Refugee
Mike Campbell's gritty, singing lead on Tom Petty's 1979 breakthrough — the part that finally 'just fit that track perfectly' after weeks of trying every guitar. The hero is his modified '72 Telecaster 'Red Dog': two humbuckers plus a Tele bridge single-coil and an onboard 'Destruct' boost that, in his words, lets you 'really knock them down.' Tracked at Sound City and Cherokee by Jimmy Iovine and Shelly Yakus, it's a small cranked Fender pushed into light breakup, sitting in a lush late-'70s LA studio plate.
What we checked
Computed by a program, on this recipe, every time this page is built. How this works
Preset files — 1 of 3 complete
- Helix builds complete — every block in the recipe is in the file
- Quad Cortex 2 blocks replaced with a stand-in model
Which ones
Replaced with a stand-in: Studio Comp, 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: Crunch, Delay, Plate. 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.
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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