Paranoid amp settings — Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200

The Black Sabbath guitar tone for “Paranoid”, dialed in for a Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 with a Fender Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster. Studio version, Paranoid album (1970) — recorded in a single live take

Original rig

Gibson SG Standard → Dallas Rangemaster (modified) → Laney LA100BL with presence/mid/treble maxed, bass at 0

Aggressive, trebly crunch with scooped low-end and biting upper-mids; raw and direct

Amp settings — Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200

CHANNELCrunch (green channel)BOOSToff

Knob	Setting (0–10)
Gain	7
Bass	2
Mid	8
Treble	8
Presence	7
Reverb	0
Master	5

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Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE8 VOLUME10

Signal chain

01Treble Booster (TC Electronic Spark Mini or EHX LPB-1)

RECOMMENDED — not currently owned. Critical to the Iommi tone; the Rangemaster pushed the amp into saturation while adding treble cut. A clean boost with the tone rolled bright gets you 70% there.

Level 7

Why these settings

Your Strat's single-coil bridge is brighter and lower-output than Iommi's SG humbuckers, so I dropped treble from his maxed 10 to 8 and raised bass from 0 to 2 to compensate for the thinner low-end. The Black Spirit 200's Crunch channel has tighter gain than a vintage Laney, so gain at 7 matches the original's pushed-but-not-saturated breakup. Mid stays high (8) because Iommi's tone is defined by aggressive upper-mids despite his scooped bass.

PRO TIPIommi picked hard directly over the bridge pickup pole pieces for that percussive attack. On your Strat, angle your pick steeply (45°+) and dig in close to the bridge saddles to approximate the SG's thicker transient response.

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These settings are for a Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200. ToneAdapt matches any song to whatever amp, guitar and pedals you own — first match is free.

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