Nail the ToneThe Killers

Mr. Brightside

The Killers · Hot Fuss · 2003

The main riff is Dave Keuning's 1970s Ibanez Destroyer on the bridge humbucker into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, per Keuning himself, with the guitar tuned down a half step to Eb. Keep the gain low enough that every note in the arpeggio stays separate — this is edge-of-breakup crunch, not distortion — with mids forward and treble up so the 17th-fret shape cuts. A touch of reverb and a short low-mix delay gets the ambience; note that the mix engineer remembers a Supro rather than the DeVille, so either amp is defensible.

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

Tuning

Eb standard (down a half step)

Keuning plays the intro as a Dadd9 voicing with the root on the 17th fret of the A string and the high E string ringing open, which sounds as Dbadd9 with the guitar tuned down a half step.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Ibanez Destroyer (1970s 2459) · Humbuckers · bridge pickup

Amp

Fender Hot Rod DeVille 2x12

GAIN
4.0
BASS
4.5
MID
6.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
5.5
REVERB
2.5

Keuning told Guitar Player this song, like most of Hot Fuss, was his Ibanez Destroyer into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille; engineer Mark Needham, who tracked and mixed the released take, instead remembers the guitar amp at that session as a Supro, so the amp is genuinely contested. Knob values are inferred from the record: drive channel just into crunch, mids up, treble up for arpeggio clarity.

Amp

Supro combo (vintage)

GAIN
6.0
TREBLE
6.0

Alternative per Needham's account of the session; vintage Supros usually have only volume and tone, so gain is the volume control and treble is the tone control, and the other fields do not exist on the amp.

Pedals

  • Digital delay (short slapback) · delay · 120-200 ms, 2 repeats, mix low (about 20%) - undocumented for the session, added to match the ambience on the record; Keuning has said he keeps a Boss digital delay and an Ibanez analog delay on for ambience
  • Light overdrive (Tube Screamer type) · overdrive · drive 3, tone 6, level to unity - only if your amp stays clean; on the DeVille drive channel you do not need it

Tone character

bridge humbucker bite · light crunch, not distorted · forward mids · bright ringing top end · short slapback ambience · saturated, compressed mix

hard

The riff is a nonstop 16th-note arpeggio on a stretched add9 shape at the 17th fret against an open high E, so it demands clean fingertip fretting, economy picking across strings, and real endurance at 148 bpm.

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