Tone library / Led Zeppelin / Stairway to heaven

Stairway to heaven amp settings — Boss Katana 50 MkII

The Led Zeppelin guitar tone for “Stairway to heaven”, dialed in for a Boss Katana 50 MkII with a Harley Benton SC-Custom II. Studio version, Led Zeppelin IV (1971) — electric solo section

Original rig

1959 Fender Telecaster 'Dragon' (bridge pickup) → Supro Coronado 1690T (cold-biased, 12" Oxford speaker with Pulsonic cone, light spring reverb)

Warm, singing midrange with creamy breakup, vocal sustain, and controlled low-end — not high-gain, but a cranked small amp pushed into harmonic saturation

Amp settings — Boss Katana 50 MkII

CHANNELCrunchBOOSToff

Knob	Setting (0–10)
Gain	5
Bass	4
Mid	6
Treble	6
Reverb	2

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Guitar

PICKUPbridge TONE7 VOLUME10

Why these settings

The Supro Coronado is an American-voiced amp with prominent mids and smooth breakup — the Katana's Crunch channel approximates JCM800-style breakup which is more aggressive, so I've pulled gain down from the original's cranked setting (6→5) and pushed mids up (+1) to compensate for the Katana's tighter voicing. Your SC-Custom II has hotter humbuckers vs Page's single-coil Tele, so treble stays moderate and gain drops further than a Tele would need. Roll tone knob to 7 to tame the humbucker's top-end and get closer to that vocal, woody Tele-through-Supro character.

PRO TIPPage's solo sustain came from the Supro's small speaker compressing naturally at volume. On the Katana, use your guitar's volume knob dynamically — back off to 7 for the intro melody phrases (cleaner, more articulate), then roll up to 10 for the climactic bends to push the Crunch channel harder and bloom into sustain.

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These settings are for a Boss Katana 50 MkII. 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.