No. 0901957·country·4 blocks
Folsom Prison Blues
Luther Perkins built the 'boom-chicka-boom' on the 1955 Sun recording of Folsom Prison Blues with an early-'50s Fender Esquire — a single bridge pickup, and famously dead volume and tone controls, so it ran wide open. He muted the bass strings with the heel of his picking hand and played simple doubled runs, bright and clean through a small combo, with Sam Phillips's Sun Studio tape slapback as the only effect. The technique is as much the tone as the gear: palm-damped bass strings, no frills.
With His Hot and Blue GuitarSignal path · input → output · 7 blocksLive values · Line 6 Helix
Guitar
Fender Esquire (early 1950s)
Pickups
single
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Deluxe Comp
US Small Tweed
1x12 US Small Tweed
Simple Delay
Spring
Tilt
Deluxe Comp
← Even out the muted runs
Threshold
-26dB
Ratio
2:1
Knee
6dB
Attack
100s
Release
600s
Mix
50
Level
0dB
US Small Tweed
← Silvertone 1300 (small clean combo)
Drive
2.5
Bass
4.5
Mid
5.5
Treble
7
Presence
6
ChVol
5.5
Master
10
Bias
5.5
BiasX
5
Sag
5.5
Hum
5
Ripple
5
1x12 US Small Tweed
← Silvertone built-in speaker
LowCut100Hz
HighCut6500Hz
Resonance
0.5
Level
0dB
Pan
0.5
Delay
0
Simple Delay
← Sun Studio tape slapback
LowCut200Hz
HighCut5500Hz
Time
130ms
Feedback
0
Mix
32
Level
0
Spring
← Sun Studio room
LowCut200Hz
HighCut6000Hz
Mix
10
Decay
0.3s
Predelay
20ms
Level
0
Tilt
← Tilt EQ (global brightness)
Tilt
0.6
CenterFreq
1000Hz
Level
0
Engineer's note
File 090
Luther Perkins built the 'boom-chicka-boom' on the 1955 Sun recording of Folsom Prison Blues with an early-'50s Fender Esquire — a single bridge pickup, and famously dead volume and tone controls, so it ran wide open. He muted the bass strings with the heel of his picking hand and played simple doubled runs, bright and clean through a small combo, with Sam Phillips's Sun Studio tape slapback as the only effect. The technique is as much the tone as the gear: palm-damped bass strings, no frills.
— Luther Perkins
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