In a Big Country Guitar Tone: Bagpipes With No Bagpipes

No piper was harmed in the making of this record. Every bit of that Highland skirl comes from two Fender guitars, an E-Bow and a harmoniser, cut at RAK in London with Steve Lillywhite producing. Released in the summer of 1983 from The Crossing, it reached No. 17 on both sides of the Atlantic.

What makes the tone. Stuart Adamson's Telecaster and Bruce Watson's Strat split the work. One holds long, bowed notes that the harmoniser doubles at a fixed parallel interval, so two pitches drone together like a chanter; the other strums a bright, chiming rhythm off a Vox AC30. The illusion works because the bowed note has no pick attack at all, which is exactly what fools the ear.

The analogue recipe. Begin with a single-coil guitar and an E-Bow, then a harmoniser locked to a parallel interval, a gentle compressor, and a Vox-style combo just starting to break up. A generous hall reverb at the end lets the held notes bloom. For the strummed part, drop the harmoniser and add a mild overdrive instead.

How to play it. Key of E major, played open at 138 BPM, intermediate level. The verse barely strays from E and A, so the work is all in the right hand: keep it full and confident, because the song lives on the push and pull between drone and strum. If you own an E-Bow, practise sliding into each note rather than placing it, the way a piper bends into a phrase.

On a Boss GT-1000 / GX-100 / GT-100. Dial up the Twin Combo preamp into a 2x12 Jensen cab and park a Natural OD booster before it for the rhythm grit. A studio-style compressor sits in FX1, the chorus stays bypassed, and a hall closes the chain. The useful trick is CTL1: give it a drone mode so one stamp brings the sustained, harmonised voice in for the intro.

On a Kemper. An AC30 studio profile does the heavy lifting, running nearly clean. Stomp A holds a compressor, B a Soft Drive, and C the Pitch Shifter acting as the harmoniser, with hall reverb after the amp. Map a morph to switch C on, and keep the pitch voice as loud as the dry note while you bow, so the two pitches read as a single instrument.

Skip the guesswork. Want it exact? “In a Big Country” is one of the songs in the Soulster Tonebook for fans of Big Country →, with settings for five rigs and the playing notes to go with them.