My Old School guitar tone
Steely Dan · Jeff "Skunk" Baxter
Countdown to Ecstasy (1973)
bright, singing edge-of-breakup blackface Fender lead
The rig Steely Dan used
Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster
Amplifier
Fender Twin Reverb (blackface); Fender Vibrolux Reverb cited as alternate
Cabinet
Fender 2x12 (blackface Twin, Jensen/Oxford)
Microphone
Shure SM57 (close-miked)
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 My Old School for it — with a preset file you can load, not a list of knob positions.
Why we think this is right
The standout outro solo on "My Old School" is consistently credited to Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (with Denny Dias on secondary/rhythm guitar). Interviews and era photos document Baxter favoring a Fender Stratocaster into blackface Fender amplification (Twin Reverb/Vibrolux Reverb), and the recorded tone is unmistakably a bridge-position Strat into a pushed blackface Fender: bright, glassy, with singing edge-of-breakup sustain and no obvious pedals. The exact combo model and studio mic are inferred (Twin Reverb committed as the primary, Vibrolux cited as the alternate), which caps the overall below a documented track-sheet certainty.
Sources
- Artist interviews (Jeff Baxter on Steely Dan-era Stratocaster + Fender amps)
- Countdown to Ecstasy personnel/liner credits (Baxter & Dias guitars)
- Session/tone analyses of the My Old School outro solo