Eric Clapton — £2,500 · Premium Rig

• For "woman tone": neck pickup, guitar tone knob rolled to 1–2, cranked amp
• The tone knob is your most important control — experiment with different positions
• Clapton's vibrato is slow and wide; practise uniform bends to a target pitch
• Blues Driver on low gain (around 9 o'clock) acts as a clean boost for solos
• Mid-forward amp EQ (bass 5, mid 7, treble 5) — never scooped
• Roll guitar volume to 7 for rhythm, open it fully for lead breakup
• Light pick attack for Strat-era tones; the dynamics come entirely from your hands
• Let single notes sustain and sing — Clapton leaves space between phrases

• ✗Stacking a second overdrive after the TS9 with single coils — the combined mid emphasis of two stacked ODs into single-coil pickups produces a congested, nasal sound that struggles to sit in a mix
• ✗Placing a tuner or buffered pedal before the Fuzz Face — most fuzz circuits (especially germanium ones) are sensitive to the impedance of the signal feeding them. A buffered pedal before the fuzz changes how the guitar volume knob responds. Run fuzz first in the chain
• ✗Running the tone knob at 10 the entire time — the tone control on a Strat is an expressive tool. Rolling it back changes the character of the sound in ways that affect how you phrase.
• ✗Adding a high-gain distortion pedal to a Fender clean amp — the character of Fender tone is the headroom and sparkle. A high-gain pedal into a Fender sounds like a wrong-matched combination.
• ✗Using a coloured overdrive as a boost where a transparent boost is needed — a TS-style OD adds midrange colour. A Klon-style or clean boost is more neutral and suitable for clean boost applications.
• ✗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.
• ✗Using the bridge pickup as the default — the bridge is an accent position, not where the warmth and expressiveness of blues lead tone lives.
• ✗Choosing a pick that is too heavy — thin to medium picks give edge noise and articulation that heavier picks smooth away. That edge is part of the sound.

Cream era: Les Paul or SG into a cranked Marshall Super Lead — thick, creamy sustain with the guitar's tone control rolled back (the "woman tone"). Post-Cream: Stratocaster into a clean Fender amp, with a subtle overdrive pedal pushing solos. In both cases the amp does most of the work; Clapton's touch provides the dynamics.