
Rig Builder
Budget Rig Breakdown
Signal Chain


Essentials
Complete Your Rig
The accessories every serious guitarist needs — cables, strings, and the rest.
Ernie Ball Regular Slinky Strings (10-46)
Standard for most electric styles — bright, responsive, and widely used by touring professionals.
Planet Waves American Stage Guitar Cable 10ft
Solderless ends and lifetime warranty. The cable most session guitarists trust.
Dunlop Jazz III Pick (Pack of 6)
The most-used pick among serious players — precision tip improves articulation and speed.
Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner Pedal
The professional standard for live tuning. True bypass, powers other pedals, ultra-accurate.
Levy's M8 Guitar Strap
Quality leather strap used by touring guitarists. Genuine comfort for 3-hour sets.
Technique
Key Tone Tips
- The Whammy pedal is central to the "Just" and "Planet Telex" guitar sounds — set to octave up or two octaves up, it creates the screaming harmonics
- Jangly clean is equally important — "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" use clean Telecaster into AC30. Contrast between clean and extreme is the Radiohead guitar vocabulary
- Prepared guitar techniques — sticking objects on strings, playing with a bow, tapping on the body. These textural elements appear throughout OK Computer and Kid A
- Chord voicings avoid conventional root-position triads — inversions and suspended chords (sus2, sus4, add9) replace standard major and minor chords for a more ambiguous harmonic character
- The tremolo arm is used for controlled noise, not melody — a sharp downward dive followed by a slow rise creates the wrenching effect on some tracks
- Study "Just," "Lucky," "Karma Police" and "How to Disappear Completely" — four completely different approaches within the same band's catalogue
- Layering guitar and orchestral elements is a Greenwood strength — in solo orchestral work, he understands how guitars interact with string instruments
- Noise is composed, not spontaneous — the feedback and distortion are controlled and placed intentionally, not random
- Do not try to copy Radiohead by sound; copy by intention — understand why each guitar choice was made and apply that decision-making to your own playing
Background
About Jonny Greenwood's Sound
Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead is one of rock music's most creative guitarists — his approach draws from noise, classical music and jazz, building textures that are often unrecognisable as conventional guitar playing.
Tone History
Jonny Greenwood's Tone Evolution
Jonny Greenwood is Radiohead's sonic architect — his guitar approach is deliberately anti-virtuosic, using texture, noise, and unconventional technique to create atmospheres rather than showcase technique. His tone ranges from Telecaster jangle to orchestrated feedback to ondes Martenot.
Full timeline: 3 eras →Song Breakdowns
Jonny Greenwood Song Rigs
Creep
Pablo Honey · 1992
The chord stab that launched Radiohead — Greenwood's violent, scratchy guit…
Paranoid Android
OK Computer · 1997
Radiohead's most complex song — a three-part suite that requires multiple d…
Karma Police
OK Computer · 1997
Radiohead's most immediate melody — the guitar provides sparse, clean chord…
