The Thrill Is Gone
B.B. King
A punchy, biting lead with a fast vibrato over a slow minor blues.
What is The Thrill Is Gone guitar tone?
The Thrill Is Gone guitar tone is a punchy, biting lead with a fast vibrato over a slow minor blues, heard on B.B. King's 1960s blues recording. It is a clean solo tone, and B.B. King reportedly tracked it with a Gibson 355, his Lucille, which Mix's account of the session names on its own track of the take, cut at the original Hit Factory in New York with producer Bill Szymczyk and engineer Joe Zagarino; Mix lists a Fender Twin Reverb miked with a Shure 57 for the guitar, but keeps King's Lucille as a separate track from that guitar, with Hugh McCracken on guitar in the session band, so the amp under King's own part is not pinned down; for a full rig, Guitar World documents King's performance of the song at Cook County Jail in Chicago on 10 September 1970: a mid-1960s Gibson ES-355TD-SV with a stereo Varitone circuit and a Maestro Vibrola tailpiece with the arm removed, into a Gibson LP-1 Les Paul preamp head and an LP-2 power amp and speaker cabinet, an all solid-state amp made for Gibson at the Standel factory in El Monte, California; Guitar World says King had used Fender valve amps before, preferred solid-state amps for loud, clean headroom and a quick, percussive attack, used the Varitone's number 2 setting with both pickups on this song, and sent each pickup to its own amp channel with a stereo Y cord, and it credits his heavy pick, lighter strings than most players of his time and fast left-hand vibrato; in Mix's account Paul Harris picked up the minor-key riff on a Wurlitzer electric piano, with Gerald Jemmott on bass and Herbie Lovelle on drums, King sang live with the band, the third take was the master with no overdubs, and a week later Bert de Coteaux's string arrangement went on; Mix dates the session to September 1969 and Wikipedia to June 1969; the song, a slow minor-key blues written by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951, is on Completely Well, and the single, released in December 1969, reached number 3 on Billboard's soul singles chart and number 15 on the Hot 100 by Wikipedia's count (number 14 in Mix's). Here the sound is a loud, clean amp, with the bite coming from a heavy pick and the guitar's tone circuit rather than from any drive.
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.
The Thrill Is Gone amp settings: a starting point
On a generic five-knob amp, start at Gain 2, Bass 4, Middle 6, Treble 6, Presence 6, Reverb 3, with the middle position, both pickups on.
- Gain 2
- Bass 4
- Middle 6
- Treble 6
- Presence 6
- Reverb 3
- Signal chain
- Clean amp with headroom (live in 1970: solid-state) → Guitar's Varitone on setting 2 (live in 1970)
- The control that matters most
- Headroom and attack. Guitar World has King playing the song loud through solid-state amps in 1970 for clean headroom and a quick, percussive attack, with a heavy pick and the Varitone on its second setting, so keep the gain at or near zero, turn the bass down, and let the pick and the vibrato do the work.
These positions are free and they are a starting point. A Katana, a Spark and a valve head reach this voicing from different knob positions, so Tonelify rewrites every value above for the amp and guitar you own. A first plan starts with 7 days free, $0 today.
Adapt these to my amp- Pickup
- Middle position, both pickups on
These are positions on a generic five-knob amp with gain, bass, middle, treble and presence, each running 0 to 10. They are a starting point, not the settings used on the record, and they will not transfer unchanged to an amp with a different gain structure or EQ voicing. If you tell Tonelify which amp you own, it rewrites every value above for the controls that amp actually has.
Does The Thrill Is Gone tone sound off on your amp?
Pick what you hear. You get the knobs to turn from the starting point above, and how far.
Published settings
What amp settings did B.B. King use on The Thrill Is Gone?
Volume 8, presence 7, bass 3, treble 6 and the crossover at 250Hz on both channels of a 1970 Gibson LP-1 head, with the bridge pickup in the normal channel and the neck pickup in the effects channel with reverb on 2, into an LP-2 cabinet; on the guitar, bridge volume 10, neck volume 8, both tones on 10 and the Varitone on 2. That is Chris Gill's settings box in Guitar World's feature, for the September 1970 Cook County Jail performance rather than the 1969 studio take, and it does not say where the numbers came from, so read them as the magazine's reconstruction.
Source: Guitar World: the secrets behind B.B. King's guitar tone on The Thrill Is Gone
What gear did B.B. King use on The Thrill Is Gone?
A Gibson 355, his Lucille, which Mix's account of the session names on its own track of the take, cut at the original Hit Factory in New York with producer Bill Szymczyk and engineer Joe Zagarino; Mix lists a Fender Twin Reverb miked with a Shure 57 for the guitar, but keeps King's Lucille as a separate track from that guitar, with Hugh McCracken on guitar in the session band, so the amp under King's own part is not pinned down; for a full rig, Guitar World documents King's performance of the song at Cook County Jail in Chicago on 10 September 1970: a mid-1960s Gibson ES-355TD-SV with a stereo Varitone circuit and a Maestro Vibrola tailpiece with the arm removed, into a Gibson LP-1 Les Paul preamp head and an LP-2 power amp and speaker cabinet, an all solid-state amp made for Gibson at the Standel factory in El Monte, California; Guitar World says King had used Fender valve amps before, preferred solid-state amps for loud, clean headroom and a quick, percussive attack, used the Varitone's number 2 setting with both pickups on this song, and sent each pickup to its own amp channel with a stereo Y cord, and it credits his heavy pick, lighter strings than most players of his time and fast left-hand vibrato; in Mix's account Paul Harris picked up the minor-key riff on a Wurlitzer electric piano, with Gerald Jemmott on bass and Herbie Lovelle on drums, King sang live with the band, the third take was the master with no overdubs, and a week later Bert de Coteaux's string arrangement went on; Mix dates the session to September 1969 and Wikipedia to June 1969; the song, a slow minor-key blues written by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951, is on Completely Well, and the single, released in December 1969, reached number 3 on Billboard's soul singles chart and number 15 on the Hot 100 by Wikipedia's count (number 14 in Mix's).
Sources: Mix: Classic Tracks, B.B. King's The Thrill Is Gone, Guitar World: the secrets behind B.B. King's guitar tone on The Thrill Is Gone, Wikipedia: The Thrill Is Gone
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.
How do you get The Thrill Is Gone tone on your own amp?
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The Thrill Is Gone tone questions
What amp settings do you need for The Thrill Is Gone?
On a generic five-knob amp, start at Gain 2, Bass 4, Middle 6, Treble 6, Presence 6, Reverb 3, with the middle position, both pickups on. These are positions on a generic five-knob amp with gain, bass, middle, treble and presence, each running 0 to 10. They are a starting point, not the settings used on the record, and they will not transfer unchanged to an amp with a different gain structure or EQ voicing. Tonelify rewrites the same values for the specific amp and guitar you own, because a high-gain head and a small solid-state combo reach the same punchy, biting lead with a fast vibrato over a slow minor blues from different positions.
What amp did B.B. King use on The Thrill Is Gone?
Amp: Not pinned down for King on the take (a solid-state Gibson LP-1 live in 1970). Guitar: Gibson ES-355, Lucille. Sources: Mix, Guitar World and Wikipedia.
How do you get B.B. King's tone on The Thrill Is Gone?
Headroom and attack. Guitar World has King playing the song loud through solid-state amps in 1970 for clean headroom and a quick, percussive attack, with a heavy pick and the Varitone on its second setting, so keep the gain at or near zero, turn the bass down, and let the pick and the vibrato do the work. Play it with the middle position, both pickups on.
What tuning is The Thrill Is Gone in?
Standard tuning: E A D G B E, low string to high, according to Guitar World.
Source: Guitar World: the secrets behind B.B. King's guitar tone on The Thrill Is Gone
Can you get The Thrill Is Gone tone without the original gear?
Yes. The parts that define the sound are the gain structure, the EQ curve, the pickup position and the effects order, and those translate to other equipment. Tonelify's adaptation step works them out for the amp and guitar you own.
Does Tonelify cost anything to try?
A match for your own gear takes a plan, and a first plan starts with 7 days free with nothing charged that day: Stage is $6.99 a month for 20 matches, Headliner is $10.99 a month for unlimited matching within a fair use limit of 150 new matches a day, and yearly billing works out cheaper on both. Reading this page and the rest of the library costs nothing and needs no account.
