Nail the ToneThe Jimi Hendrix Experience

Little Wing

The Jimi Hendrix Experience · Axis: Bold as Love · 1967

A Stratocaster on the neck pickup into a barely-driven tube head, tracked live at Olympic and mic'd with a Neumann U67 or Beyer M160. The distinctive part is the layering: a clean pass, a lightly crunchy pass, and a third pass through a Leslie rotating cabinet, which is what gives the chords their watery motion. Set the amp just short of breakup, roll the guitar volume back a touch, add slow rotary or a light chorus-vibe and a plate-style reverb, and save the wah for the outro.

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

Tuning

Eb standard (down a half step)

Hendrix fingers it in Em shapes but the record sounds in Eb minor; the part is layered as two or three passes — one nearly clean, one lightly broken up, and one fed through a rotating Leslie cabinet.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Fender Stratocaster · Fender single-coils · neck, or neck and middle together

Amp

Marshall Super 100 (JTM45/100) head with 4x12 cabinet

GAIN
4.0
BASS
5.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
4.0

Hendrix's documented 1967 stack, but no source names the amp on this specific track; a long-running account among collectors holds that Sound City heads were used for the clean tones on Axis, and Fender amps were also around Olympic. Volume set low for a clean-with-a-hint-of-breakup sound; the JTM45/100 has no reverb, so the wetness on the record is studio plate and the Leslie.

Pedals

  • Leslie rotating speaker cabinet · rotary speaker · Slow/chorale rotor; used on one overdubbed guitar track, not the main rhythm pass
  • Vox wah · wah · Slow sweep, heel-biased, only on the outro fills

Tone character

clean with slight breakup · glassy single-coil chime · warm rolled-off treble · rotary swirl underneath · plate reverb halo

hard

The rhythm part is chord-melody playing — added-tone Em/G/Am/Bm voicings with a thumb-fretted bass note, sliding embellishments and single-note fills woven between the chords, all at a slow tempo that exposes every mistake.

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