No. 0561974·southern-rock·4 blocks
Sweet Home Alabama
Sweet Home Alabama's instantly-recognizable intro lick — and the spoken 'one, two, three' count-off — was played by Ed King, not Gary Rossington, on a Fender Stratocaster with notably weak single-coils. Tracked at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia (1974), it ran into a cranked amp captured by a single padded Neumann U87 placed close to the cabinet, with no pedals — just a touch of reverb. The cleanness is the secret: King turned the amp all the way up for sustain, but the feeble pickups couldn't push it into breakup, so the lick stays glassy even at full volume.
Second HelpingSignal path · input → output · 5 blocksLive values · Fractal Axe-Fx
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster (1972, per Ed King)
Pickups
SSS
Tuning
neck/middle (positions 4-5, inferred from the warm tone — King did not document the selector position)
Strings
standard
Studio Comp
Plexi 100W High
4x12 Greenback
Plate Reverb
Studio Comp
← Natural amp + studio compression
Threshold
-30dB
Ratio
2:1
Attack
0.1s
Release
0.5s
Mix
0.5
Level
0dB
Plexi 100W High
← Cranked 50W Marshall / Fender Twin
Drive
4.5
Bass
5
Mid
6
Treble
6.5
Presence
5.5
MV
7
Cut
4
4x12 Greenback
← Cranked amp's cab, close-mic'd
LowCut90Hz
HighCut9000Hz
Level
0dB
Plate Reverb
← A touch of short studio reverb
Mix
0.1
Decay
0.6s
Predelay
20ms
Engineer's note
File 056
Sweet Home Alabama's instantly-recognizable intro lick — and the spoken 'one, two, three' count-off — was played by Ed King, not Gary Rossington, on a Fender Stratocaster with notably weak single-coils. Tracked at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia (1974), it ran into a cranked amp captured by a single padded Neumann U87 placed close to the cabinet, with no pedals — just a touch of reverb. The cleanness is the secret: King turned the amp all the way up for sustain, but the feeble pickups couldn't push it into breakup, so the lick stays glassy even at full volume.
— Ed King
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