Noel Gallagher — £2,500 · Premium Rig

• Use a semi-hollow with P-90s (Epiphone Riviera) or a Les Paul on the bridge pickup for the thick Britpop crunch heard on 'Cigarettes & Alcohol'
• Set amp gain to 6–7 — enough saturation for chunky chords but retaining note definition; let the valves compress naturally rather than relying on heavy pedal gain
• Stack a Tube Screamer (drive at 9 o'clock, level at 2 o'clock, tone at noon) into an already-dirty amp for the layered Oasis rhythm sound
• Roll guitar tone control back to around 7–8 to soften ice-pick highs while keeping the midrange punch
• For 'Wonderwall'-style cleans, add subtle chorus and a touch of reverb — capo on the 2nd fret, play in Em7/G/Dsus4 shapes
• Double-track rhythm guitars hard-panned left and right to recreate the massive Oasis wall of sound on record
• Dime the mids on your amp (7–8) — the Oasis tone is mid-forward, never scooped; keep bass around 5 and treble around 6
• Use a Vox AC30 for jangly, chiming cleans and a Marshall for the dirty crunch — Noel layered both live and in the studio

• ✗Running high-gain settings on a semi-hollow — the resonant body cavity feeds back uncontrollably at high gain levels. These guitars require lower gain and benefit from the natural resonance.
• ✗Using a distortion pedal instead of a treble booster — the classic Vox driven sound comes from a treble booster (Rangemaster-style) into the input. This creates input stage saturation that pedal distortion does not replicate.
• ✗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.
• ✗Homogenising the tone — playing at the same volume and gain level throughout removes the compositional impact of the loud-quiet dynamic.
• ✗Over-compressing the clean tone — alt-rock clean guitar has natural dynamic variation. Heavy compression turns it into a flat, featureless sound.

Noel favours bridge-position humbuckers and P-90s into mid-gain valve amps with the gain pushed to 6–8 for a fuzzy, compressed crunch. His signal chain leans on overdrive and fuzz stacked together, with liberal use of chorus and delay for shimmering cleans on tracks like 'Wonderwall.' Tone control is rolled back slightly to tame harshness while keeping plenty of midrange bite.