The Smashing Pumpkins – Gish (Remastered)

An image pulled from spfc.org (Smashing Pumpkins Fan Club dot ORG) with the following caption:

BC w/ the Marshall head, labeled "SOUL", and slant cabinet, Marshall logo modified to say "Mars"

Some supplemental tidbits taken from a notable blog, Ain't No Sleep When You're Living The Dream:

KB to Billy Corgan: What are your memories about the amp?

Billy Corgan: When I first bought the amp in 1989 from this stoner guy, I thought it sounded ok but I think I was more excited to just be playing thru a Marshall. I realized after a time that I wasn't that crazy about the sound so I asked Mike to look at it and see what he could do. After he changed the tubes to the KT88s the amp just sprang to life, and it was the body of the amp that I used to drive insane amounts of distortion into to get 'that sound'. Butch Vig and I were so sold on the sound of the amp that outside of a few select parts, I would say that 98pct of all guitar parts on the first two albums were done thru this amp/speaker combo. In order to change the sound, the Stratocaster parts would be recorded through a shure 57 on the bottom right speaker, and the Les Paul parts would be recorded through a Sennheiser 421 on the top left speaker. This subtle difference between what speaker we would use created the sense of playing thru a different amp set-up even though obviously I wasn't.

This ADA MP-1 is owned by Billy Corgan

Own a piece a Pumpkins history! This was one of two that was used on The Smashing Pumpkins' debut album, Gish.

I would run it into a Marshall head. That was my main sound from '89 or '90 through '92" - Billy

In this June 11, 2012 article from Guitar World, Corgan discusses his amplifier tone stating:

AMPS

[BC]: "Experimenting with different amps is one of the hardest things for a guitarist to do. It's virtually impossible to walk into a music store and crank up one amp, let alone a bunch of them. I recommend that young guitarists with a lack of amp experience buy rack-mountable amps and preamps because their sounds are generally very consistent and easy to tailor to different applications. I used an ADA MP-1 preamp for all of "Gish." I'd written the songs on that unit, and I couldn't imagine them being played any other way."

"If you end up with a tube amp, make sure the tubes are working properly. Also, if possible, experiment with different power tubes. I'm a huge fan of using KT-88's in my Marshall. Most people prefer EL-34's, but I hate them. The "Gish"/"Siamese Dream" guitar sound has so much to do with KT-88's, which add a round, fat bottom to my sound."

"Before buying any amp, be nosey. Talk to as many guitarists as you can, get different opinions and see what other people like and don't like. I've always done that, and it's always been helpful."

At approximately 30:35 in this Youtube podcast Billy says that he used the Roland JC120 to record the clean guitar sounds on Gish. Around 42:50, he goes on to mention that the JC120 is used with a Leslie rotor effect to create the sparkling clean sounds on songs like Rhinoceros.

"Oh, the original 'pumpkins' Electric Mistress... Gish/Siamese era. (I'm) still rocking that." - Billy Corgan at 3:20.

In a photo from the Torhout Festival in Belgium, Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins is seen using a pedal resembling the Electro-Harmonix EH-4800 Small Stone, identifiable by its distinctive one-knob design and reddish chassis. This suggests its role in achieving his live sound during the Gish era.

At 1:39 in this video taken from documentary about making of Siamese Dream, Butch Vig (album producer) says: "This is one of the secrets to our seret sound - this is the MuTron Bi-Phase. We run everything through it, everything... it's fabulous". (In the same video Vig calls Gish "sad" and Siamese Dream "happy, with a lot of happy songs", so I don't know how much can we trust him about anything else in the video)

"His photo of the actual Big Muff used showing his exact settings confirmed it was a V4 op-amp (IC) Big Muff. The graphics match second edition V3 and V4 Big Muffs, but the tone and sustain pot sweep as Billy set them were only possible on a stock V4."

-www.kitrae.net

According to this page, James used a Fender Bronco during Gish and Siamese Dream era.

D'arcy Wretzky used Rotosound RS66LD Swing Bass 45-105 strings, as evidenced by the distinctive red silk on her Precision Bass during early Smashing Pumpkins tours around the Gish era. This is supported by a photo from a 1991 concert.