Nail the ToneThe White Stripes

Seven Nation Army

The White Stripes · Elephant · 2003

The famous "bass" line isn't a bass at all — it's Jack White's paper-wrapped Kay hollowbody, neck pickup, run into a DigiTech Whammy set an octave down and into a Silvertone 1485 through its 6x10 cab. Liam Watson tracked it at Toe Rag on 8-track tape with the guitar hitting two mic'd amps at once, so the recorded sound is a blend, not one speaker. Get close by using a single-coil in the neck position, an octave-down pedal at full drop, and a tube amp just barely into breakup with treble up and no reverb; save the Big Muff for the screaming slide part.

Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves

Tuning

Open A (E A E A C# E)

The riff sits on the low E and A strings, so it also plays fine in standard tuning; open A is what White had on the Kay for the slide overdub, and some published lessons teach the song in standard, so treat the tuning as the one detail that's argued over.

Part: Riff

Guitar

  • Kay K6533 Value Leader archtop hollowbody (late '50s/early '60s) · Kay "cheese grater" single-coil (also described as DeArmond) · neck (only pickup, on/off switch only)

Amp

Silvertone 1485 head with 6x10 cabinet

GAIN
6.0
BASS
5.0
TREBLE
7.0
REVERB
0.0

Guitar World's tone breakdown lists Channel 2, Volume 6, Bass 5, Treble 7 with reverb and tremolo off; the 1485 has no mid or presence control, and "gain" here is that single Volume knob. These numbers are a magazine reconstruction, not a quote from White himself.

Amp

Fender Twin Reverb

GAIN
4.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
2.0

Engineer Liam Watson confirmed Jack ran two amps at once on this track, each with two mics, but never named them; the Twin was his second amp of the era for spring reverb and headroom, so these knob values are my estimate for the blend amp, not documented.

Pedals

  • DigiTech Whammy · octave/pitch shift · 1-octave-down setting, pedal held at full travel for the "bass" line; bypassed for the guitar-register parts
  • Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi · fuzz · Volume 6, Tone 7, Sustain 9 (per Guitar World); used for the fuzzed slide overdub, placed after the Whammy

Tone character

dark octave-down "bass" tone · thick vintage tube crunch · forward mids, rolled-off top · neck-pickup woolly warmth · fuzzed slide overdub on top

easy

The whole riff lives on two low strings in one position with a steady down-picked eighth-note feel, so the only real work is keeping the note lengths even and muting the strings you're not on.

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