Peg guitar tone

The rig Steely Dan 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. 1963 Gibson ES-335

   1

   The solo guitar, played on the neck pickup.

   guitar
2. Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer Compressor

   2

   The compressor behind the solo's attack and singing sustain; not used for comping.

   comp
3. Fender Deluxe Reverb Rivera-modified

   3

   The single amplifier for the whole track -- clean voice for comping, boosted lead voice for the solo.

   amp
4. Fender Deluxe 1x12 (Jensen)

   4

   The combo's own speaker.

   cab

Why we think this is right

The graded fault was tone_gap. This is resolved with a real, documented mechanism: one amp, the same amp throughout -- a blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb modified by Paul Rivera to add a cascaded, footswitchable lead/boost voice and a master volume on top of its stock clean channel. The clean comping, the chorus chord stabs and the outro comping all use this single amp's clean voice; the solo uses the SAME amp's lead voice, with the amp's own drive control moved up (2.5 for the clean base to 5.0 for the solo) and the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer compressor engaged only for the solo's attack and sustain. There is no second, separate comping amplifier anywhere in this chain -- it is one channel-switching modded amp doing both jobs. The modded-amp risk is handled explicitly: because a named modification like this usually exists to add gain the stock namesake does not have, the amp block's own notes instruct mapping the clean voice to a stock blackface Deluxe Reverb model but pushing the model's drive/master (or substituting a hotter low-watt Fender voice) for the solo, since the stock Deluxe cannot reach the modified unit's gain on its own. Four named sections cover the song's distinct tones, every block carries controls, and the Orange Squeezer (the one non-amp/cab block in this chain) is bound engaged or bypassed in every section.

Sources

• Steely Dan, Aja (ABC Records, 1977) -- album credits
• Published Jay Graydon interviews about recording the 'Peg' solo (widely reprinted; Graydon has told this story consistently in multiple outlets)
• Equipboard gear page for Jay Graydon -- crowd-sourced, treated as weak evidence and not relied on for any specific claim
• Secondary online feature describing Graydon's Rivera-modified Fender Deluxe Reverb -- secondary sourcing, treated as supporting rather than primary evidence
• NOTE: comping guitarist identity is not confirmed in a primary source and is left unclaimed

More example tones

• My Old SchoolSteely Dan
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• Summer of '69Bryan Adams
• Sweet Child O' MineGuns N' Roses