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 · 5 blocksLive values · Pedalboard
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster (1968, maple neck)
Pickups
SSS
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster
Marshall 100W head (1959 Super Lead-era)
Marshall 4x12 with Celestion G12M-25 Greenback
Shure SM57
Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster
boost
Boost
6
Marshall 100W head (1959 Super Lead-era)
preamp
Presence
5
Bass
5
Middle
6
Treble
6
Volume I
7
Volume II
5
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
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