Nail the ToneAerosmith

Walk This Way

Aerosmith · Toys in the Attic · 1975

For the main riff Perry ran a double-cutaway Gibson Les Paul Junior with its single P-90 into a 60-watt Ampeg V-2 head that lived at Record Plant, with the amp's active midrange boosted at its 800Hz setting for growl. Set the amp just into breakup rather than full distortion — the riff's punch comes from the P-90 and the mid boost, not from gain. Keep the fuzz off; the Maestro Fuzz-Tone and the Strat only show up in the second solo and outro.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning at concert pitch; Perry's riff track sits hard left in the mix while Brad Whitford's separate rhythm part is panned hard right.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Gibson Les Paul Junior (double-cutaway) · P-90 · bridge pickup (single-pickup guitar)
  • Fender Stratocaster (late 1950s, sunburst) · single-coils · bridge pickup, neck for the outro

Amp

Ampeg V-2

GAIN
7.0
BASS
4.0
MID
8.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
0.0

Guitar World's teardown of the track credits a Record Plant house Ampeg V-2 with the midrange section boosted and set to its 800Hz center point; Perry himself has said he stood next to "a '50s, '60s or early '70s Marshall" for the solo, and engineer Jay Messina recalled the closing solo amp as "probably a Fender Twin," so the amp is contested.

Pedals

  • Maestro FZ-1S Fuzz-Tone · fuzz · Documented on the outro solo only, not the main riff — Perry kicked it in around 2:45 to thicken the mids; leave it off for the riff.

Tone character

midrange-forward P-90 bite · light crunch, not saturated · tight palm-muted funk · thick but articulate lows · dry, close-miked studio sound

medium

The notes are simple but the sixteenth-note funk syncopation has to be locked to the beat with tight palm muting and clean muted-string scratches between the double-stops.

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Sources