Demystifying Neil Young’s Guitar Tone for the Modern Player!
Canadian music icon Neil Young has one of the most illustrious tones in the world. With his iconic hot rodded 1953 Gibson Les Paul dubbed “old black”, and cranked fender deluxe, Neil created a unique, visceral sound that influenced guitar players for decades and decades. He’s been often credited as the pioneer of grunge music, and its contemporary genres. The gear he used throughout his legendary career is now unobtainable and is too expensive for 99.99% of guitar players. I will be going over how to recreate his iconic high gain sound, which appears on albums such as Rust Never Sleeps, Weld, and Ragged Glory. All with Budget Conscious, and readily available gear!
The basis of the “Neil Young tone” is his amp, his 50s Fender Tweed Deluxe cranked to 12. Now the obvious choice you would think would be a Fender Deluxe Reissue, however these amps simply do not have the natural Sag or Compression as the vintage tweed deluxes did and are too clean. Therefore i strongly recommend to use any clean Fender style Amp paired with a “Tweed in a box” Pedal. Some of my favourites in this category are the Wampler 57 Tweed (video demo), the Catalinbread Formula 5 and or 55, and the new Origin Effects deluxe 55. Out of these my favourite is the Wampler, it has the benefit of having a 3 Band EQ, as well as input options for a normal, bright, and jumped channel, to fully sculpt the tone with your amp. This is the most versatile Tweed Pedal, and one you can get to sound perfect with whatever clean amp you are using as your base! It has a very dynamic gain range, where you can roll it back and get some lighter break up sounds, or crank it and get that destructively raunchy tone like on “F****n Up”.
Next key element and this is equally as important as the last; and that's an Outboard Spring Reverb unit! Now your amp might have built in reverb, and if you are on a tight budget that might be passable. However the outboard spring reverb is what gives Neil’s guitar that extra liveliness and such a unique quality. He used a 1963 Fender Reverb unit, and these had way more depth and a different attack style then an inboard reverb tank. Since the outboard reverb goes before any bits of the amp, it naturally interacts differently. There are a few options in this category, such as the Boss Fender 63 Reverb Frv-1 collab pedal, Danelectro SpringKing and SpringKing Junior, and Catalinbread Topanga. These are all amazing options but for me the Boss recreates the sound the best! It's dire to mess around with the dwell and tone control on it, since if it's too bright or too washy you can start to sound like surf-rock!
I’m discussing guitars last, and while it is fun to discuss, it might be the least important and most flexible piece of the puzzle! Now Neil used his Les Paul Modded with a Bigsby Tremolo, A Firebird pickup, and a P90. Instead of hunting for those pickups he used- I find in practice both humbuckers and single coils can work and get a really authentic tone! Now if you want to get the closest, one of my favourite options is a Fender Jazzmaster. The “JM” Pickups can do both his clean and raunchy tone splendidly, and the jazzmaster tremolo can get that subtle warble like a bigsby, and to me they stay in tune much much better! Some other options though can be Gretsch's, either a Hollow Body or a Solid Body. Now a surprising Guitar that will work is a Telecaster! The Tele pickup can get shockingly close if you lower the treble side or back off the tone, due to its overwound hotter nature. The Tele is a commonly found and good alternative! Most PAF style humbuckers also work as well, just as long as they aren't too hot and high output. There are many options and I promise with a little bit of tweaking what you have will work!
Now with those bases covered you have 90% of his tone! But there are a few pedals he uses sparingly that you can add to get his full discography! Neil used an Echoplex delay quite a bit in his solos. These were never huge long delays but just short quick and a couple repeats, which added some texture and colour. Many Tape delays work, the one I personally use is a Danelectro Reel Echo. The most ideal option is a Catalinbread Belle Epoch Deluxe, this is a tape delay with the preamp circuit from the original Echoplex, which adds just a touch more gain. Another trinket he used occasionally is a MuTron Bass Divider. He used this to get that heavy bass sound on Hey, Hey, My My (Into the Black). You can use either a Boss OC-3, or my favourite the Behringer Classic Analog Octave Divider and Ringer (what a mouthful!)
I hope this has helped show how uncomplicated and attainable his tone can be! And now to summarize my main recommendations are as follows: Any clean Fender amp, a Wampler Tweed 57 Overdrive, Boss FRV-1, and a Fender Jazzmaster!