Billy Gibbons

Visible as a label on Gibbons' pedal switcher in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 1:20:18.

"In the effects loop this year I have the MXR Bass Octave pedal," says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech about the MXR M288 Bass Octave Deluxe Effects Pedal.

In this interview with Guitarist Presents: Blues, Billy Gibbons says:

There is a new offering made by Paul Cochrane in Nashville, Tennessee, which is known as the "Timmy" pedal. It's got a bit of distortion available, but it is more of a proper, overall tone booster.

Billy Gibbons talks about the Maestro Fuzz-Tone as one his first pedals, citing it as a pivotal starting point, in this video starting at 5:00.

Mentioned by Elwood Francis (Gibbons' guitar tech) in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 1:19:59.

The last time we moved on to the Foxx Tone Machines. He got into those heavy, you know, with his tone dog and lap dog and distortion. It went from the Expandoras, the six Expandoras to three Tone Machines.

Billy uses a MXR Carbon Copy as seen in this rig rundown article.

Here is a direct link to the image.

http://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/content/2015-09/Rig-Rundown/10.jpg?1442424106

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/23116-rig-rundown-zz-tops-billy-gibbons-and-dusty-hill-2015

Billy uses a GE-7 in conjunction with a Hendrix Octavio Fuzz.

Here is a direct link to the image.

http://www.premierguitar.com/ext/resources/images/content/2015-09/Rig-Rundown/10.jpg?1442424106

http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/23116-rig-rundown-zz-tops-billy-gibbons-and-dusty-hill-2015

In this interview with, Billy Gibbons talks about his use of the Bixonic Expandora:

"Guitar World: You use six Bixonic Expandora pedals for distortion, which would seem to create a muddy mess. Do you set the levels differently on each one to create the desired sustain while maintaining a cleaner distortion sound?

"You are correct. Combinations of multiple effects are manageable when using a slight edge from each, which avoids the unwanted collision of tones. However, at this point, sometimes the grind of excessive noise becomes its own thing! Experiment...just not with your medication."

Featured on the official ZVEX artist page.

Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top uses the Nano Amp and SHO, among other ZVEX pedals he owns.

Around 22:00 into this Rig Rundown video, Billy Gibbons' pedals can be seen, including his EHX Pitch Fork.

Shown by Elwood Francis (Gibbons' guitar tech) in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 1:20:18.

"Great fuzz box. We're just going to try that out," says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech about the Gnomeratron VTF Guitar Effects Pedal.

"Billy says the Blackstone is all over the new ZZ Top album!" was posted from the Blackstone Mosfet Overdrive facebook page.

Billy uses the Siete Santos, according to his official artist page on Dunlop's website.

Mentioned by Mike Piera of Analog Man on the official Beano Boost product page.

Billy F Gibbons seems to hold his Dallas Rangemaster in high regards, one of his Holy Grails. In 2008 he called to tell me that his new Beano Boost was even a little better, and maybe the old box was best for a museum. We should hear his new Beano Boost on the album they are working on in 2008, Mr. BFG is always at the cutting edge, with the best tones, while revisiting vintage gear and making it fresh again.

"And actually, there’s another range of unexpected surprises to be found from an outfit based in former East Germany, called Okko FX.

“The model I really like is the 42 Boost, I think it’s really cool. We just played near Leipzig and bumped into the guy that builds them early before showtime, as he’s based nearby in between Dresden and Leipzig. We tried the 42 Boost and wound up taking a boxload of his stuff because it was just that good. For all the pedal freaks out there, I know if feels like there’s always a new one around every corner, but those two really are great.”

A detailed gear diagram of Billy Gibbons' 2003 ZZ Top stage setup that traces the signal flow of the equipment in his guitar rig. Varidrive is shown in Loop 5 in Billy's "Memphis Deceiver" Loop Selector.

A custom, higher gain version is featured in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 13:26.

[Gibbons] Here's one, Analog Man. He's making the Sun Face, an excellent sounding pedal and he also makes one called the Sun Lion.

[Mike Piera, Analog Man founder] I think we've made seven or nine Sun Faces for Billy Gibbons, I kinda lost count. And we made some with higher gain NKTs and we put little pictures of a chili pepper on the side so we knew which ones were hot and he liked the hot ones. He does like his spicy food, that's for sure! [laughs] So I put, like, "caliente" on the side and a little chili pepper and so [switches focus to Sun Lion] I think these were built also with the higher gain NKTs in the Sun Face side. Yeah, they are so this one's not gonna clean up quite as much if you roll your guitar and your volume down, it's not gonna get sparkly clean, but when you crank it up you're gonna get a nice, big amount of fuzz, especially for a germanium. This gonna give you a nice amount of fuzz, which is what Billy likes.

Featured on Gibbons' Rainger FX artist page.

In this setup, Gibbons gets a boost and a little extra dirt from a Rainger FX El Distorto, while an MXR JHM2 Jimi Hendrix 70th Anniversary Tribute Series Octavio provides octave-fuzz tones, an Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork alters pitch, and an MXR Carbon Copy adds a touch of analog-delay ambience. Tuning is handled by a Peterson Strobe Classic, and various distortion presets in a Marshall JMP-1 rack unit (not pictured) are accessed via a Tech 21 MIDI Mouse.

A custom, higher gain version is featured in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 13:26.

[Gibbons] Here's one, Analog Man. He's making the Sun Face, an excellent sounding pedal and he also makes one called the Sun Lion.

[Mike Piera, Analog Man founder] I think we've made seven or nine Sun Faces for Billy Gibbons, I kinda lost count. And we made some with higher gain NKTs and we put little pictures of a chili pepper on the side so we knew which ones were hot and he liked the hot ones. He does like his spicy food, that's for sure! [laughs] So I put, like, "caliente" on the side and a little chili pepper and so [switches focus to Sun Lion] I think these were built also with the higher gain NKTs in the Sun Face side. Yeah, they are so this one's not gonna clean up quite as much if you roll your guitar and your volume down, it's not gonna get sparkly clean, but when you crank it up you're gonna get a nice, big amount of fuzz, especially for a germanium. This gonna give you a nice amount of fuzz, which is what Billy likes.

Used on “I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”, as recalled by Gibbons in this December 3, 2009 Guitar World interview (originally printed in the November 1996 issue).

“I’m Bad, I’m Nationwide”

Deguello (1979)

“We wrote this about the great Texas bluesman Joey Long, a Gulf Coast lead-guitar picker who appeared on a great number of wonderful records by the likes of Slim Harpo and Barbara Lynn. He played on Lynn’s great hit record ‘We Got a Good Thing Going,’ which was covered by the Stones, and which was really one of the important recordings that shaped my understanding of where it was I wanted to go with my life. It was good. And so was he.

“Joey loaned me a multistringed mandolin-like instrument from Parral, Mexico, and I put it to good use on ‘Nationwide.’ If you listen closely, you can hear close-miked mandolin-sounding rhythm accompaniment. The lead track was played on a custom-made, half-size, real short-scaled guitar tuned to G. It was actually standard tuning cranked up a minor third, which remained quite playable thanks to the guitar’s short scale.

“The song’s tail end alternates between three distinct effects created by two pedals: an Echoplex doubler and a Maestro octave box alternating every third bar between having the octave up and the octave down. The song also contains some Hohner Clavinet, which was owned by one of our famous Memphis pals, Carlos De Marlos. It’s such an interesting sound that it ignited Dusty’s [Hill, bassist] interest in learning some keyboard skills, and it was he who subsequently handled all the tickling of the ivories.”

Featured in this September 2012 Vintage Guitar article covering the history of the Tremolo Control. One is on prominent display throughout Gibbons' segments in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World, starting at 3:41.

Even now – four decades on – Billy F Gibbons remembers the first time he heard a DeArmond Tremolo Control work its peculiar magic.

“We first heard the effect not knowing what it was,” he says, speaking in the royal plural and summoning up recordings including Muddy Waters’ 1953 Chess cut “Flood” and other early blues and rock-and-roll sides where that tremolo sound shimmered. “It was not until we took a gig in 1972 with Bo Diddley, who told me about it. We were speaking about what his sound was, and I said, ‘DeArmond Tremolo Control – I don’t think I know what that is?’ Bo Diddley planted the seed.”

It’s little wonder that even Gibbons, a renowned purveyor of rare and weird sounds, didn’t know of the effect; in the ’70s, the Tremolo Control was already “vintage” when other now-classic gear was just “used.”

(...) After Bo Diddley enlightened Gibbons to the Tremolo Control, he sought one. Plugging in, however, he was unimpressed. Little did he know, but his Tremolo Control was suffering from a common ailment of the unit after so many years.

“Many users discarded them or left them behind because they claimed they didn’t work,” Gibbon relates. “But in reality it was just the simple fact that the electrolytic liquid had evaporated. We fooled around and fooled around [with ours] and said, ‘Gee whiz, this thing doesn’t seem to be doing anything,’ and that’s when we took it apart and poked around, and an electronics specialist who worked at the recording studio smiled and said, ‘Oh, you fellows don’t know about that: this unit is missing the fluid.’ I said, ‘What went in there?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’ll tell you what will work, and that’s Windex.

“So we thought, how are we going to get it in there? The little canister has a soldered, sealed top; you don’t unscrew it – it was soldered shut. But it does have a rubber gasket. So you need to find a syringe, load it with Windex, stab it in there, and fill it a little less than two-thirds up.

“So this is where the fun begins. We went down to the nearest drug store with a bottle of Windex and threw this contraption on the counter, and we said to the pharmacist, ‘We need some syringes.’ He saw us with that bottle of Windex in our hands and this thing and he said, ‘Either explain yourselves or you’re going to jail.’ But sure enough, we slated a good story and he scratched his head and smiled and said, ‘This is a first for me, but I don’t think we’re breaking any laws. Open her up!’ So we gave it an injection, and all of the sudden, back at the studio we had tremolo, brother!”

Gibbons first used the Tremolo Control on “What’s Up With That” from ZZ Top’s 1994 album Rhythmeen. From there, he never looked back. “We’ve used it on so many delightful excursions from the recording studio into the outer limits of the ether… We gained some measure of notoriety for using this thing exclusively. The mystique is quite entertaining.”

He told his fond tale of discovering the effect while recording a new album, featuring a “stereo” Tremolo Control setup. “We have two of them mounted in a convenient pull-out drawer and we’ve wired them so the guitar signal plugs into the drawer that feeds DeArmond Tremolo No. 1, which is the left signal, and DeArmond Tremolo No. 2, which is the right. The driving spindle is not notched; there are no presets. So if you’re trying to get them to jiggle at the same rate, good luck! It ain’t going to happen. But when you get two Tremolos operating at two different speeds, it really gets wild.”

Analog Alien (AA) includes Billy Gibbons in their "Our Artists" roster.

Quite simply listed:

Billy Gibbons uses our Analog Alien Bucket Seat Pedal

The AA blog post Billy Gibbons of ZZTop expands on the endorsement "Billy heard about our pedals and personally invited us down to his show at the Iridium in Times Square, NYC." including a photo with the AA team at Sam Ash.

"I use these Peterson tuners. Those are for me," says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech about the Peterson StroboStomp2 Pedal Virtual Strobe Tuner.

Orange Amplifiers posts:

"The bax bangeetar pre EQ pedal has revealed itself as a true tone chameleon. It's super versatile." Not our words but the words of Billy Gibbons!

Billy uses the M109 Six Band EQ, according to his official artist page on Dunlop's website.

Shown by Elwood Francis (Gibbons' guitar tech) in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 1:20:18.

Shown by Elwood Francis (Gibbons' guitar tech) in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World at 1:20:18.

Billy uses an Octavio Pedal as seen in this rig rundown article.