Tone Card

Back in Black, AC/DC

Angus Young's SG straight into a cranked, stock Marshall Super Lead with every knob at noon, mapped to GarageBand's Vintage British Stack.

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Angus Young
Tone inspired by "Back in Black", main riff
Guitar
SG-style solidbody with dual humbuckers
Pickup Position
Bridge
Tuning
Standard E
Amp Settings

Values on a 0 to 100 scale.

Gain
50
Bass
50
Mid
50
Treble
50
Presence
5
Master
85
GarageBand Settings
Amp Model Vintage British Stack
EQ Type Vintage
Cabinet 4×12 with Celestion G12-65 speakers
Mic Condenser 87 and Condenser 414 together, a simplified take on the two-microphone studio setup
Pedals None. Guitar straight into the amp for the rhythm parts.

The real rig behind this tone

Everything on the card above is our own GarageBand recreation, not a set of documented studio settings. Here is what is actually known about how the original was recorded.

Guitar

Angus Young's Gibson SG with stock Gibson T-Top humbuckers.

Amp

A stock, non-master-volume Marshall 1959 Super Lead.

Amp settings

Producer Tony Platt described the amp as essentially everything at noon, with the presence very low and the volume high. Our card follows that shape.

Recording

Platt used two condenser microphones on the cabinet. AC/DC deliberately avoided effects on the rhythm tracks.

Solos

Angus used the Schaffer-Vega Diversity System wireless, which adds compression and a midrange boost.

What is not documented

  • The precise microphone positions on the cabinet.
  • Exactly which cabinets and speakers were used on each take.
Sources

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