Dream On

What is the Dream On guitar tone?

The Dream On guitar tone is a dry, two-guitar arrangement of a piano part, heard on Aerosmith's 1970s rock ballad recording. It is a clean riff tone, and Aerosmith reportedly tracked it with a two-guitar arrangement of Steven Tyler's piano part, which Brad Whitford told Guitar World's Alan di Perna in 1997 was just a transcription of what Tyler was doing with his left and right hands on the piano, and Tyler says that when he transposed it to guitar Joe Perry played the right fingers and Whitford the left hand, though no source read here names their guitars or amps on the take; the debut was recorded at Intermedia Studios, 331 Newbury Street, Boston, with producer Adrian Barber, and Wikipedia describes its production as for the most part sparse and dry, two guitars, bass, drums, a singer and occasionally piano; Perry wrote in his autobiography that Barber was practically useless, that the band sounded flat and that it pained him that his guitar was not cutting through, and he told Guitar World that he added what he thought it should sound like on guitar, to give it a different flavour and make it a little more of a rock thing; Tyler wrote the music on a Steinway upright in the living room of Trow-Rico Lodge in Sunapee, maybe four years before the band started, said the chordage came from lying under his father's piano as a child, and, Songfacts says, recounts putting the string section on while sitting at a Mellotron, after a breakthrough came when he bought an RMI keyboard; Perry told Classic Rock in 2002 that he did not appreciate the song's musicality until later, but knew it was a great song; released in June 1973, it peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a reissue at the end of 1975 reached number 6 in April 1976. Here the guitars split a piano part between them, Perry on the right hand and Whitford on the left, on a sparse, dry recording, so the sound is two clean, separate guitars rather than one driven amp.

You do not need that exact gear to land in the same place. What carries this sound is the gain structure, the EQ curve, the pickup choice and the order of the effects, and all four can be rebuilt on equipment that costs a fraction of the original. The numbers change from amp to amp, because a clean channel on a modelling combo and a small practice amp reach the same voicing from different knob positions. That translation is what Tonelify works out for the rig you actually own.

What gear did Aerosmith use on Dream On?

A two-guitar arrangement of Steven Tyler's piano part, which Brad Whitford told Guitar World's Alan di Perna in 1997 was just a transcription of what Tyler was doing with his left and right hands on the piano, and Tyler says that when he transposed it to guitar Joe Perry played the right fingers and Whitford the left hand, though no source read here names their guitars or amps on the take; the debut was recorded at Intermedia Studios, 331 Newbury Street, Boston, with producer Adrian Barber, and Wikipedia describes its production as for the most part sparse and dry, two guitars, bass, drums, a singer and occasionally piano; Perry wrote in his autobiography that Barber was practically useless, that the band sounded flat and that it pained him that his guitar was not cutting through, and he told Guitar World that he added what he thought it should sound like on guitar, to give it a different flavour and make it a little more of a rock thing; Tyler wrote the music on a Steinway upright in the living room of Trow-Rico Lodge in Sunapee, maybe four years before the band started, said the chordage came from lying under his father's piano as a child, and, Songfacts says, recounts putting the string section on while sitting at a Mellotron, after a breakthrough came when he bought an RMI keyboard; Perry told Classic Rock in 2002 that he did not appreciate the song's musicality until later, but knew it was a great song; released in June 1973, it peaked at number 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a reissue at the end of 1975 reached number 6 in April 1976.

Sources: Wikipedia: Aerosmith (album), Wikipedia: Dream On (Aerosmith song), Songfacts: Dream On, Guitar World: Joe Perry looks back on Aerosmith in the 1970s

Tonelify's tone matcher reads that chain and translates it to the amp and guitar you already own, returning gain, bass, mids, treble and presence values along with a pickup position.