Nail the ToneCream

Crossroads (live)

Cream · Wheels of Fire · 1968

Cream's "Crossroads" is Clapton's psychedelically painted 1964 Gibson SG "The Fool" plugged straight into 100-watt Marshall stacks, recorded live in San Francisco in March 1968 with no pedals in the chain. Everything on the amp is wide open — volume, treble, mids, bass and presence all the way up — so the dirt is pure power-tube breakup, not a pedal. Use the bridge humbucker with the guitar's volume and tone near full for the bite and sustain on the solo; roll the guitar volume back for the rhythm sections rather than touching the amp.

Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning, played in A; the album master sits a touch sharp of concert pitch, so tune to the record if you play along.

Part: Solo

Guitar

  • Gibson SG Standard "The Fool" (1964) · Gibson patent-number humbuckers · bridge pickup

Amp

Marshall JTM45/100 "Super 100" head + 4x12 cabs

GAIN
10.0
BASS
10.0
MID
10.0
TREBLE
10.0
PRESENCE
10.0

Clapton described his Cream 100-watt Marshalls as set "full on everything" with the guitar controls full too, riding volume and tone from the guitar; he ran two full stacks daisy-chained, and forum research on Winterland/Fillmore photos argues the mic'd head was his KT66-powered Super 100 Tremolo rather than an EL34 Super Lead.

Tone character

cranked plexi crunch · forward mids · bright cutting attack · long humbucker sustain · edge-of-feedback bloom

hard

Five straight choruses of A minor pentatonic soloing at a brisk shuffle tempo, with fast repeated triplet and sixteenth phrases, position shifts up and down the neck, and bends and vibrato that have to land in tune at speed.

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