No. 2081981·metal·6 blocks
Diary of a Madman
The most ambitious thing Rhoads recorded, and a tone that has to work clean and savage inside the same take. Producer Max Norman remembers him using the polka-dot guitar on essentially all the album's guitar tracks, into a 100-watt Marshall Super Lead with an MXR Distortion+ and a 10-band EQ pushing the midrange. There is no channel switch anywhere in that chain, so the classical-flavoured arpeggios and the tritone riff are the same amp with the guitar's volume doing the work.
Diary of a MadmanSignal path · input → output · 7 blocksLive values · Kemper Profiler
Guitar
Karl Sandoval polka-dot Flying V (1979)
Pickups
HH
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Compressor
Green Scream
Search Rig Exchange for 'Marshall 1959 Super Lead' or 'Plexi 100W cranked' or 'Rhoads'
Chorus
Single Delay
Hall Reverb
Compressor
← Studio compression
Intensity
3
Attack
16s
Volume
0
Green Scream
← MXR Distortion+
Drive
4
Tone
6
Volume
7
Search Rig Exchange for 'Marshall 1959 Super Lead' or 'Plexi 100W cranked' or 'Rhoads'
← Marshall 1959 Super Lead 100W
Gain
7.5
Bass
5
Middle
6
Treble
7
Presence
6
Chorus
← MXR Stereo Chorus
Rate
0.5Hz
Depth
30
Mix
30
Single Delay
← Korg echo / AMS DMX digital delay
Time
380ms
Feedback
20
Mix
15
Hall Reverb
← Ridge Farm studio ambience
Decay
1.8s
Predelay
25ms
Mix
18
Engineer's note
File 208
The most ambitious thing Rhoads recorded, and a tone that has to work clean and savage inside the same take. Producer Max Norman remembers him using the polka-dot guitar on essentially all the album's guitar tracks, into a 100-watt Marshall Super Lead with an MXR Distortion+ and a 10-band EQ pushing the midrange. There is no channel switch anywhere in that chain, so the classical-flavoured arpeggios and the tritone riff are the same amp with the guitar's volume doing the work.
— Randy Rhoads
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