Nail the ToneAlice in Chains

Nutshell

Alice in Chains · Jar of Flies · 1994

The rhythm bed of "Nutshell" is a clean, barely-driven electric arpeggio doubled by an acoustic, cut live to tape at London Bridge Studio with Toby Wright. A bridge-humbucker G&L Rampage into a Fender Twin Reverb — volume low, spring reverb up a third of the way, mids left flat — gets you the chime and bloom without any dirt. Play it in Eb standard or the whole thing sits a half step above the record.

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

Tuning

Eb standard (down a half step)

Both the clean electric and the acoustic are down a half step, so the Em7–G–D–Cadd9 shapes sound in Eb minor; the parts are doubled, with the acoustic arpeggiating under the electric.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • G&L Rampage · Seymour Duncan JB (SH-4) · bridge pickup, volume rolled back
  • Guild acoustic (borrowed from Mike Inez)

Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.5
MID
5.5
TREBLE
5.5
REVERB
3.5

Gear histories (Ground Guitar, Guitar Lobby) credit a Fender Twin Reverb with the clean electric tones on Jar of Flies; no session-level primary source names the amp for this specific track, so treat the amp as period-documented rather than confirmed. Vibrato channel, bright switch off, volume just under breakup so chords stay glassy.

Amp

Bogner Fish preamp + Tubeworks MosValve 500

GAIN
4.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
5.5
PRESENCE
5.0

This was Cantrell's documented early-'90s studio rig (Guitar World gear profile) and is the likely source of the overdriven lead track, not the clean rhythm arpeggios; listed for completeness if you want the solo tone from the same rig.

Pedals

  • Chorus pedal (model unconfirmed) · chorus · Low rate, low depth — just enough shimmer to widen the clean part; Cantrell's documented boards from this era include Boss CE-3/CH-1 chorus units, but none is confirmed on this track

Tone character

glassy clean · soft pick attack · spring reverb bloom · warm lows, gentle top · subtle chorus width

easy

Slow, evenly picked arpeggios over four easy open shapes — the work is in keeping the picking hand steady at 68 BPM and letting each note ring without muting the one before it.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

Adapt it to my gear

Sources