Mike Bloomfield — £1,000 · Pro-Level Rig

• Fluid legato phrasing in the Chicago blues tradition — smooth hammer-on and pull-off runs connecting chord tones across the neck
• The Les Paul neck pickup for the warm, vocal lead quality — bridge pickup is too bright and aggressive for this style
• Bending into notes from below — the Chicago blues approach reaches target pitches by bending from a half step or whole step below
• Classic blues licks built from the minor pentatonic with major 6th additions — the "double-stop six" (minor 3rd and 6th simultaneously) is a Bloomfield signature
• The amp should just begin to break up when you dig in — if the amp is clean at all dynamics, the voice is absent. The slight natural saturation provides the "cry"
• Study "East West" from the Butterfield Blues Band — the extended improvisation demonstrates his ability to move between blues, modal jazz and Indian music vocabulary
• Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" solo is the introduction to the style — not fast, not complicated, but every note placed perfectly
• Practise playing the blues scale (minor pentatonic + b5) over 12-bar progressions until the shapes are invisible and the note choices are instinctive

• ✗Setting the TS9 gain above 5 into a clean amp — at high gain settings the TS becomes a distortion pedal that colours the tone heavily. Below 4, it's a boost and focus pedal. Single coils into a TS above 5 gets nasal and harsh
• ✗Setting the amp bass too high — the inherent warmth of mahogany means you need less bass EQ than with a Strat. Starting at 5 rather than 7 prevents low-end mud.
• ✗Using a distortion pedal instead of pushing the amp — vintage-voiced amps create better overdrive by being pushed hard than by a pedal circuit. Let the amp do the work.
• ✗Using a distortion pedal to replace amp saturation — amp-driven tone has a specific feel (dynamics, touch sensitivity, natural compression) that pedal distortion cannot replicate. The source of gain matters.
• ✗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.
• ✗Ignoring the guitar volume knob — rolling back to 6-7 is your rhythm setting; 10 is for leads. Most players leave it at 10 and miss the entire dynamic vocabulary.
• ✗Using a humbucker where single coils are needed — the quack, string definition, and high-frequency air of single coils cannot be EQ'd into a humbucker

Gibson Les Paul into a clean-to-slightly-dirty Fender amp. The tone is mid-heavy and singing — Les Paul humbucker warmth through a Fender that breaks up gently on note attacks. No excessive gain; the Chicago blues tradition is about feel and dynamics, not high distortion.