Buying Guides
If there's just one moment in rock history that will be remembered forever, it's got to be Jimi Hendrix's earth-shattering appearance at the Woodstock festival on 18th August 1969, where his rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner featured divebombs, screeches, wails and dissonance evoking the horrors of the ongoing Vietnam War.
Hours of delays over the weekend meant that his headline set didn't begin until the Monday morning, when many of the 400,000-strong crowd had already gone back home. But those who hung around for a glimpse of the world's biggest rockstar at the time were treated to a sublime set from a new band which represented a transition from The Experience to the later Band of Gypsies.
Jimi had put together an expanded band especially for the Woodstock festival. It included Mitch Mitchell on drums, Billy Cox on bass, Larry Lee on rhythm guitar, and Juma Sultan and Jerry Velez on percussion. He introduced them to the weary audience as "Gypsy Sun and Rainbows".
The Gypsy Sun and Rainbows had reportedly struggled to come together as a cohesive unit during brief rehearsals, making Jimi's Woodstock appearance even more impressive. That they seemed so at ease on stage together when it counted is surely a measure of their prowess. Jimi even broke his high E string during Red House, but continued to play the rest of the song unfazed with his remaining 5 strings.
Despite this extraordinary musical display, Jimi Hendrix's guitar gear at Woodstock was pretty straightforward and reflected his typical touring gear of the time. As such, it's a pretty simple job to get ballpark Jimi tone - although recreating the magic in his fingers is another thing altogether!
Jimi used Marshall 100W 1959 JTM100 "Super Lead" amps at Woodstock, each perched atop a 4x12 stack loaded with Celestion Greenbacks. These amps were the 100-watt version of the JTM45.
Jimi used a 1968 Olympic White Fender Stratocaster at Woodstock. Like all his other guitars, he played the right-handed guitar left-handed, or "upside down".
Once flipped, instead of leaving the strings as they were he would restring them so the low E would be back at the top and the high E at the bottom, just like on a right-handed guitar.
It's widely accepted that Jimi used Fender "Rock 'N' Roll" strings at the time. "As far as can be determined, Jimi primarily used Fender Rock 'N Roll light gauge guitar strings (.010, .013, .015, .026, .032, .038) though Mike Bloomfield insists that Buddy Miles insists that Jimi used very heavy strings on the bottom, a medium gauge on his A and D, a Hawaiian G string, a light (not super light) gauge B string, and a super light E," states Guitar Player magazin in its Jimi Hendrix special issue, dated September 1975
Hendrix famously tuned his guitars a semi-tone down, to E♭, which not only gave a heavier sound and helped with big string bends, but also offset potential issues with having longer bass string lengths and shorter treble string lengths as a result of restringing.
The Stratocaster Jimi used at Woodstock is now on display at the Museum of Pop Culture (formerly the Experience Music Project Museum) in Jimi's hometown of Seattle.
Jimi Hendrix's pedals at Woodstock were simple yet effective. Credit: Allan Koss
Jimi's Woodstock pedalboard was pretty simple: a Vox Wah, modified Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face, and Shin-Ei Uni-Vibe with expression pedal.
Jimi's Woodstock wah pedal is a subject of heated debate: some argue it was an early Vox Clyde McCoy wah modified by Roger Mayer, while others say that it was a Vox V846 Sepulveda wah modified by Dave Weyer. The latter sold at auction in January 2017 for $33,000 but it's still unclear whether this was genuinely the wah pedal used by Hendrix at Woodstock.
Hendrix used a red Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face at Woodstock. His pedal technician, Roger Mayer, had begun modding Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Faces for him in 1967 and was infamously dismissive of the unreliable nature of the early germanium-based units.
Although there is no consensus on what was inside the red Fuzz Face pedal Hendrix used at Woodstock and elsewhere, the chances are it was a modified silicon Fuzz Face circuit - although some sources indicate it could have been a modified Octavio circuit instead. What we do know is that Jimi ran his Fuzz Faces cranked, into his cranked Marshalls, using his guitar's volume controls to do all the heavy lifting when it came to volume and tonal nuance.
Woodstock was the first public outing for the Shin-Ei Uni-Vibe as part of Jimi's guitar rig, as he had only discovered it a couple of weeks before during rehearsals for the festival. The Uni-Vibe sounded immense and otherworldly when combined with Jim's wah and Fuzz-Face. It was subject to a light "tune-up" by Roger Mayer but was not heavily modified like his other pedals.
Pretty much any Marshall or Marshall-style valve amp will get you close to Jimi's Woodstock sound, although of course a JTM45 or even JTM100 would be the best choice for accuracy.
Alternatively, use a Marshall-in-a-box preamp pedal to get as close as possible without forking out on a new amp.
Any vintage-style wah should do the job; bonus points for picking up an actual vintage Vox wah.
Lamb of God’s Ashes of the Wake isn’t just a landmark Metal album — it’s also a masterclass in modern Metal guitar tone.
Released in 2004, the record’s tight, articulate riffing and aggressive sound helped the band on their path to becoming one of the most influential modern Metal bands.
In 1991, Metallica released an album that would change the musical landscape for metal musicians. The self-titled album, best known to the masses as The Black Album, was the band's 5th offering and it launched Metallica to international superstardom.
Led Zeppelin IV was the closing chapter in the band's initial four-album offering over the first three years that kick-started their career. This album contains some of the band's best known songs, including "Stairway to Heaven", and is one of the bestselling albums of all time, having shifted over 37 million copies to date.
