Grammy-winning producer and engineer Mike Exeter is well-known for his credits on releases that range from UB40, the Specials and Jeff Beck to Cradle of Filth and Judas Priest.
However, it’s the Englishman’s work with Tony Iommi that has proved to be his most fruitful, having initially stepped in for The 1996 DEP Sessions with Glenn Hughes and the Fused solo album of 2005, leading to the 2009 reunion with Ronnie James Dio as Heaven & Hell and Black Sabbath’s final studio album, 2013’s 13. Following the death of Iommi’s long-serving tech, Mike Clement, in 2022, Exeter is undoubtedly the person best placed to provide insight into what Iommi is searching for.
“What’s most important is that there needs to be some sort of response,” says the producer after concluding another day of studio work at the Black Sabbath founder’s home in Broadway, Worcestershire. “The music has to come out of the amp and hit him in the body and head.
“When he plays, there is no beginning or end. It’s all chicken and egg. He goes into a zone where he’s just expressing himself with no plan of what might happen, and that’s when he starts getting the real ideas. It becomes this cyclical thing.”
As anyone would expect, over the course of time the sound guru has learned how to tell whether his employer is happy with what he’s hearing. It’s all part and parcel of spending countless hours locked away together, listening to recordings and letting the creative process dictate where they go next.
“Tony is very easy for me to read,” Exeter says. “I know him so well, I can spot the facial expressions or body language. Sometimes it’s what he plays, other times it’s how he plays. If he does a certain trill, I know that means he’s not getting enough sustain from the amp. What he’s looking for is, ultimately, an extension of himself.”
That extension has arrived in different forms over the years, depending on the equipment and musicians in the room. The producer goes on to explain how the pair will listen to live footage from Paris in 1974 and compare it to the sound of the first two Black Sabbath albums, or the post-Ozzy years with Ronnie James Dio – which, as well as welcoming a new singer, saw them embracing the updated music technology of the time.
“When I listen to the first two Sabbath albums, they’re incredibly fuzzy,” Exeter says. “It’s a classic Laney sound. But he wasn’t using that in 1980 for the Dio albums. He’d switched to hotter Marshalls around that period. So there is no singular definitive sound for Tony, but he definitely has his own feel. I can pick him out from a mile off just because of the little things he does.”
To sound like Tony, you generally need P-90s going into a thick, soupy sound. It’s broken up, almost like speaker distortion
Bearing in mind the sonic evolution throughout the decades, Exeter still has plenty of advice for those of us hoping to get into the rough ballpark of the legendary guitarist’s tones.
The early Black Sabbath albums were recorded with a 1965 Gibson SG Special – nicknamed the Monkey, thanks to the sticker at the base of the body – fitted with a pair of P90 pickups, which explains the rounded balance of body and bite on the classic-era recordings.
“To sound like Tony, you generally need P-90s going into a thick, soupy sound,” Exeter says. “It’s broken up, almost like speaker distortion. You might not think he was dialing in much gain, but trust me, he was on 11 for everything, because in the old days they had single-channel amps.
“You had to crank the front, turn the treble, presence and mids down, turn the bass up and then stick a treble booster in front. It only sounds right blasting through a 4x12 at full volume and needs to be smooth. It’s the tone of death if you’re in front of his amp when it’s not set properly.”
Stacking gain is another core element of the tone, and though Iommi was heavily dependent on his modded Rangemaster for the first eight albums, in the years that followed he grew increasingly fond of having several different options at his feet.
“He wants the amp crunching past the edge of breakup, but also extra stages in front,” the producer says. “I wouldn’t use a Tube Screamer, particularly; instead I’d recommend things like the TC Electronic Spark. It’s a stacked-gain thing he’s looking for, one that cleans up easily. In the studio we’ll often dial the gain in to suit the riff.
“If you don’t do it right, you won’t get the pick attack or clarity of the notes. Less gain can sound better because it’s clearer, but ultimately it depends on the idea. There’s definitely a fine line; you can find something that suits the artist, who might prefer more saturation, and the producer, who generally wants to back things down.”
It would be safe to say Laney amps are without question Iommi’s go-to, but as Exeter notes, some work better than others. The LA100BL may have been at the forefront of the Sabbath sound during their most celebrated years, but it’s the guitarist’s signature 6L6-powered TI100, launched in 2012, that Exeter considers to reign supreme as the ultimate weapon for nailing an entire career’s worth of game-changing tones.
“The TI100 was like the golden goose for me,” he says. “Tony actually went back to the LA100s for the final tour. But I remember Tony did an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires last year and we shot out a few amps. The TI100 through a single 4x12 won.
“For soundcheck, we put it on stage with a Roland SDE-3000 in the loop to thicken the sound with a short delay, and all the other roadies came over saying, ‘Holy shit! What are you using?’ Tony was really happy – I could tell because he started playing Lonely Is the Word. He seemed really comfortable. Joe Perry was running close to 15 cabs on stage, and apparently he ended up asking Tony to turn down. It was only on 4.” [Laughs]
As Iommi reveals in our extensive interview, he’s amassed a sizable pedal collection over the years, but only a select few have been good enough to stay on the ’board. Exeter picks up the conversation by shedding light on the ones that stuck; beyond the boosts and drives, there have been chorus, phaser and octave units.
“Tony isn’t a gear hound at all,” Exeter says. “But one thing people don’t realize is that he does watch YouTube just to see what’s out there. His rig is generally straightforward. The most complicated it got was on the farewell tour, where he had an insane amount of stuff.
“He’s very particular about having a short delay when he plays live; in the ’80s it was a Korg rackmount. He likes to have a chorus around, and it’s usually the blue one by Analog Man. I think it’s the best chorus out there, especially for distorted guitars. The owner, Mike Piera, is brilliant, and we’ve got a King of Tone, too.
“Before the POG, we were using a DOD octave pedal. I actually liked the way it didn’t track properly! At the end of chords you’d get this weird digital breakup thing going on, which was fun. An MXR Phase 90 is another thing he likes to have; generally it’s the script ones.”
The Van Halen connection doesn’t end there, either. After a brief spell with Engl amps for the Exeter-produced Heaven & Hell debut of 2009, titled The Devil You Know, Iommi switched over to EVH 5150III heads and cabs. Eddie and his tech Matt Bruck, who now heads up EVH alongside Wolfgang Van Halen, were kind enough to help with getting the tones right for what would be Sabbath’s grand finale.
“Eddie and Matt were great while we were recording 13,” Exeter says. “We were borrowing amps and cabs off Eddie during the whole writing process. From 2009 to 2013 it was a mixture of the EVH and TI100.
“That was the golden era of tone for me. We listened to some of the raw recordings later and Tony asked, ‘Bloody hell, that’s unreal, what were we using?’ And it was just the EVH with an Eventide H3000 for delay.
“He said, ‘That’s the sound I want,’ and I joked, ‘Well, you do today!’ But it was a big deal for Tony – getting a modern amp that had been designed by a player he respected. The confidence went a long way, because he knew Eddie would only give him something good. Things like that put you at ease.”
And, as many of us know all too well, creative freedom and inspiration tends to strike when a guitar player is at his or her most comfortable. A good tone can go a very long way indeed.
“I remember Brian May visiting last year, and as soon as he said, ‘There’s that sound,’ Tony instantly relaxed,” Exeter says. “He stopped worrying. The mutual respect between them is insane and it’s a real help when you hear you’re on the right track.
“Being an engineer and producer is a bit like being a psychologist. You have to tell the artist they’re right when they complain the sound has changed, but also convince them that it’s still sounding great through the speakers, if that’s indeed the case. We can always re-amp things later.
“All I’m after is some smiles and for it to be a good day in the studio. The confidence will feed into the music.”
