Beat It

Amp settings (as recorded)

The recording

The guitar solo for 'Beat It' was recorded at Westlake Studios in Los Angeles, 1982. Eddie Van Halen, working with his own engineer Don Landee, improvised two takes for the solo after rearranging the song's tape structure. The session is famous for the legendary 'flaming speaker' incident and the fact that Eddie recorded the contribution for free as a favor to producer Quincy Jones, largely kept secret from his bandmates at the time.