Allan Holdsworth's Sound
The most harmonically advanced guitarist rock ever produced, and the least imitable.
Impossibly smooth legato with chorused, saxophone-like sustain
The rig
The gear associated with the sound. Each item opens a live Reverb search — vintage examples where they exist, modern equivalents where they don't.
Guitars
- Charvel customFind on Reverb
- Carvin H2 / HF2 Holdsworth modelsFind on Reverb
- SteinbergerFind on Reverb
- SynthAxeFind on Reverb
Amps
- Hartley ThompsonFind on Reverb
- Yamaha and Mesa/Boogie in various erasFind on Reverb
- Rockman-based rigsFind on Reverb
Effects
- Lexicon and Eventide rack processorsFind on Reverb
- Heavy chorus and delayFind on Reverb
- Rotary emulationFind on Reverb
Pickups
- Seymour Duncan custom humbuckersFind on Reverb
Why it sounds like that
Devil Take the Hindmost
Saturated but soft-attack lead — the pick is essentially absent, so the tone has no transient spike.
The Sixteen Men of Tain
Clean, chorused chord work where the wide voicings need absolute clarity.
Metal Fatigue
The most rock-adjacent tone he recorded, and still smoother than anything around it.
Similar sounds
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