Master the DOPESMOKER Guitar Tone: A Guide to Sound Like SLEEP

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How to Sound Like SLEEP: Master the DOPESMOKER Guitar Tone.

After testing many combinations of amps, guitars, and different distortion/fuzz/preamp pedals extensively, I have found, that for me personally, there are 4 main components for a Sleep - Dopesmoker type tone:
- Passive Pickups in a Les Paul-style guitar
- Proco RAT
- Amp or preamp pedal set to light crunch
- Tube power amp driven hard, to get power amp distortion

Below are more detailed explanations of my findings. I am obviously limited to the gear that I have, and this is just a subjective experience/thoughts of how I use that gear to get a similar tone to Dopesmoker.

Overdrive / Distortion.
Most of the dirt in this tone comes from the Proco RAT 2 pedal, it seems to be the best pedal for this. Set the distortion and volume in a way that doesn't compress the tone too much. In my case, the settings that worked best were: Distortion - noon, Filter - 10 o'clock, volume - 2 o'clock. A similar tone can be achieved with other distortion/fuzz pedals. I have tried it with several fuzzes (Cthulhu Fuzz clone, Green Russian Muff, BAT Ritual Fuzz clone) and it does sound similar. But the RAT is still my number 1 pick here.

Preamp.
I have tried using several different preamp pedals instead of the Ananashead GT73 (into the Dark Terror FX return). I tested the Kuro T120, a Model feT clone (Mofeta preamp PCB build) and even the Pharaoh Fuzz, all with similar tonal results. The preamp pedals should be set to a light crunch tone, not clean but also without excessive distortion. I went with the Ananashead GT73 because it sounds very open and has a lot of headroom. It has a lot of low-end, and its sole purpose is to emulate the Matamp GT120 (the amp used for recording Dopesmoker). This is an underrated gem of a pedal and is permanently on my pedalboard ever since I got it.
I got a very similar guitar tone using the Proco RAT 2 into the front end of the Orange Dark Terror and the Tiny Terror. Again, the Orange amps were set to crunch (Gain 1 o'clock). I even played a Cthulhu fuzz into the Tiny Terror, and got a very similar tone, the TT was almost cranked. This tells me that the dirt pedals and preamp choice are secondary. And what matters the most in this tone is the power amp saturation.

Power Amp.
What matters most in this guitar tone, in my opinion, is the power amp distortion that comes with cranking your tube amp VERY loud. You need to drive the tubes into heavy saturation by increasing the volume and almost cranking the amp. Fully maxing out the volume of the amp also has its drawbacks, it can sound a little choked and over-compressed. I tried to find a balance where it's saturated and powerful, but not too compressed. Using an attenuator or a load box, like the Torpedo Captor is a good way to keep the volume down or keep it silent. Since without them, we're dealing with gig volumes from the amp. There is no way to tell how much the power tubes were stressed in this video since I used the Dark Terror fx return, and the GT73 pedal master volume determined how much the power amp worked. (And because I used a loadbox). But my guess judging by the dB of the recording levels is that the Orange Dark Terror was almost fully cranked.

Solid State amps.
If I understand this correctly, a solid-state amp power section just amplifies the signal that it receives with minimal coloration/saturation to the tone. It's incomparable to what cranked power tubes do to a guitar signal. For me, the best way to use a SS amp to get the Sleep tone is to use it as a power amp only and use the amps fx return with pedals. Try pedals that specifically reproduce doom amps and their power amp breakup like the Model feT, Kuro T120, Exegol e.t.c. Any pedal marketed as a doom amp in a box should work ok probably. Here is a video of the Dunwich Amps DA120 Overdrive (Matamp style preamp pedal) being used with a tiny solid-state Crate DSP GFX 15 bass amp with absolutely insane results.

Guitar Choice.
I tested guitars with medium and low-output passive humbucker pickups and EMG active pickups.
Pickups tested:
EMG 81 (Harley Benton SG, DC DIY kit) Active
EMG 707 (Schecter JL-7 FR) Active
Wilkinson Alnico V (Italia Maranello Classic) Passive 14.1 K
Probucker 2 (Epiphone Les Paul 50s) Passive 7.9 K
Gibson 490T (Epiphone SG G-310) Passive 8.2 K

Of course, the guitar itself makes a huge difference, but the pickups that sounded closest to the original tone were the Wilkinson Alnico V and the Probucker 2. Active pickups sounded powerful but were unsurprisingly fizzy a less "warm" sounding. The SG-style bodies of the Harley Benton and Epiphone SG produced a more aggressive mid-forward tone, which sounded fine. But the solid body Les Paul-style guitars sounded best because of their fuller and warmer sound with more bass and low-mid range frequency emphasis than the SG.

Thanks for watching!

#doommetal #sludgemetal #stonerrock