall JMP-1 Preamp into Mesa Boogie Strategy 500 Power Amp

PickupsDiMarzio Super Distortion (bridge position, humbucker, installed in Stratocaster)

Amp Settings

gain8

bass6

mid7.5

treble6.5

reverb1.5

presence6.5

Effects & Signal Chain

No effects used for this tone

Notes

Studio recording, 1995. The main riff was tracked with Billy Corgan's Stratocaster fitted with a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge, running into a Marshall JMP-1 preamp and Mesa Boogie Strategy 500 power amp. No evidence of live rig or modern amp/pedal substitutions for this studio recording.

Tone Character(10)

tight, saturated distortionaggressive, compressed attackthick, layered wall-of-soundmidrange-forward punchpercussive palm-mutingrazor-sharp articulationdense, focused low endminimal ambience/reverbcutting upper midsslightly scooped highs

Difficulty

The riff requires intermediate-level technique due to its fast palm muting, tight alternate picking, and the need to control noise and clarity with high-gain settings.

Sources

Bullet w/ Butterfly guitar tone? : r/SmashingPumpkins - Reddit The Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet With Butterfly Wings - Ultimate Guitar The making of Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness | Guitar World

This tone has been researched 9 times by the community

Create an account to adapt this tone to your gear

Create Free Account