Little Wing guitar tone
Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble · Stevie Ray Vaughan
The Sky Is Crying (1991, recorded during the Couldn't Stand the Weather sessions, 1984)
lush clean-to-edge Strat blues with rotary swirl and mild tube-screamer grit
The rig Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble used
Researched from interviews, production write-ups and gear histories — not guessed.
Guitar
Fender Stratocaster '#1' (1962/63 body, 1959 neck)
Amplifier
Fender Vibroverb (blackface), with Dumble Steel String Singer blended at low volume; Fender Vibratone rotary speaker
Cabinet
Fender Vibroverb 1x15 (JBL D130F)
Microphone
Shure SM57 (close) + Neumann U67 (room)
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 Little Wing for it — with a preset file you can load, not a list of knob positions.
Why we think this is right
SRV's instrumental Jimi Hendrix cover is one of the most documented studio tones in blues-rock. Guitar-magazine features and long-standing rig documentation agree on his '#1' Stratocaster (a 1962/63 body with a 1959-neck) strung with heavy .013 strings, an always-on Ibanez Tube Screamer (TS-808) set for low gain/high volume, and blackface Fender amps (a Vibroverb as the core voice, with a Dumble Steel String Singer blended at low volume for fatness). The swirling, watery texture that defines the track is a Fender Vibratone (a Leslie-style rotary speaker), with spring reverb for ambience. Main uncertainties are the exact secondary amps in the blend and the precise mic setup; the core Strat -> Tube Screamer -> Fender + Vibratone chain is not in dispute.
Sources
- Guitar-magazine features on SRV's rig and the Little Wing / Couldn't Stand the Weather era tone
- Rig rundown documentation of SRV's #1 Stratocaster, Ibanez TS-808, Fender Vibroverb/Super Reverb amps and Fender Vibratone rotary
- Interviews and gear retrospectives detailing his heavy .013 strings and always-on Tube Screamer
- The Sky Is Crying (1991) liner notes / session history