Nail the ToneThe Smashing Pumpkins

Today

The Smashing Pumpkins · Siamese Dream · 1993

The famous intro melody was cut on Corgan's "number two" late-'80s Fender '57 reissue Strat, clean, and the crushing chorus riff is the same JCM800 with the op-amp Big Muff slammed into its low-gain input. Set the head barely breaking up with mids forward and let the fuzz do the distorting, then double-track the heavy parts to get the record's width. Tune the whole guitar down a half step or nothing will line up.

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

Tuning

Eb standard (down a half step)

Corgan has said the song is intentionally in Eb, so the whole guitar comes down a half step; the clean intro lick and the Eb5-Bb-Ab power chords are both played in that tuning.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Fender American Vintage '57 Reissue Stratocaster (late '80s, black over candy apple red) · single-coils (Lace Sensor / DiMarzio, accounts differ) · neck pickup
  • Fender '57 Reissue Stratocaster "Bat Strat" · Lace Sensor (Blue/Silver/Red) · bridge pickup

Amp

Marshall JCM800 2203 (100W head, KT88 tubes) + Marshall 1960 4x12

GAIN
4.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.5
PRESENCE
5.0

Corgan ran the Big Muff into the amp's low-gain input with the master wide open and used the preamp control to set the amount of dirt, so the head itself is only just breaking up; knob positions here are inferred from that method and the sound of the record, not published. Same head clean (Muff off) for the intro melody.

Pedals

  • Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi (late-'70s op-amp V4) · fuzz · Sustain high, around 7-8; Tone near noon; volume matched to bypass
  • Mu-Tron Bi-Phase · phaser · Slow rate, shallow depth - Butch Vig said everything on the album ran through it
  • Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress · flanger · Subtle, low mix on some clean layers (era gear, not confirmed for this track)

Tone character

glassy clean chime · thick op-amp fuzz wall · forward mids · layered stereo doubles · compressed sustain

easy

The clean intro melody is a repeating high lick around frets 11-15 that needs even, controlled picking and a clean 15-to-11 pull-off, and the loud section is plain three-chord power-chord work with a hard strum.

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