N.I.B. Tone?
I was wondering how Tony Iommi got his tone for the song N.I.B. I know the intro is Geezer, and I have the SG with p90s and a Plexi drive pedal, so what should I do for settings and the guitar tone dial?
I was wondering how Tony Iommi got his tone for the song N.I.B. I know the intro is Geezer, and I have the SG with p90s and a Plexi drive pedal, so what should I do for settings and the guitar tone dial?
Campbell Hayden
Favorite Answer
Set your amp (or headphones) at a moderate volume.
Things might start getting 'kinda loud for a little while.
With the volume & tone controls on your guitar turned all
the way up, the best way to get Tony Iommi's sound is to turn
the gain control on the Plexi Pedal to about the 3 o'clock position,
and then bring the volume control up to wherever you want it.
Set the tone control on the pedal to the 12 o'clock position
to start with, and then adjust it as you wish.
Back in the 1960s & 70s, alot of guitarists used smaller amps
in the studio, and they would turn them up 'all the way' so that
the distortion was guaranteed.
Nowadays, you can simply turn the 'gain' or 'pre' control of nearly
any guitar amp up to ten, and then "very" slowly start turning up
the volume control.
BTW - Geezer was using a wah-wah pedal with the bass in the very
beginning of N.I.B.. It sounds like he added a distortion pedal in the
second half of the intro just before Bill & Tony joined in.
Good luck.
Robert J
There is nothing special about the basic guitar sound - just moderate overdrive.
The LP recording has some effects and extra processing added, possibly out of phase reverb that provides something like echoes from the sides of the stereo image.
Either that or it's multi-tracked with another guitar track added.
Listen to a version from live video that's not been got-at and overdubbed with studio music; no studio effects, but purely what is really being played.
It's very basic overdrive, plus decades of technique and style.
eg. search
"BLACK SABBATH - "N.I.B." from The End (Live Video)"
on youtube for a superb example.
curtisports2
You could use every same exact piece of equipment and not get the exact sound. Far more goes into sound than the equipment. You would need the same exact studio acoustics, the same relative humidity in the studio when the recording was done, and the same exact mix - and assuming everything else was identical, you might never get the same exact mix.