Parisienne Walkways

What is the Parisienne Walkways guitar tone?

The Parisienne Walkways guitar tone is a slow, singing Les Paul ballad lead, heard on Gary Moore's 1970s rock ballad recording. It is a distorted solo tone, and Gary Moore reportedly tracked it with the 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard that Gary Moore bought from Peter Green, the guitar known as Greeny, through a Mesa/Boogie combo plugged into a 4x12 cabinet and miked with a Neumann U87, as the song's engineer and co-producer Chris Tsangarides told Sound On Sound; Moore, bassist Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey recorded the backing track live in Studio 1 at Morgan Studios in Willesden, separated by screens, in one or two takes, three at most, with no click, and Moore left a gap for the long note that opens his solo, still knowing where the band would come back in; Tsangarides says the solo on the record was captured in one take, with a double-track and a harmony, and that all he added was an echo plate, whose send he rode up and down in the mix; Wikipedia says Greeny's neck pickup, put back in backwards, gives it a distinctly nasal, out-of-phase sound with the selector in the middle position, though no source read here says which position Moore used on the take; the song was first meant as an instrumental, and Moore's cassette demo had a drum machine, a keyboard and the solo, until Lynott brought lyrics and sang them, and Wikipedia says its melody is based on Kenny Dorham's jazz standard Blue Bossa; the overdubs added an accordion that Lynott pumped while Moore played it, Lynott's electric upright bass on the descending intro, an ARP Solina string synth, and an unplugged Rickenbacker 12-string semi-acoustic, with a Neumann 84 microphone gaffer-taped to its f-hole, standing in for a mandolin; from Back on the Streets, Moore's first official solo album, it reached number eight in the UK in May 1979 and became his signature song, and Kirk Hammett bought the same Les Paul in 2014. A ballad lead has to sing over a slow band, so it needs sustain from a drive pedal or a pushed amp and room around the notes, with the mids kept in so it cuts without getting louder.

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 high-gain head 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 Gary Moore use on Parisienne Walkways?

The 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard that Gary Moore bought from Peter Green, the guitar known as Greeny, through a Mesa/Boogie combo plugged into a 4x12 cabinet and miked with a Neumann U87, as the song's engineer and co-producer Chris Tsangarides told Sound On Sound; Moore, bassist Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey recorded the backing track live in Studio 1 at Morgan Studios in Willesden, separated by screens, in one or two takes, three at most, with no click, and Moore left a gap for the long note that opens his solo, still knowing where the band would come back in; Tsangarides says the solo on the record was captured in one take, with a double-track and a harmony, and that all he added was an echo plate, whose send he rode up and down in the mix; Wikipedia says Greeny's neck pickup, put back in backwards, gives it a distinctly nasal, out-of-phase sound with the selector in the middle position, though no source read here says which position Moore used on the take; the song was first meant as an instrumental, and Moore's cassette demo had a drum machine, a keyboard and the solo, until Lynott brought lyrics and sang them, and Wikipedia says its melody is based on Kenny Dorham's jazz standard Blue Bossa; the overdubs added an accordion that Lynott pumped while Moore played it, Lynott's electric upright bass on the descending intro, an ARP Solina string synth, and an unplugged Rickenbacker 12-string semi-acoustic, with a Neumann 84 microphone gaffer-taped to its f-hole, standing in for a mandolin; from Back on the Streets, Moore's first official solo album, it reached number eight in the UK in May 1979 and became his signature song, and Kirk Hammett bought the same Les Paul in 2014.

Sources: Sound On Sound: Classic Tracks, Gary Moore's Parisienne Walkways, Wikipedia: Parisienne Walkways, Wikipedia: Greeny (guitar)

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.