Nail the ToneFreddie King

Hide Away

Freddie King · Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King · 1960

The main riff is an open-position E shuffle played fingerstyle with a plastic thumbpick and a metal index fingerpick — that attack is most of the tone. Set a small-to-medium tube amp with the treble way up, bass pulled back and the volume high enough that hard picking pushes it into light crunch, then blend both pickups for the slightly hollow, cutting midrange on the record. No pedals, no reverb: the dirt comes from the amp and from how hard the strings get hit.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning in the key of E, but the original Federal master runs sharp of A440 (roughly A=444Hz), so you have to tune up a hair to play along with the record.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Gibson Les Paul Model (1954 goldtop) · P-90s · both pickups blended (middle)
  • Gibson ES-345SV · humbuckers · middle, Vari-Tone off

Amp

Gibson GA-40T Les Paul Amp

GAIN
7.0
BASS
3.0
TREBLE
8.0

Vintage Guitar reports King preferred a mid-'50s GA-40T but may have used Federal's house amps at King Studios in Cincinnati; the GA-40T has only volume, bass, treble and tremolo, so mids, presence and reverb don't exist — set volume where the amp just breaks up on the hard thumbpick attack. Forum consensus (unsourced) argues for a tweed Fender instead.

Tone character

bright single-coil bite · light tube breakup · tight low end · cutting upper mids · dry, no effects

medium

Open-position E shuffle riff mixing double-stops, quick slides and open strings, played with a thumbpick and metal fingerpick — the challenge is the hard, even attack and the position jump into the middle 'The Walk' section, not the notes themselves.

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