Hotel California guitar tone

The rig Eagles used

Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.

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.

1. Takamine F400S twelve-string (DeArmond soundhole pickup)

   1

   source - the arpeggiated introduction

   guitar
2. 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard (sunburst)

   2

   Felder's guitar - verses, the solo and the upper harmony line

   guitar
3. 1970s Fender Telecaster (Joe Walsh)

   3

   Walsh's answering line in the outro duel

   guitar
4. Maestro Echoplex EP-3

   4

   echo and preamp colour on both the twelve-string and the electric

   delay
5. Orange combo amplifiers (matched pair)

   5

   the introduction's amplified path - drives the Leslie

   amp
6. Leslie rotating speaker cabinet

   6

   the stereo movement on the introduction

   mod
7. Fender narrow-panel tweed Deluxe 5E3 (mid-1950s)

   7

   Felder's amplifier - cranked, cathode-biased break-up

   amp
8. Tweed Deluxe internal 1x12 (Jensen P12R-class alnico)

   8

   the combo's own speaker

   cab
9. Shure SM57

   9

   close microphone on the tweed Deluxe

   mic
10. Neumann KM84

    10

    acoustic capture of the twelve-string introduction

    mic
11. EMT 140 plate

    11

    the record's ambience

    reverb

Why we think this is right

THE BIGGEST CHANGE FROM THE PREVIOUS RECORD IS THE INTRODUCTION. The previous record carried the intro as a negative finding: 'the arpeggiated introduction is not this chain at all', with every effect bypassed. That was an honest position when the twelve-string was only 'commonly cited as a Takamine', but the introduction is in fact documented in Felder's own words and in Bill Szymczyk's. Felder has described the twelve-string as a Takamine F400S fitted with a DeArmond pickup, recorded two ways at once: the acoustic body on a microphone in the middle of the image, and the pickup output sent through a Maestro Echoplex into a Leslie cabinet mic'd in stereo left and right. Szymczyk describes 'a pair of little Orange amps' driving that side of it. That is why the intro sounds three-dimensional in a way no single acoustic track does, and it is now written into the chain and bound to the intro section as engaged rather than bypassed. Four blocks are added: the Takamine, the Orange amplifiers, the Leslie and the Neumann KM84. FELDER'S ELECTRIC RIG IS THE LEAST DISPUTED PART OF THE RECORD and is unchanged: '...I had a '59 Les Paul sunburst, and I plugged into a '50s tweed Deluxe, a narrow-panelled model... just the guitar into the amp', with 'an old Echoplex and a Boss chorus unit in line'. One correction to his own phrasing is retained from the previous record and it is right: a 5E3 tweed Deluxe has no effects loop, so anything 'in line' can only have been between the guitar and the amplifier input. WALSH'S AMPLIFIER - RULED OUT RATHER THAN GUESSED. Three candidates circulate and all three fail. (1) A Roland Cube: this comes from Walsh's own hedged remark that he played 'a Tele, through - I think - the Roland Cube', but the Roland Cube line was not introduced until 1978, two years after these sessions, so it cannot be the amplifier however sincerely he remembers it. (2) A tweed Champ: repeated widely on tone blogs with no source behind it. (3) A Marshall: Walsh's better-known 1970s amplifier, but nothing ties one to this session. Szymczyk's own account of the outro overdubs says the amps were out in the studio and the players in the control room, and does not name them. So Walsh's Telecaster is named and his amplifier is not - a guessed amp block on the shop-window example page would be worse than an honest gap. THE OUTRO IS AN OVERDUB SESSION, NOT A JAM. Szymczyk has described roughly two days of 'search and destroy' work on the closing duel, with Felder and Walsh sitting in the control room and their amplifiers out in the studio, and the finished passage carrying something like thirty-three tape edits. The descending harmonised thirds were worked out in advance - Felder had them on a demo cassette - while the traded free phrases were played to tape. Model the outro as two guitars, not as one guitar double-tracked. OTHER NEGATIVE FINDINGS. Not a blackface Deluxe Reverb: Felder is explicit that it was a narrow-panel tweed, which has no reverb, no tremolo, and a completely different break-up. Not a Gibson EDS-1275 double-neck: that is the live arrangement, where Felder needed the twelve-string and the six-string in one instrument, and it is not on the record. The Leslie belongs to the twelve-string's pickup path in the introduction only - it is not on the electric solos.

Sources

• Don Felder, Guitar World (2017) and consistent retellings elsewhere - the Takamine twelve-string with a DeArmond pickup, mic'd acoustically in the centre while the pickup fed an Echoplex into a Leslie mic'd in stereo
• Don Felder, on the electric rig: 'I had a '59 Les Paul sunburst, and I plugged into a '50s Tweed Deluxe, a narrow-panelled model - it was probably a '55 or '56... just the guitar into the amp', with an old Echoplex and a Boss chorus unit in line
• Bill Szymczyk, Sound On Sound 'Classic Tracks' feature on Hotel California (September 2010) - 'a pair of little Orange amps' mic'd in stereo on the twelve-string's pickup path; the Neumann KM84 on acoustics; roughly two days of 'search and destroy' overdubbing on the outro with the players in the control room; the count of tape edits in the closing passage
• Joe Walsh, Total Guitar (2012) - 'I played a Tele, through - I think - the Roland Cube', the only statement he has made about his amplifier for this track, and the reason no amp block is written for him: the Roland Cube line was not introduced until 1978
• Roland product history - the Cube series was introduced in 1978, two years after these sessions
• Eagles session history: recorded at Criteria Studios, Miami and Record Plant, Los Angeles, 1976, produced by Bill Szymczyk

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