If you’re a rock fan, then you know Radiohead is it. One thing you may not know is how they got the unique sound you hear on the track “Paranoid Android”. I want to take a moment to help you understand how this unique sound was achieved so you can recreate it at home and hopefully get some good ideas for new things you can do with your amp and effects.
The song begins with an acoustic guitar beat. Soon after, we hear a light guitar part coming together to create an interesting vibe. The band’s two guitarists, Jon Greenwood and Ed O’Brien, continue to play dueling guitar effects, drawing the listener in until finally returning to a full rock section that begins around 2:42. This is the shade I want to focus on. To get this sound, you’ll need a vintage or grunge style fuzzbox.
This same fuzzbox will be used to good effect throughout the solo which begins around 3:10. The entire distorted section has a very “lo-fi” sound that is typical of the music being made at the time. Shortly after the solo, there is a bridge where all distortion disappears, followed shortly by the return of the distorted sound, with a pitch shift effect added. To accomplish this, you’ll need a pitch shifter pedal, which isn’t hard to come by.
I want to quickly go back to the beginning to talk about how they got the slight electric sound that accompanied the acoustic guitar. To get the sound they used, you’ll need a tremolo, some reverb, and a compressor. In your amp, you want a nice, rich sound, with a good amount of lows and mids, and reduced highs. I think 3/4 low, 2/3 mid, and 1/3 high is the correct mix (fractions are for the total amount of each low, mid, and high and not how they relate to each other). Turn the reverb knob halfway, keep the tremolo on the slow side, with a bit of gain and as for the compressor, turn the attack and sustain about 3/4 of the way up and the level should go up about 1/2 ways. This should be pretty easy to achieve, just use a little finesse and you should be there.
Using this guide, you should be able to achieve about 75% of the sounds you got in the studio with your home setup. The sounds that Radiohead get from his instruments during this period were largely based on the equipment they were using in the studio at the time, so it’s a little hard to pinpoint the exact same thing. However, by playing around a bit, you can get a very close approximation. Good luck, have fun!
