Where the Streets Have No Name guitar tone

The rig U2 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. 1973 Fender Stratocaster (Black)

   1

   primary guitar

   guitar
2. Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man

   2

   compositional delay — half the notes you hear are its repeats

   delay
3. Vox AC30

   3

   sole amplifier for the entire song

   amp
4. Vox AC30 2x12 (Celestion Blue)

   4

   combo speakers

   cab
5. Shure SM57 on 2x12

   5

   close mic

   mic
6. Room Condenser on AC30

   6

   room mic

   mic
7. Studio Plate Reverb

   7

   mix ambience

   reverb

Why we think this is right

The curated prior calls this a confirmed studio chain at confidence 93 and it matches everything documented about the Joshua Tree rig: the black 1973 Stratocaster, an Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man set to a dotted-eighth delay, and pre-1966 Vox AC30s with Celestion Blue speakers. I accepted every curated claim. The delay time is the part worth being exact about, because the part cannot be played without it: at the song's roughly 126 BPM a dotted eighth is 357 ms (45000/126), which is what makes a straight six-note arpeggio come out as the cascading sixteenth-note figure everyone hears. Not chained here, though it belongs to the same era: the Korg SDD-3000 rack delay had been part of Edge's setup since around 1984 and may well have been in the room in 1987, but the curated chain names the Memory Man and no source I have separates the two units on this particular track, so I did not add a second delay block on speculation. RULED OUT for this song: no chorus pedal, no wah, no phaser and no fuzz box — the tone is clean AC30 plus delay and nothing else. There is one amplifier throughout, so no second amp block and no channel change; the choruses are louder because the guitar is strummed harder and the volume is opened, not because anything is switched.

Sources

• Curated prior (confidence 93, confirmed studio chain): 1973 black Stratocaster > Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man with dotted-eighth delay > Vox AC30 > AC30 2x12 with Celestion Blues.
• Documented accounts of the Joshua Tree sessions at Danesmoate House with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and of Edge's pre-1966 AC30s.
• Delay time derived from the song tempo of roughly 126 BPM: dotted eighth = 45000/126 = 357 ms.
• Own analysis of the released mix: one clean amplifier voice, delay-composed arpeggio, no modulation or filter effects audible.

More example tones

• With or Without YouU2
• Sunday Bloody SundayU2
• OneMetallica
• BatteryMetallica
• Sad But TrueMetallica
• Summer of '69Bryan Adams