Paranoid amp settings — Yamaha HY-10g111

The Black Sabbath guitar tone for “Paranoid”, dialed in for a Yamaha HY-10g111 with a Gibson SG Junior. Studio version, Paranoid (1970)

Original rig

Gibson SG Standard into Laney Supergroup 100W (LA100BL) with Dallas Rangemaster treble booster, bridge pickup

Aggressive mid-forward crunch with trebly bite and tight low-end

Amp settings — Yamaha HY-10g111

Knob	Setting (0–10)
Gain	7
Bass	4
Mid	7
Treble	8
Reverb	0
Master	6

Don’t have a Yamaha HY-10g111? See this song on other amps → Match your own rig →

Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE10 VOLUME10

Signal chain

01Overdrive or Treble Booster (e.g. MXR Micro Amp, TC Electronic Spark, or Rangemaster clone)

RECOMMENDED — not owned. The Rangemaster is what makes this tone work. A clean boost pedal (MXR Micro Amp) or a treble booster clone will get you there; set it to push the amp input hard without adding much distortion of its own.

Level 8 · Gain/Boost 3

Why these settings

The Yamaha THR10 has no presence control, so treble is pushed +1 to compensate for the missing upper-air. Bass is cut -1 vs Iommi's settings because the THR10's voicing is slightly warmer than the Laney Supergroup's lean British character. Without the Rangemaster treble booster (which did most of the gain work on the original), you'll need to push the amp's gain to 7 to approximate the input overload Iommi used.

PRO TIPIommi overloaded the Laney's input with the Rangemaster to get preamp distortion—the amp itself wasn't a high-gain design. Dig in hard with your pick attack (downstrokes, heavy right-hand pressure) to wake up the amp's touch sensitivity and get that percussive, almost-falling-apart crunch.

Get this tone on your amp

These settings are for a Yamaha HY-10g111. ToneAdapt matches any song to whatever amp, guitar and pedals you own — first match is free.

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Song, artist and gear names are used to identify the tone being matched; ToneAdapt is not affiliated with or endorsed by the artists or manufacturers mentioned. Settings are AI-generated starting points — trust your ears.