Gear

Fuzz on his board.

Used in combination with Satellite amps live.

The solid-state head that gave him his clean, enormous tone.

A vintage Montgomery Ward Airline — the plastic-bodied guitar on the early records.

The plastic-bodied guitar behind the White Stripes sound.

His Alembic basses.

An Alembic in his collection.

Her amp head.

Ampeg heads power the live rig.

The cabinet under the SVT.

The Motown amp, as documented on History Detectives.

Backup 1200-watt head.

8x10 cabinet.

Run through three 4x10 cabs.

A big, clean bass amp turned up — the core of his sound.

A pair of heads feeding the blend.

Ampeg SVT head.

Ampeg SVT-4 Pro head.

The classic bass head, often in stereo rigs.

A dual-amp rig for huge tones.

The only bass amp on stage.

Ampeg power for the groove.

His preferred bass from 1985–86, used on Master of Puppets.

Chorus on the board.

Class A active instrument DI and preamp in the rack.

One of the few distortions he uses.

Megan's signature lap steel.

Part of the touring head collection.

His strings.

2x12 cabinets used on stage.

High-power boutique head in his rig.

Bogner Fish preamps feeding Fryette power amps.

Second overdrive.

On his board.

Brought in live for the heavier sections.

A staple of his pedal setup.

Overdrive in the chain.

Delay.

A staple of his board.

Patched in by his tech for two solos.

A light drive to push the Vox into breakup.

The lead sound on the Chili Peppers records.

Noise gate.

The shimmer on the arpeggiated parts.

Multi-effects processor in his chain.

His main dirt box through the Nevermind and In Utero eras.

Multi-effects in his rig.

In the effects loop for delays, choruses and flanges.

Graphic EQ.

One of just a few pedals on the board.

Used for the odd, percussive repeats.

Reverb.

The compressor that evens out his fingerstyle attack.

Delay on his board.

Chorus.

Tuner on her expanded board.

Delay of choice.

Keeps his axes in tune.

His long-standing dirt pedal.

Chorus.

Noise gate.

The rhythmic delays on her leads.

Keeps the high-gain rig quiet.

Tuner.

Compressor and overdrive for sustain and push.

Tuner.

Extra sustain for his fingered style.

Delay.

Vibrato on her board.

The guitar he and his father built by hand in 1963.

A worn sixpence instead of a plectrum.

The pickups in the Red Special.

A 50-foot run with Switchcraft and Neutrik connectors.

Tone shaping on the board.

Reverb.

His custom basses, built to his spec.

His signature head, clean and articulate.

Oil-can delay emulation.

Tweed-style amp-in-a-box.

Plate reverb emulation.

Speakers loaded in his cabinets.

His signature Charvel.

His homemade partscaster — ash body, single humbucker, one volume knob.

The glass bottle that gave him his slide tone.

British-voiced heads in his rig.

A second signature model.

One of his axe-shaped signature basses.

Knobs and switches for echo, tempo and drive.

Gauges as large as .060 depending on tuning.

The set he plays.

10–52 sets, stepping up to .060 for the lowest tunings.

Her string set.

The overdrive that pushes the Marshall.

His own line of DR strings.

His strings of choice.

His string set, .45 to .105.

His signature amp.

The booster that pushes his SG into the amps.

The treble booster in front of the AC30s is the core of his tone.

Boosts the Laney into that thick, grinding crunch.

His main source of dirt.

A germanium Fuzz Face, cleaned up by rolling the guitar volume back — the source of his clean-to-fuzz dynamics.

Fuzz on his board.

His long-running signature Flying V.

The shape he is identified with, in a long series of finishes.

Rack preamp in her rig.

Neck and middle pickups.

His own signature pickups.

Bridge pickup in the AT100.

The other half of his pickup pairing.

Pickup in the Ghost Telecaster.

Compression on the board.

One of the two amps blended live.

1998 VH4 sharing the load with the Marshalls.

The pitch shifts at the heart of his solos.

Pitch-shifting for the octave riffs of the early 2000s.

Pitch shifting on his board.

The pitch shifts that imitate turntables.

The dive-bombs and squeals of his solos.

For the pitch-shifted textures.

The pitch shifter behind his DJ-style effects.

Pitch effects on the pedalboard.

The brain of his switching rig.

His legendary custom-built guitar.

The famous custom guitar with on-board effects loops.

One of several Dr. Z amps in the rig.

Silicon fuzz built by a friend.

The holy-grail amp in his collection.

The rare amp behind his overdriven lead sound.

The centrepiece of his lead tone.

His signature wah, nearly always engaged.

Used on nearly every solo.

For the dive-bombing solo lines.

Used in the more aggressive passages.

Used for the filter sweeps.

The most-used pedal in his rig.

Used for the funkier instrumentals.

His pick of choice.

Used for the stranger, more textured parts.

A staple of his board.

For the spluttering, gated fuzz tones.

Ridden through nearly every solo.

Used on White Room and countless live solos.

The wah on the Sweet Child o' Mine intro.

Played on the ring finger, bare fingers on the strings.

Used as much for texture as for solos.

For the Bright Lights stomp.

Used sparingly on the funkier numbers.

Ridden constantly, often with the amp already screaming.

Sits on a board that is larger than either guitarist's.

Used for its more dramatic envelope and travel.

The orange .60 mm Tortex he has used since the beginning.

His signature wah.

Wah on the board.

His signature wah.

Drive pedal on the board.

Octave pedal in his rack.

He still runs EMGs in his guitars.

Active humbuckers.

A pair of 3-channel signature heads, one wet and one dry.

His signature ENGL amp.

The ESP builds he has toured with for decades.

His signature ESP with active EMG pickups.

His signature ESP.

His current signature 8-string on the road.

Into a matching cabinet.

Acrylic body with an aluminum neck, made by Kevin Burkett.

The chorus on 'Come as You Are'.

The ram's-head Big Muff is the core of the 'Comfortably Numb' solo tone.

The fuzz behind the White Stripes' blown-out sound.

For the fuzzier, more explosive moments.

Polyphonic octave generator.

Bass fuzz for the heavier moments.

For the heavier, dirtier sections.

The grit behind the early records.

The core of the Siamese Dream sound.

The fuzz that turns the stacks into a landslide.

The envelope filter behind his cartoonish lead tone.

Analog delay for the earlier U2 records.

The fuzz behind his leads.

Fuzz on the board.

Signature speakers in his cabs.

The Epiphone signature version, with nickel hardware and vintage Thumper pickups.

His signature Epiphone.

The accessible version of his signature model.

His Epiphone Dwight.

Hollowbody with P90s, his main stage guitar.

Her hollowbody guitar.

An Epiphone Les Paul in the lineup.

Starts the main board's signal chain.

Used on all vibrato-equipped guitars.

Volume control.

His strings.

His string gauge.

Heavier strings, tuned down half a step.

Heavier strings for the deep, wide vibrato.

On his sprawling studio board.

Her signature model with a Bigsby vibrato.

Custom StingRays built to his spec.

His signature Music Man.