Nail the ToneRadiohead

Creep

Radiohead · Pablo Honey · 1992

The riff is a clean-to-barely-breaking-up Fender rhythm sound — a Telecaster (Thom's guitar for the part is disputed, with an SG Standard also credited) into a Fender Twin kept just under the point of crunch, tracked live in a room at Chipping Norton. The famous crunch bursts before each chorus are Jonny Greenwood's Telecaster Plus bridge humbucker through a Marshall ShredMaster into a small solid-state Fender Eighty-Five, which the producers themselves credited with the 'Creep' sound. Get the dynamic right first: the part lives on the jump from quiet strum to fully muted attack, not on gain.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Two electrics carry the riff on the record — Thom Yorke's tight G–B–C–Cm rhythm part plus Ed O'Brien's chordal layer (Rickenbacker 360 into a Peavey solid-state combo), with Jonny Greenwood's muted 'krunch' hits landing before each chorus.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender Telecaster Standard (black) · Fender single-coils · bridge pickup
  • Gibson SG Standard · Gibson humbuckers · bridge pickup
  • Fender Telecaster Plus (1990) · Lace Sensor Blue/Red · bridge (two Reds wired as humbucker)

Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

GAIN
4.5
BASS
4.5
MID
5.5
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
2.0

Thom's amp through the Pablo Honey era, kept clean so it only breaks up when strummed hard; he favored the Normal channel, which has no mid or reverb control, and sources split on whether it was a silverface or a '65 reissue.

Amp

Fender Eighty-Five

GAIN
3.0
BASS
5.0
MID
4.5
TREBLE
6.5
REVERB
1.5

Kolderie and Slade told Melody Maker that this small solid-state Fender was responsible for the 'Creep' sound; run clean with all the dirt coming from the ShredMaster in front of it.

Amp

Vox AC30

GAIN
4.0
BASS
5.0
TREBLE
6.0

One of three core amps (with a Marshall stack and the Fender 85) the producers used across the Radiohead sessions; which part went through which amp is not documented track by track, so set the Cut control near 6 to keep the top boost from turning brittle.

Pedals

  • Marshall ShredMaster · distortion · Gain 2–3 o'clock, Bass 2 o'clock, Contour full down (7 o'clock), Treble 1–2 o'clock, Volume to taste — Jonny's documented later settings, used here as the starting point

Tone character

mostly clean, light breakup · bright Fender chime · tight midrange bite on dirt · solid-state edge · live room ambience

easy

Four chords in a steady eighth-note strum, with the barre B and the C-to-Cm switch being the two spots that trip people up, plus killing the strings completely dead for the two crunch 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