No. 0531972·hard-rock·4 blocks
Smoke on the Water
The most famous riff in rock — and one of the most misunderstood. Ritchie Blackmore played the Smoke on the Water riff in parallel fourths (not power chords) on a 1968 maple-neck Stratocaster through a 100W Marshall head, with a Hornby-Skewes treble booster adding clarity and just a touch of hair. The riff was tracked at the Grand Hotel in Montreux, December 1971, after a fire burned down the original recording venue.
Machine HeadSignal path · input → output · 4 blocksLive values · Boss Katana
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster (1968, maple neck)
Pickups
SSS
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Treble Booster
Brown
Plate
Treble Booster
← Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster
Drive
6
Bottom
5
Tone
7
Level
7
Brown
← Marshall 100W (Super Lead-era)
Gain
6
Volume
7
Bass
5
Middle
6
Treble
6
Presence
5
Master
7
Plate
← Console plate (Stones Mobile Studio)
Time
3ms
PreDelay
25ms
Tone
5
EffectLevel
15
Engineer's note
File 053
The most famous riff in rock — and one of the most misunderstood. Ritchie Blackmore played the Smoke on the Water riff in parallel fourths (not power chords) on a 1968 maple-neck Stratocaster through a 100W Marshall head, with a Hornby-Skewes treble booster adding clarity and just a touch of hair. The riff was tracked at the Grand Hotel in Montreux, December 1971, after a fire burned down the original recording venue.
— Ritchie Blackmore
Sources · Verified by
