Cemetery Gates
Pantera · Cowboys from Hell · 1990
The solo is Dime's Dean ML "Dean From Hell" on the bridge Bill Lawrence L-500XL, straight into stacked EQ boosts and a cranked Randall RG100ES through a 412JB cab — three gain stages before the amp, which is why it sizzles and sustains without getting woolly. Keep the mids present rather than fully scooped; Cowboys from Hell is less mid-scooped than Vulgar. The clean intro on this song is a different amp, a Roland JC-120, so switch amps or channels for that section.
Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record
Tuning
Standard, tuned roughly a quarter step flat (album pitch, around A=433–437 Hz)
Play standard tuning if you're playing alone; to line up with the record drop everything about a quarter step (tune to Eb standard, then raise each string ~40–45 cents). The official Guitar World transcription also shows one rhythm layer in Drop D, but the solo is on a standard-tuned guitar.
Guitar
- Dean ML "Dean From Hell" (1981) · Bill Lawrence L-500XL · bridge pickup
Amp
Randall RG100ES
Head into a Randall 412JB 4x12 with Jaguar speakers; the amp is documented for Cowboys from Hell by Guitar World, Dime himself and tech Grady Champion, but no knob chart from the session is published, so these values are inferred — run the gain near max with the EQ pedals doing the shaping, mids dipped but not fully scooped since CFH has more midrange than later albums.
Amp
Roland JC-120 (1986)
IK Multimedia, working from Dime's actual studio gear with Grady Champion, states the JC-120 was the amp used on "Cemetery Gates" — that's the clean intro and clean layers, not the solo; add the onboard chorus for the arpeggios.
Pedals
- MXR Six Band EQ (blue) · graphic EQ / boost · Lows and upper mids/highs pushed up (100, 800, 3.2k highest); used as a gain stage into the amp
- Furman PQ-3 · parametric EQ / boost · Input level high; boost around 800 Hz–1 kHz, with cuts that mirror the six-band's boosts
- Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 · wah · Rocked for lead accents and parked toward the toe for extra bite
- MXR Flanger/Doubler · modulation / doubler · Doubler mode, on all the time to thicken and widen the lead
- Rocktron Hush IIB · noise gate · Threshold set tight to kill hiss between phrases
Tone character
saturated solid-state dirt · tight low end · forward upper mids · sharp treble bite · long singing sustain · wide doubled lead
Fast E minor pentatonic and natural minor runs with tight alternate picking, wide bends that have to land dead in tune under heavy vibrato, plus whammy-bar dips and the outro false-harmonic squeals that answer the vocal.
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 gearSources
No published source — the settings below are estimated by ear.