No. 0591976·classic-rock·4 blocks
More Than a Feeling
Tom Scholz built More Than a Feeling's wall of guitar in his Watertown basement on gear he made himself. A 1968 Les Paul Goldtop with P-90s ran into a 100W Marshall (widely cited as a 1959 Super Lead Plexi) cranked into one of his homemade prototype Power Soak attenuators, plus a homemade compressor/sustainer and outboard EQ. The Rockman is a red herring — it didn't exist until 1982; the 1976 record is power-soaked Marshall plus DIY compression, heavily multi-tracked. The result is ultra-sustained, glassy, and impossibly layered.
BostonSignal path · input → output · 7 blocksLive values · Line 6 Helix
Guitar
Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (1968, P-90s — 1976 spec)
Pickups
P90
Tuning
bridge
Strings
standard
Deluxe Comp
Kinky Boost
Brit Plexi Brt
4x12 Greenback 25
70s Chorus
Plate
Deluxe Comp
← Scholz homemade compressor/sustainer
Threshold
-34dB
Ratio
4:1
Knee
4dB
Attack
50s
Release
700s
Mix
90
Level
2dB
Kinky Boost
← Extra push (alt — Scholz used no boost pedal)
Drive
2
Gain
2
Tone
6
Level
8
Brit Plexi Brt
← 100W Marshall Super Lead (power-soaked)
Drive
7.2
Bass
5
Mid
6
Treble
6.5
Presence
6
ChVol
5
Master
10
Bias
5
BiasX
5
Sag
6
Hum
5
Ripple
5
4x12 Greenback 25
← Marshall 4x12
LowCut95Hz
HighCut8500Hz
Resonance
0.4
Level
0dB
Pan
0.5
Delay
0
70s Chorus
← Scholz cigar-box chorus prototype (doubled layers)
Rate
0.3Hz
Depth
0.3
Mix
30
Level
0
Plate
← Studio ambience (multi-tracking + EQ)
LowCut200Hz
HighCut7000Hz
Mix
18
Decay
1.4s
Predelay
25ms
Level
0
Engineer's note
File 059
Tom Scholz built More Than a Feeling's wall of guitar in his Watertown basement on gear he made himself. A 1968 Les Paul Goldtop with P-90s ran into a 100W Marshall (widely cited as a 1959 Super Lead Plexi) cranked into one of his homemade prototype Power Soak attenuators, plus a homemade compressor/sustainer and outboard EQ. The Rockman is a red herring — it didn't exist until 1982; the 1976 record is power-soaked Marshall plus DIY compression, heavily multi-tracked. The result is ultra-sustained, glassy, and impossibly layered.
— Tom Scholz
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