Nail the ToneRed Hot Chili Peppers

Under the Bridge

Red Hot Chili Peppers · Blood Sugar Sex Magik · 1991

The famous intro figure is an overdub: Frusciante's beat-up 1966 Fender Jaguar into a small practice combo, mic'd with a U87 through a Neve preamp and an LA-2A that was still set up for acoustic guitar — which is why it's so obviously compressed. Chase that with a Fender-style single coil in the neck position, a clean amp barely brushing breakup, treble and mids up, bass pulled back, and a compressor set harder than feels tasteful. The verse and chorus basics were tracked separately on a Strat through Marshalls with a stereo chorus splitting the amps, and that chorus comes back for the outro.

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

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo

Standard tuning, no capo — the intro is D and F# shapes (often mis-notated with a capo) before the verse settles into E; Frusciante hooks his thumb over the neck for the bass notes.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender Jaguar (1966) · Fender single-coils · neck pickup
  • Fender Stratocaster (late-'50s sunburst) · Fender single-coils · neck and middle

Amp

Fender H.O.T. practice combo

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0

Engineer Brendan O'Brien said the intro was cut on the Jaguar through a small combo — "it might have been a little Music Man amp or a little Fender" — and Frusciante told Guitar in 1991 that his little 12W Fender H.O.T. got used for most overdubs; the squashed sound is the room chain, a U87 into a Neve preamp and a Teletronix LA-2A left set up for acoustic guitar.

Amp

Marshall 100W head

GAIN
4.0
BASS
5.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
PRESENCE
6.0

For the basics under the verse and chorus Frusciante told Guitar Player he ran "two Marshalls: a guitar head for edge and a bass head for punch and low end," splitting the signal with a DOD stereo chorus; the exact models aren't confirmed, though a Silver Jubilee and a Major are the heads usually attributed to him in that period.

Pedals

  • Teletronix LA-2A · studio compressor (not a pedal) · Left where it had been set for acoustic guitar — heavy, obvious squash; a Dyna Comp-style pedal with sustain high and level to taste gets close
  • MXR Dyna Comp · compressor · Sustain high, output to unity — reported by fan sources for the intro, not confirmed by the band
  • DOD FX-65 Stereo Chorus · chorus · Slow, shallow swirl — used to split the two amps, and audible on the outro from around 2:50

Tone character

glassy single-coil chime · heavily compressed, squashed attack · clean, just short of breakup · small-amp size, mids forward · ringing top-string voicings

medium

The intro is a fingerpicked/hybrid-picked arpeggio over D and F# grips with the thumb over the neck for the bass note, and it only sounds right if you mute the strings you're not on so the voices stay separate.

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.

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Sources