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Suede·Social·Issue No. 20
Tone recipes·2026 · JUL
Reggae1976easy to fake

01Bob Marley & The Wailers

Rebel Music

Junior Marvin's lead reggae tone — Les Paul Custom (originally a Strat-style) through a Fender Twin with light amp breakup. Tone has a slight overdrive bloom on sustained notes, but the rhythm parts stay clean. Solos use blues vocabulary over reggae chord changes, with bends that are slower and more deliberate than rock vibrato. Reverb is amp spring with a touch added in the mix. Often doubled an octave higher on lead lines.

02Signal chain

Guitar to amp, 1 pedal between.

  1. In
    Guitar

    Gibson Les Paul Custom

  2. 01
    Used on specific phrases for movement
    MXR Phase 90

    Speed: 11 o'clock

  3. Out
    Amp

    Fender Twin Reverb

03Field note

The secret sauce

Marvin's solos use blues phrases but with a reggae sense of time — laid back, behind the beat, with sustained notes that hover. The tone enables the patience but doesn't create it.