One of the most coveted and chased guitar tones of the last 60 years of rock history just so happened to come about very early in the lifespan of rock music. In 1966, a young, fresh faced Eric Clapton burst onto the scene with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers and recorded an album that went on to become the stuff of legends.
The album in question is the Beano album. The album taking its name from Eric Clapton reading the Beano Comic on the album artwork.
Eric’s guitar tone on this album was simple, organic and raw. He was using a 1960 Gibson Les Paul plugged into a British 2×12 guitar amplifier turned up very loud.
Settings wise, Eric has stated that he just turned everything to 10 and dug in. In the attached video, I try to re-create this tone with the Dept. 10 Dual Drive and Cab Rig.
For the pedal settings, I was using the clean channel side of the pedal with the level on 10 and the gain set to 2 o clock. This gives you an edge of break up tone.
Eric is quoted with saying he just set everything to 10 so I’ve also maxed out the EQ section and the ISF. This adds a little extra push to the tone. I have dialed the bass back slightly because there is not a huge amount of low end on the recorded tone. In the room the lows would have been very present, but once the guitar signal passed through the studio gear, some low end would have been trimmed off.
Inside Cab Rig I have opted for a 2×12 Classic UK Combo style cabinet. This is a fairly similar sounding speaker set to the rig Eric would have used on the album.
This is mic’d with the 412 condenser, but you can also use the Ribbon mics to get a similar tone.
Sticking with the pushed amp tone, I’ve set the Resonance, Presence and drive inside the Power Amp to max and chosen the EL84 power amp tubes. These are different to the tubes Eric used but they give a similar high headroom, British sound.
The Bluesbreaker album tone was not close mic’d, a big part of the tone is the room sound so I’ve cranked the room sound mix up and used a Large and Wide setting.
On the Master section I have also made some EQ tweaks to simulate the guitar tone.
This cranked amp sound has a lot of Low Mid so that slider has been bumped up as well as the Highs. It is debated, but not confirmed, that a Treble Booster was also part of the signal chain in the studio, so going with this speculation, the highs have been boosted.
If you enjoyed this tone, you can download the patch here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/13e1brakntdpipo/EC%20Beano%20Tone.cabrig?dl=0
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About the Author
This article on How to Get the Eric Clapton Beano Tone with Cab Rig was written by Leigh Fuge. Leigh is a professional guitarist and content creator and also works alongside musicteacher.com to create guitar focused, educational and entertainment content.
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