Nail the TonePantera

Cowboys from Hell

Pantera · Cowboys from Hell · 1990

The main riff is the Dean From Hell with its Bill Lawrence L-500XL bridge pickup slammed into a Randall RG100ES solid-state head with the gain maxed, an MXR six-band EQ frowned into the front end and a Furman parametric trimming mids. Terry Date tracked two stacks, one clean-routed and one through an MXR Flanger/Doubler for thickness, which is why the rhythm sound is so wide. Dial fat bass, pulled-back mids, plenty of presence and a hard noise gate so the holes in the groove stay silent.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard E tuning, but the record sits noticeably flat of A440 (roughly a quarter tone down), so to play along you'll need to drop your whole guitar slightly rather than change shapes.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Dean ML "Dean From Hell" (1981) · Bill Lawrence L-500XL · bridge pickup

Amp

Randall RG100ES

GAIN
10.0
BASS
8.0
MID
4.0
TREBLE
5.0
PRESENCE
7.0
REVERB
0.0

Dimebag later confirmed in Guitar World that the old carpeted Randall RG-100 head he recorded Cowboys from Hell with was the same one he pulled out for Trendkill; Terry Date recalls the Randalls as RG100H and Century 200 across the early records, with the Century 200 arriving in the Vulgar era. Knob values follow stage photos and magazine shots of Dime's Randall (gain maxed, fat bass, mids pulled back, presence up) rather than a published session sheet.

Amp

Randall RG100ES (second stack)

GAIN
10.0
BASS
8.0
MID
4.0
TREBLE
5.0
PRESENCE
7.0
REVERB
0.0

Date says Dime always ran two stacks — one straight and one through an MXR Flanger/Doubler set a particular way — which is a big part of the width of the rhythm sound.

Pedals

  • MXR Six Band EQ · graphic EQ / front-end boost · Inverted-V "frown" with 800 Hz at the peak, 1.6k and 3.2k up, 100 Hz trimmed, level pushed to overdrive the amp's input
  • Furman PQ-3 · parametric EQ · Small mid notch plus a narrow boost, in front of the amp; exact frequencies undocumented
  • MXR Flanger/Doubler · flanger / doubler (rack) · Doubler mode, subtle — thickening only, on the second stack
  • Rocktron Hush IIB · noise gate · Threshold set tight so the gaps between riff hits go silent
  • Dunlop Cry Baby GCB95 · wah · Used for leads and squeals, not the main riff

Tone character

tight solid-state crunch · scooped-but-punchy mids · fat low end · bright fizzy top · doubled stereo width

medium

The riff is all power chords and chromatic slides, but it lives or dies on tight palm muting and dead-silent gaps between syncopated hits.

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