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 · 7 blocksLive values · Neural DSP Quad Cortex
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster (1968, maple neck)
Pickups
SSS
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Studio Comp
Rage Booster
Brit 2204
4x12 Green 25
Plate Reverb
Tilt EQ
Studio Comp
← Light parallel compression
Threshold
-28dB
Ratio
2.5:1
Attack
0.1s
Release
0.2s
Mix
0.4
Level
0dB
Rage Booster
← Hornby-Skewes Treble Booster
Drive
6
Tone
7.5
Level
7.5
Brit 2204
← Marshall 100W head (Super Lead-era)
Gain
6
Bass
5
Mid
6
Treble
6
Presence
5.5
Master
6.5
Sag
5.5
4x12 Green 25
← Marshall 1960B with Celestion G12M-25 Greenback
LowCut100Hz
HighCut8500Hz
Level
0dB
Plate Reverb
← Console plate (Stones Mobile Studio)
Decay
1s
Predelay
25ms
Mix
15
Level
0
Tilt EQ
← Tilt EQ (global brightness)
Tilt
0.5
CenterFreq
1000Hz
Level
0
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
