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 Guitar coverWith His Hot and Blue Guitar
Settings for
Signal 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
Dynamics
Threshold
-26dB
Ratio
2:1
Knee
6dB
Attack
100ms
Release
600ms
Mix
50
Level
0dB
US Small Tweed
← Silvertone 1300 (small clean combo)
Amp
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
Cab
LowCut100Hz
HighCut6500Hz
Resonance
0.5
Level
0dB
Pan
0.5
Delay
0
Simple Delay
← Sun Studio tape slapback
Delay
LowCut200Hz
HighCut5500Hz
Time
130ms
Feedback
0
Mix
32
Level
0
Spring
← Sun Studio room
Reverb
LowCut200Hz
HighCut6000Hz
Mix
10
Decay
0.3s
Predelay
20ms
Level
0
Tilt
← Tilt EQ (global brightness)
EQ
Tilt
0.6
CenterFreq
1000Hz
Level
0

What we checked

Computed by a program, on this recipe, every time this page is built. How this works

Preset files — 0 of 3 complete
  • Helix 1 block missing from the file
    Which ones

    Not in the file: 1x12 US Small Tweed. The recipe calls for this block, but we have no verified model ID for it on this platform, so the preset is written without it. Add it by hand using the settings above.

  • Quad Cortex 5 blocks replaced with a stand-in model
    Which ones

    Replaced with a stand-in: LA Compressor, Tweed Deluxe, 1x12 Tweed, Slapback Delay, Tilt EQ. These load cleanly but are not the model named above — the file will sound wrong here until we map them. Set these blocks by hand.

  • Katana 3 blocks replaced with a stand-in model
    Which ones

    Replaced with a stand-in: Clean, Delay, Reverb. These load cleanly but are not the model named above — the file will sound wrong here until we map them. Set these blocks by hand.

Helix DSP
38.1% of one chip — fits
Sources
3 cited, 1 from publications that do original gear reporting
Attribution
Not yet ratedThis recipe predates the attribution-confidence field and hasn't been reviewed for it.
What we didn't check
  • Nobody played this through a real amp. There is no human listening test behind any number on this page.
  • The settings are reasoned from the sources below, not measured off the record.
  • No audio has been rendered for this recipe yet, so you cannot hear it before you load it.
  • 3 platforms on this page (TONEX, Kemper, Fractal) get a model pointer, not a preset file — nothing was built or checked for them.

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