Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton's name sits behind two of the most copied guitar sounds in rock: the overdriven Marshall tone of the 1966 Bluesbreakers "Beano" album, and the rolled-off, vocal "woman tone" of his Cream years. Neither came from a pedalboard in the modern sense. His early rig was a guitar, one boost unit and an amp pushed hard, and the boost pedals and overdrive pedals that followed decades later trace directly back to it.

The core of the Beano sound was a Les Paul Standard plugged into a Marshall Model 1962, a 2 x 12 inch combo with KT66 output tubes, played loud. Between the guitar and the amp sat a Dallas Arbiter Rangemaster, a germanium treble booster that pushed the amp's front end. Guitar.com's Huw Price puts the booster's importance plainly:

The Bluesbreakers sound: Marshall combo and treble booster

When Clapton joined John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, he bought a JTM combo and used that amp to record the Bluesbreakers album². BSM's history of the Range Master booster identifies it as a new 2 x 12 inch Marshall combo, Model 1962, with KT66 output tubes³. A photo on the record sleeve shows him playing through a JTM 45 Marshall amp⁴. BLAMMO! Electronics describes his use of the prototypical version of that amp as recording "at an unreasonably loud volume"⁵.

Into that amp went the Rangemaster. Tru-Fi's history of the unit says the Rangemaster gained notable recognition when Clapton used it with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers⁶, and BSM's manual for its RM Velvet booster says the booster's biting, powerful sound is clearly in evidence on the Beano album⁷. Treble boosters of this type were the precursor to the overdrive pedal, used by players like Clapton to make dark-sounding Britrock amps cut through the mix⁸.

The amp itself gave the combo its nickname. Origin Effects notes the Marshall Blues Breaker amp was given that name due to its use by Clapton when he played with John Mayall and the Blues Breakers¹³. The name then traveled to pedals: guitar.com's review of the Marshall BluesBreaker pedal traces its circuit to the tone of the 1962 combo used by Clapton with the Bluesbreakers, and specifically on the Beano album¹⁴. GuitarPlayer reports the pedal was inspired by Clapton plugging a Les Paul Standard into a Marshall Model 1962 combo in 1966 to record the album⁹, and Guitar.com's review of the Warm Audio Throne of Tone says the lower gain grumble of a Marshall JTM45 combo in Clapton's hands inspired the original Bluesbreaker pedal in the 1990s¹⁵.

Cream: the SG, the woman tone and the wah

With Cream, Clapton moved to 100 Watt Plexi heads³ and a 1964 Gibson SG. Aclam's manual for its Woman Tone pedal describes the combination: a 1964 Gibson SG with P.A.F. humbuckers and 100W Marshall stacks, with the guitar's tone control rolled off to attain the woman tone¹⁰. Guitar World gives the fuller picture: the sound was created with a 1964 Gibson SG Standard, adorned with the now-famous The Fool artwork, alongside a 1966 Marshall JTM45 and a Marshall 1960B cabinet¹⁶.

On Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love, he used the SG's volume on 10 and tone on 1 to wring a vocal-like warmth from the instrument¹⁶. Clapton himself described the woman tone in an interview during the farewell gig at the Royal Albert Hall:

The woman tone has since been turned into a pedal: Aclam Guitars built its Woman Tone pedal as a tribute to the sound¹⁷.

Cream is also where Clapton's wah use begins to matter. MusicRadar reports that Clapton famously used a Vox V846 on White Room¹², and that he was one of the first players to inaugurate the wah pedal on record¹². BMF Effects builds a wah it identifies as the Eric Clapton / Derek and The Dominos wah¹⁸.

The Cry Baby years

Clapton's longest-running pedal association is with Jim Dunlop's Cry Baby. Dunlop's artist page for him says that along the way he has used the wah pedal's expressive power to deepen and amplify the dramatic resonance of key passages from some of his most iconic recordings, from The Yardbirds and Cream to his solo career¹⁹. Guitar World reports that a Cry Baby is usually at the core of his pedalboard²⁰.

The relationship goes back decades. In 1986 Clapton first started working with the late Jim Dunlop Sr., and he became one of Dunlop's first and most important Cry Baby artists¹². Dunlop has since put his name on an Eric Clapton Cry Baby wah²¹, including a gold-plated version announced in late 2024¹⁶.

Why the rig still matters to pedal builders

Clapton's Beano-era setup is a reference point that pedal makers return to by name. Delicious Audio describes the Marshall Blues Breaker amp's sound as somewhat inspired by Clapton in his 1960s band, obtained by plugging a Les Paul into a Marshall 2 x 12 JTM combo²². The Rangemaster he used has been reproduced and reissued by several makers, including BSM, whose Range Master history describes the unit as used by Clapton in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and when playing in Cream¹¹. Even the rumor mill around the Beano album feeds product copy: Massive FX Pedals described its Krampus limited edition pedal's vintage treble booster mode as the classic OC44 treble booster tone, "rumored" to be used on the Blues Breakers Beano recording featuring Eric Clapton²³.

For a player building a board today, Clapton's legacy splits into two practical pieces: a treble booster or Bluesbreaker-style overdrive into an amp on the edge of breakup for the 1966 sound, and a wah, which he helped establish on record in the first place¹².

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