How to Sound Like Jonny Greenwood

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   Step 1 — Choose your guitar: Squier Classic Vibe 60s Telecaster

   The foundation of Jonny Greenwood's experimental and textural sound is the guitar. For this budget build, a Squier Classic Vibe 60s Telecaster provides the right tonal character — the pickup configuration and body resonance both point in the right direction.

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   Step 2 — Dial in your amp: Boss Katana 50 MkII

   The amp is where much of Jonny Greenwood's character lives. A Boss Katana 50 MkII at this budget level gives you the clean headroom or natural breakup needed to start shaping the tone. Set the gain and EQ to match the characteristic sound before adding any effects.

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   Step 3 — Add essential effects: Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive

   The effects chain completes the picture. For Jonny Greenwood's sound, Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive is the most important addition — it provides the tonal signature that defines the style.

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   Step 4 — Fine-tune your tone

   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

Listen to these specific tracks to hear the target tone before you shop. Each song demonstrates a different aspect of the rig.

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  Running the Big Muff into an already-driven amp channel — fuzz into a driven amp creates uncontrolled intermodulation that sounds chaotic rather than musical. The Big Muff works best into a clean or barely-clean amp

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  Setting the Big Muff tone control at noon or above — this position is where the Big Muff's scooped mid character becomes harsh and cutting. The musical range is 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on most units

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  Ignoring the neck pickup position as a usable tone — the neck pickup on a Tele produces a warm, jazz-like sound completely unlike the bridge. It is not an afterthought.

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  Using a high-gain distortion pedal instead of amp gain — British crunch amps have a specific harmonic character when driven from their own gain stage. A pedal changes this character.

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  Clean amp at too low a volume — even a clean amp provides warmth and tonal character that the pedal sits in. An amp at minimum volume has no character for the pedal to interact with.

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  Setting gain too high on the overdrive pedal — most overdrive pedals are most useful at gain settings of 2-5, where they add character without dominating the tone. High gain settings on an OD pedal become a distortion, not an overdrive.

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  Ignoring alternative tunings — many of the most iconic riffs and chord voicings in the genre are impossible in standard tuning.

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  Homogenising the tone — playing at the same volume and gain level throughout removes the compositional impact of the loud-quiet dynamic.

If you like Jonny Greenwood's tone, these players use a similar approach — same gear philosophy, comparable sound characteristics.