Barracuda guitar tone
Heart · Roger Fisher, Nancy Wilson
Little Queen (1977)
loud edge-of-breakup single-coil with flanger swirl
The rig Heart used
Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster
Amplifier
Music Man head/combo (Leo Fender design, 6L6 power section, solid-state preamp)
Cabinet
Music Man 2x12 (Celestion speakers, baffled cab)
Microphone
Shure SM57 (close-mic, era-typical)
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 Barracuda for it — with a preset file you can load, not a list of knob positions.
Why we think this is right
Per Roger Fisher's own interview (widely quoted, e.g. via Equipboard and gear forums), the studio 'Barracuda' electric was a Fender Stratocaster into a Phoenix Systems flanger kit into a Music Man head/combo (Leo Fender design, solid-state preamp, 6L6 power section) with a small 2x12 Celestion cab, run loud on the edge of breakup with the cab baffled for sustain. This directly contradicts the popular secondary claim of a Les Paul + Marshall + two-tape-machine flanging; I commit to the guitarist's first-person account. Nancy Wilson contributed the driving acoustic/rhythm; the featured electric riff and lead are Fisher's.
Sources
- Roger Fisher interview (first-person, quoted via Equipboard)
- Fractal Audio Systems forum 'Heart - Barracuda amp tone' (interview excerpts)
- Line 6 official Barracuda tone template/diagram