Pour Some Sugar On Me guitar tone
Def Leppard · Phil Collen / Steve Clark
Hysteria (1987)
compressed, chorused, direct-injected Rockman crunch - a studio construction, not an amp in a room
The rig Def Leppard used
Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.
Guitar
Phil Collen's 1978 Japanese Stratocaster 'Felix' with a DiMarzio Super Distortion in the bridge; Steve Clark's three-pickup Gibson Les Paul with a Kahler
Amplifier
Rockman X100 headphone amp, modified for the band by Tom Scholz, taken direct to the console. No guitar amplifier and no cabinet were used for the rhythm and lead guitars on this track
Signal chain
The order the original sound was built in. The exact settings get dialled for your own amp or modeller when you generate the tone.
Get this tone on your rig
Pick your amp or modeller and we’ll build Pour Some Sugar On Me for it — with a preset file you can load, not a list of knob positions.
Why we think this is right
There is no guitar amplifier on this record. Mutt Lange put the guitars through Rockman X100 headphone processors straight to the console, in units Tom Scholz modified for the band; engineer Mike Shipley has said those modified units could have their chorus and reverb switched off and that Scholz made the distortion different from stock. Phil Collen has said that apart from the guitars the sound is all Rockman. The guitars are a 1978 Japanese Stratocaster with a DiMarzio Super Distortion and Steve Clark's three-pickup Les Paul, documented for the album rather than this song. The size comes from stacking many passes, and with almost no controls on the unit every setting here is inferred.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pour_Some_Sugar_on_Me&action=raw
- https://guitar.com/features/artist-rigs/gear-used-by-phil-collen-steve-clark-def-leppard-hysteria/
- https://musicstrive.com/def-leppard-guitar-tone/