Not a tab, but this video tutorial seems to be correct. If that’s not sufficient, I can write out a tab.

Hello!

First, I’d like to ask why you need a distortion pedal, and why you are only considering those two options? I understand that Thom uses them, but they may not work well for your specific setup. The Hotcake, for instance, works amazingly well with Vox-type (for which it was designed), but doesn’t sound terribly good with others (such as Fenders).

Both of those overdrives are pedals which are meant to do a specific sort of sound well. Unlike something such as the Dr Scientist The Elements, those pedals each have a very specific character of their own. The Dr Scientist pedal is my top pick if you are looking for a variety of excellent distortion sounds (it’s also my favorite for distortion in general).

Since these are both overdrives with a very specific sound of their own, the only way to pick the “better” buy would be to try both and see which one you prefer for your own setup.

I find that while not perfect, the Dr Scientist The Elements does amazingly well at reproducing the sounds of other pedals, so long as you listen hard enough and tweak long enough. I found that it can do quite good approximations of the Marshall Shredmaster, Crowther Hotcake, Boss SD1, and Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive. It should definitely be able to do Fulldrive 2, OD1, and TS808 as well, since like the SD1 and Sparkle Drive those are TS-type pedals. I’ve had less success with the Turbo Rat, but with enough tweaking you can probably get it pretty close. And of course it can do stuff like Ed’s distorted Mesa Boogie.

I have not attempted to cop the sounds of Thom’s other pedals, like the Tech 21 XXL or the MXR Distortion+, but I can definitely hear those sorts of sounds in the pedal. You can check out the Dr Scientist forum for tons of settings for both Radiohead pedals and for others.

Alternately, if you want something with a bit of variety for not too much money, a Tech 21 XXL will definitely give you a fair variety of sounds via the warp knob. The Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive Mod could be a nice option too, if you’re only looking for TS-type sounds (which does not seem to be the case for you, based on your original question). But if you want a real ability the reproduce with decent accuracy the sounds of tons of other pedals, while also being able to create just about any other distortion sound that you can think of, The Elements it the way to go.

I will post one in the next week or so. I’m not sure exactly when I’ll have have time to transcribe it, but I will certainly do it.

The main differences between these two pedals is sound, size, and features.

Soundwise, it’s really up to you to decide which on your prefer (this is mainly relevant for the delays). I think that the Headrush sounds a little more polished than the DL4, but the DL4 definitely has a distinctive character that is appealing. You should try both in the same setting if possible and see which you prefer.

The Headrush has less features (to be detailed below), but it is a bit smaller and shaped better for a pedalboard, if you’re using one. This is really just situation dependent.

The Line 6 DL4 is, while quite an old effect, very full featured, offering tons of delay modes (with some really interesting ones like sweep), three presets, tap tempo, expression in, and a complex dedicated looper that offers all sorts of cool effects such as double speed and reverse (See Ed O’Brien’s live sounds during Little By Little. The high pitched, reverse sounds are created entirely with the DL4’s looper). You can do a ridiculous amount with this pedal, which is probably part of why it’s been so popular.

The Akai Headrush is comparably more bare-bones of an effect, though that isn’t to say that it doesn’t offer a lot of features. It has a great sounding standard delay mode, a very cool multihead mode, and a looper. There is a lot less to the pedal, and so its a lot easier to become fully antiquated with and use to the greatest effect. Though it does have less weird delays, it covers the basic digital, analog (via the damp knob), and multihead tape sounds quite well. The looper is no frills, but intuitive to use, as is the whole pedal. Also, the Headrush’s knobs are a lot easier to adjust, and you can change your loop or delay volume with your foot (as Jonny does when he performs Loop).

Ambient stuff can be done with either pedal fairly well, as both have mutlihead delay modes (which are a good way of getting a big ambient sound from a single delay pedal).

So overall, the DL4 is bigger and has many more features, while the Headrush is still fairly complex and very intuitive (once you get the hang of multihead delays, anyway). They both have a distinctive sound to their delays, which you may or may not like. You can’t really go wrong with either pedal.

A side note - you might also want to look into some small form stereo loopers, such as the DigiTech JamMan Express or the Boss RC-3. Both of these are stereo loop pedals, so you would be able to loop vocals and guitar at the same time, then send vocals to the PA and guitar to your amp. You would then need to augment these with a dedicated delay pedal, but that would have the added bonus of being able to use both at once. (You can use delay at the same time as the looper on the DL4, you’d literally have to dial in or out your setting every time that you wanted it. It can do some great stuff, but not optimal for live performance.)

Jonny removed the pickup splitter from his guitar. The hole in the control plate where the splitter switch used to be is now fitted with a killswitch (i.e. a momentary switch that mutes his guitar’s signal when pressed).

Either pickup of a split humbucker will sound quite different from a standard humbucker sound. As would be expected, they each sound like the single coil pickups that they are, but since they are voiced to be used in the humbucker they will not sound exactly like most standalone single coils. However, Jonny only ever uses the humbucker on his guitar as a full humbucker.

Further pictures from Jonny’s performance with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Wapping Hydraulic Power station in February. Jonny used the Fender Starcaster for his piece Self Portrait with Seven Fingers. The Tanpura, an Indian drone instrument that’s visible in the second picture, was used for his piece Miniature. The Ones Musicales with two Diffuseurs (main and spring), also visible in the second picture, was used for Messiaen’s Vocalise-Étude as well as his piece Prospectors Arrive.

In general, the same mic’s as are used live (you can find them listed under the articles for the individual amps on the member pages). Jonny has talked about the difficulty in finding the right mic for an amp, and so I’m sure that when they’ve found ~the one~, they for the most part stick with it. I haven’t seen many discrepancies between live and studio photos, but there are some differences with the From The Basement performances, and those mics may have been used in studio for certain things.

Hello! It’s an extremely simple mod, and if you simply google “guitar killswitch” you should find tons of tutorials and detailed explanations, and likely several specifically for a Fender Telecaster Plus. In brief, he (or more likely his tech Duncan) wired a momentary switch in his guitar that interrupts the cable going to the jack. The switch has two outputs, with one output wired to the jack. When the button is pressed, the guitar’s signal goes out the other output until the button is released, and so as long as it is held down, the guitar’s output is “muted.” As mentioned on Jonny’s page, the exact killswitch used (at least in circa 2007) is a Apem 300 series momentary push button, but I’d recommend going to your local electronics store and trying a bunch before deciding on one.

If you’re going to do this, you’ll at least need a soldering iron. Not that Jonny’s guitar already had a hole in the control plate from the coil tap (which was removed). If you have a Telecaster without a coil tap (or any guitar which doesn’t have spare holes), you will have to drill a small hole into the control plate of the guitar.

I hope that this helps! Please feel free to ask if you have further questions.

    A fair bit if misinformation concerning Jonny’s equipment has accumulated over the past two decades. The myths which I will discuss here are those for which I have yet to find any reliable evidence in my extensive research (analyzing hundreds of videos and articles and thousands of images), and against which there is generally direct counter evidence (rather than there just being no information at all). If someone does have any sort of evidence for any of these claims, I would be very happy to see it. However, until that is done, it is only logical to assume that these claims are totally groundless.

    Note that these are rather specific myths, and if you are curious about the signal order of his effects, something which has been grossly misunderstood in the past, you should check “this page.”

"He used a Homemade tremolo pedal."
    This claim was simply a mistake made by Guitar World magazine in April, 1998. The Tremulator, with its distinctive “two small knobs,” is even visible an one of the images accompanying the article. The image of the Tremulator is literally inches above where it is called one of “a few” homemade effects. Since all of the other unmentioned pedals are by Boss, it seems save to assume that Jonny’s DOD440 was misidentified as another homemade (it couldn’t be his custom Shredmaster clone, as that pedal had broken several years prior). The article is talking about his live setup, after all, so even if he did have some unknown custom effects at home, they wouldn’t have been included in the writeup.

    Considering that the pedal was a prototype of a then-obscure effect, it’s unsurprising that it was misidentified as homemade, especially as this is twenty years ago, and long before the advent of the small-builder boutique pedal world(though a few companies like Fulltone were around).

    Additionally, this mistake isn’t unique. In 1997, Total Guitar misidentified Jonny’s Shredmaster as a Drivemaster, but I’ve never heard anyone claiming that he ever used the latter pedal.

"He used a Proco Rat (or Turbo Rat) on The Bends."
   The only Rat pedal that I have ever seen or read about in a Radiohead member’s setup is Thom’s Turbo Rat. The myth of Jonny using a Rat seems to have been created by those who cited it as yielding a similar distortion sound (both give a Marshally distortion), making it a cheap alternative to the Shredmaster for such sounds. I haven’t even seen any magazine articles incorrectly identifying the Shredmaster as a Rat.

"His lead tone, best heard on The Bends, is a combination of the Boss SD1 and Marshall Shredmaster."
   Jonny added his BOSS SD1 to his setup in 1996, a year after the release of The Bends, so it was certainly not used on that album. When he did add it, it was to get a lower gain distortion through his Vox AC30 6/TB, particularly when using delay and reverb effects. In fact, the order of Jonny effects makes it impossible for the two to be used in combination (they are in separate signal paths).

"He uses a Fender Deluxe 85."
   Jonny has actually only ever used a Fender Eighty-Five, the standard model. This was another mistake stated by the same article that called Jonny’s Tremulator, and probably his DOD, homemade pedals. Clearly he wasn’t being terribly precise.

However, it should be noted that Jonny does have a Fender Studio 85, which the band’s tech, Plank, purchased in 2008 as a spare for his Eighty-Five.

"He uses a modified Shredmaster."
   This is not so much a myth as a misunderstanding. Jonny actually did use a Marshall Shredmaster clone, which did have some modifications, during the early ‘90’s. However, there is nothing to suggest that any of the regular Shredmasters used over the years were modified.

"He used a Line 6 DL4."
   Though Ed and Thom are both big fans of these effects for looping, Jonny has never publicly used one. I’m sure that he has at some point tried out one of Ed’s when messing around, but one has never otherwise been used by him. Jonny’s preferred delay/looper is the Akai Headrush, which he uses extensively with his guitar and with his French Connection.

***

    I hope that this clears things up. Again, if anyone has any information to support these claims, I would be very interest to see it.

That tab is wrong for Jonny’s playing (his guitar is tuned to DADA#CD), but it seems pretty accurate for Thom’s part.

However, you can play nearly all of that more correct tab on a guitar in Drop D. The only difference that the Double Drop D makes is the extra high D’s during the intro/outro part. Is Thom really hitting those extra notes? With all three guitars strumming away, I’m sure that I hear them.

He may well be, though, so for the moment I’m putting Drop D OR DADGBD. I would like some further feedback from the readers before I decidively put DADGBD.

    As you might know from his his Twitter, Jonny collaborated with Shye Ben-Tzur and several Indian and Israeli musicians for a performance at Alchemy 2014, at the Southbank Centre in London. Jonny talks at length about collaboration and performance here, and he posted a video of a rehearsal here. The performance took place yesterday, and several videos have emerged, three of which can be found here.

    For the collaboration, Jonny played two instruments - guitar and Ondes Martenot. Guitar-wise, Jonny played his goldtop Gibson Les Paul Standard at both the rehearsal and the performance, plugged into his Vox AC30 (probably the 90’s AC30 6/TB reissue).  Jonny also brought out his new Ondes Musicales, which was also used for both rehearsals and live performance, along with its Main and Resonance loudspeakers and both footpedals. During rehearsals, Jonny also had Akai Headrush E2 pedals as part of both setups, but it is unknown if they were kept around or used for the performances. Jonny also played the massive organ at Southbank during rehearsals, though seemingly for fun rather than for the collaboration.

ygrrrrr:

thekingofgear:

As you might know from his his Twitter, Jonny collaborated with Shye Ben-Tzur and several Indian and Israeli musicians for a performance at Alchemy 2014, at the Southbank Centre in London. Jonny talks at length about collaboration and performance here, and he posted a video of a rehearsal …

i could see only 4 pedals.
boss RE-20
Electro-Harmonix Freeze
Akai Headrush E2
boss TU-2

I agree with you somewhat, definitely on the Boss TU2/3. Not sure why I thought that there were two Headrush’s. I’ve marked up the best image that I’ve found.

1. Akai Headrush E2.

2. Boss RE20? At first I assumed that this was the Ondes footpedals, but the cables convince me otherwise as it definitely seems to be connected to the Headrush.

3. ? Not sure what this is, looks like a pile of stuff. There’s a cable coming off it it, so maybe one of the Ondes footpedals is behind it, or maybe it’s something totally different.

4. ? Maybe this is nothing, but it seems like it could be something.

5+6. Boss tuner is definitely there, and that knob on the pedal next to it definitely seems to be in a position consistent with the EHX Freeze. That said, it also seems a bit larger than those on the Headrush, which makes me wonder if it’s his EHX Small Stone. It’s unlikely, but the knob does look a little big.

7. Water bottle.

I’m surprised that he’s using even this many effects, but I suppose it’s not his classical work and he might have wondered if the Freeze’s drones would be appropriate.

I thought that many of our readers would be interested to know about this - Digitech is reissuing the DOD440 Envelope Filter. This is the pedal used by Jonny to great effect on the recording of Lucky, and on live performances of Paranoid Android. Digitech recent reissues of other old DOD pedals were met with acclaim, so hopefully this one with be equally sonically accurate to the original green reissue.* Read more about the new pedal here.

*The green DOD440 that Jonny uses is a reissue from the ‘90’s. The original 440’s were first offered in first a reddish brown (or a brownish red?) finish, a version which is well liked outside of the Radiohead community, and also in a pale blue, which is a bit different and the least “desirable” version. The fact that this reissue is green makes me hope that it is based on the 90’s circuit, but I am sure that it will sound great regardless.

thekingofgear:

I thought that many of our readers would be interested to know about this - Digitech is reissuing the DOD440 Envelope Filter. This is the pedal used by Jonny to great effect on the recording of Lucky, and on live performances of Paranoid Android. Digitech recent reissues of other old DOD pedals were met with acclaim, so hopefully this one with be equally sonically accurate to the original green reissue.* Read more about the new pedal here.

*The green DOD440 that Jonny uses is a reissue from the ‘90’s. The original 440’s were first offered in first a reddish brown (or a brownish red?) finish, a version which is well liked outside of the Radiohead community, and also in a pale blue, which is a bit different and the least “desirable” version. The fact that this reissue is green makes me hope that it is based on the 90’s circuit, but I am sure that it will sound great regardless.

Update - the pedal is based on the original red version. Sonically, I don’t think that it’s going to sound too different from the original green reissue, however, and at the price that it’s going to sell for ($99.95) it’ll almost definitively be a really good alternative to tracking down an expensive original (though I won’t say that wholeheartedly until I hear it).

Finally - a tab of Thom’s live guitar part for AMOK. Make sure to view the full sized image so that you can read it easily.

Submitted by Gio

Found this link online. Looks like Jonny’s amp is being mic’ed using two microphones. Something I’ve never seen him do live. Also there’s a red box next to his computer. Maybe an interphase? http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/photos/live-photo-gallery/jonny-greenwood-the-bbc-concert-orchestra-at-londons-barbican

Thank you for bringing my attention to this!

Interesting that he’s using two mic’s, which I also have never seen him do live. I suspect that it’s due to the nature of the performance. It seems like he has one high quality condenser mic, and a second dynamic mic. Perhaps he wants the sound of the condenser mic, but has the dynamic as a backup in case of feedback or noise issues? I’m not too sure about this, as he does use a condenser mic on his Vox with Radiohead. Perhaps he just wants a blend of the two different sounds? The condenser is not right up against the amp, and it’s angled slightly, so perhaps he’s using it to add a bit of the sort of sound you’d get from a room mic, but in a place where one simply can’t have a conventional room mic. At the very least, that setup seems like it’d give a much fuller sound purely by mic’ing, rather than by adding any external sublte reverbs etc. This seems to make sense, considering that it is a concert hall, not a huge stadium, so the subtleties of his guitar’s tone matter in a way that they generally don’t when performing with Radiohead.

The interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 (you can tell it’s not a 2i2 from the extra black knob). He seems to be using it exclusively for output, likely to ensure that the audio of his backing recording is of a high quality. I very much like the Focusrite Scarlett interfaces, so it’s cool to see him using one.

Excellent photo of Jonny performing Electric Counterpoint with his goldtop Gibson Les Paul Standard at Barbican 2014. As mentioned in my last post, the interface next to his Macbook is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. It is being used to send good quality audio from his laptop (which is playing back his previously recorded accompaniment part) to the PA.

Previously I have been referring to the main AC30 which Jonny has used since 1996/7 as a 90’s reissue Vox AC30 6TB. While this is technically not an incorrect way to describe the amp, the official model name of the amp is the Vox AC30TBX (the X standing for the Celestion Alnico Blue speakers). As such, I will from now on refer to the amp as a Vox AC30TBX.

Hello!

In Rainbows Era Guitar Radios (and In-Ear Monitors):

Not quite sure which those are, but they started using Trantec UHF 5.3’s in 2008.

However, I must ask - do you really think that Radiohead’s guitarists care particularly about the minutia of their live guitar tones, or even of their guitar tones in general? Thom, Ed, and even Jonny are frequently switching out the pedals on their boards, and the different pedals have very different bypass methods which should have a discernible effect on their sounds. Many of the pedals, such as the Digitech Whammy (models I, II, and IV), have terrible buffers which “compromise” one’s tone (rather than just maintaining the treble of one’s signal which is what a “good” buffer does), while others like Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive are unbuffered, which allow a loss of treble. Therefore, their tones will be noticeably different every time that they switch out a pedal. Since Thom and Ed’s Vox amps are either Dave Peterson’s (which don’t have much in the way of tone control) or often in Thom’s case a vintage one but using the normal input, there isn’t really even a way for them to adjust their amps to compensate for these tonal changes. Theoretically, if they wanted to avoid these changes, they should switch to true-bypass switchbays with high quality buffers at the front. However, only Ed has done so (in 2008), and it seems to be at least in part for convenience as he uses it to switch between preset signal orders for each song (using the Voodoo Lab Commander), rather than hitting the individual switches per pedal for every change.

Basically, they (Thom and Jonny in particular) are guitarists who want certain sorts of sounds, but are not unduly concerned with the minute details of them. They aren’t concerned with what are considered by most guitarists to be what is “necessary” of a good tone, and simply find something that they like with what they are using. It’s a compromise, but if they are “sacrificing” slight differences in tone it is for creative possibilities. So is it so strange for them to be using wireless units for live performance? I don’t think so. It is a tool that allows them to better perform on stage, which is the important thing. I doubt that anyone in the audience can tell the difference between a wireless system and a direct cable, while they definitely would notice if it took extra time to switch guitars or if Thom tripped over a cable.

A final comment - today,  many people are interested in the tonal characteristics of the preamps of old echo units like the Echoplex or RE201 (see: Xotic EP Booster and Dunlop Echoplex Preamp). Perhaps in a few decades, there will be “Whammy buffer” pedals to allow people to get the same tonal changes as caused by a Whammy’s buffer, so that guitarists can replicate Jonny and Ed’s old tones ~perfectly~.