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Suede·Social·Issue No. 20
Tone recipes·2026 · JUL
Rock1969

01Neil Young & Crazy Horse

Cinnamon Girl

'Old Black' — Neil's '53 Goldtop converted to humbuckers — through a 1959 Fender Deluxe overdriven beyond comfortable volume, with a Whizzer doing voltage manipulation to give that distinctive Neil saturation that sits between clean and broken. The riff is heavy on open D strings ringing while Neil hammers chord shapes above them. Crazy Horse is loose enough that the tone has to be loud to hold the rhythm together.

02Signal chain

Guitar to amp, 2 pedals between.

  1. In
    Guitar

    1953 Gibson Les Paul Goldtop ('Old Black') with Firebird humbucker bridge

  2. 01
    Voltage variation device for tone manipulation
    Whizzer

    Set for slight asymmetrical clipping

  3. 02
    Subtle ambient delay on some sections
    MXR Analog Delay
  4. Out
    Amp

    1959 Fender Deluxe ('Tweed Deluxe' 5E3 circuit)

03Field note

The secret sauce

The amp is a tweed Deluxe — a 15W combo cranked to 12. At that volume the amp is barely surviving. Neil doesn't play this song through a clean rig and a distortion pedal; the entire signal path is at the failure point.