Billy Gibbons

At 16:04 in this video it is noted that Billy Gibbons uses Cream T Banger & Mash Pickups in his John Bolin Peeler guitar. Made by Norwegian Thomas Nilsen Billy loves these pickups. They were originally made at Keith Richards request, but Billy loved them and asked Thomas to make him some. Years later Thomas is now making them for sale commercially. https://www.soundaffects.com/accessories-c59/guitar-pickups-c73/banger-mash-humbucker-pickup-set-p14273

Billy has also developed his Cream T "BFG Bangers" and uses those on other guitars.

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.

I understand that there is already his original pearly gates is listed under his gear but this one is a modified version of his custom shop reissue from I believe 2009. At about 6:64 you can see Billy Gibbons’s guitar tech mention and show off a modified version of his custom shop reissue of pearly gates. This guitar has been chambered out and the pickups were replaced Seymour Duncan pearly gate pickups.

Featured on Gibbons' Rainger FX artist page.

"The Samson UR-5Ds, we've used them for twelve years and I don't have a problem with them. I've got a whole bunch of them. We're waiting for the next generation to come out because they say that wireless is going through the big change and everything but they keep putting that off. So until they do, I'll keep using this. The sound is consistent. We're really hung up on being consistent, so it works for us," says Billy Gibbons's guitar tech about the Samson UR-5D Dual UHF Diversity Receiver.

In a 2015 Rig Rundown by Premier Guitar, Billy Gibbons' guitar technician discusses the use of the BigTone Studio Plex MKII amplifier head in ZZ Top's setup.

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.

“There’s a guy in California that’s started making a proper, easy-install replacement for the humbucking pickup. No holes required and no drilling. It’s called A Little Thunder and it’s a contraption that can identify the low notes on the guitar, say the E, A and D strings, and you can dial in either an octave or two octaves below. “It tracks elegantly and without latency. Or at least audible latency, I’m sure if you scoped it out of course, there’d probably be something in it. Basically, this pickup is an intuitive octave splitter that knows when to start and when to stop. It’s a great bit of gear to mess around with!”

According to sE Electronics' website, Gibbons uses the VR1.

In this interview with Premier Guitar, Elwood Francis, Billy Gibbons' guitar tech, discusses his John Bolin built Melody Maker (Mojo Maker) at 13:34 in this video.

Has a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup under that cover.

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.”

Used for the outro of "Cheap Sunglasses", as recalled by Gibbons in this December 3, 2009 Guitar World article (reprinted from an interview in the November 1996 issue).

“Cheap Sunglasses”

Deguello (1979)

“This song was actually written during a trip from the Gulf Coast up to Austin, Texas. A bright spot of creativity flared as we were passing the hamlet of La Grange, and I recited all three verses of ‘Cheap Sunglasses’ within the space of 20 miles. And that’s the way they stayed. Though that may sound simplistic, the lyrics speak for themselves. ‘Simplistic’ is indeed a word which may come to the minds of some.

“The lead track was performed on a fake Fender guitar, which I used for the wiggle stick—there is a little dive bomb in the solo section. I played it through a Marshall Major, a short-lived 200-watt beast, which had one blown tube. Hence the rather bulbous, rotund sound. There’s also a little bit of digital delay for that Bo Diddley impersonation at the tail out, and a Maestro Ring Modulator, which produces the strange tag to each verse. It appears three times, and it’s a pretty funny sound. That is one insane effect put to good use.”

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.

Featured in this June 3, 2019 Instagram post by Wire Instruments.

That would be one very sharp dressed man, wrangling a Wire Instruments DC9! The Reverend Billy F Gibbons shared his words of encouragement to this young builder back in 1981, and this is where those ripples landed in 2019. #thisisyourlife #gratitude #indreams

According to Billy Gibbons's guitar tech several Heil PR-40 mics are used inside the Demeter Iso cab.

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

"@billyfgibbons @zztop with his #blackstar #artisan 15 #TheSoundInYourHead #TBT"

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!

Developed in collaboration with Gibbons. According to a YouTube comment by sE Electronics on the official product video, the microphone's aesthetic "was made to match Billy's rings."

This bling was made to match Billy's rings. ;)

Listed as a user on the official product page.

"The V7, in a word? Perfectamundo!"

Gibbons would later release a signature edition of the V7 with sE Electronics.

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.

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

One is on prominent display throughout Gibbons' segments in Fuzz: The Sound That Revolutionized the World, starting at 3:41. It is also mentioned by Mike Piera of Analog Man on the official Beano Boost product page, noting that Gibbons expressed preference of the Beano over the original.

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.

Used for the guitars on Eliminator, as stated by engineer Terry Manning in this February 15, 2005 ProSoundWeb forum reply.

[Tue, 15 February 2005 09:20]

tenaciousJay wrote on Mon, 14 February 2005 12:05

Terry I wonder if you could comment on the guitar sound in Eliminator. What I always heard it was all Rockman - but was there an amp mixed in as well? And thoughts on the direction of that album as a whole - it certainly was a huge change in sound, even if there were hints of it on earlier albums.

The full story of the making of Eliminator (the politics, the chicannery, the technical aberrations, the high social drama, the exodus, the payback) is one that I cannot tell. Even if I could, there certainly wouldn't be room for it here! It probably won't even make it into "the book" (or the movie). Just don't forget that truth is often stranger than fiction!

However, I will address certain specific musical or technical issues, and I'll begin with your guitar amp question.

THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO ROCKMAN USED ON THIS RECORDING!

Not a little bit, not a tiny bit; NOT ANY. I don't know how these stories get started. Billy may indeed have used Rockman at a later date, after I left the situation, but I did not allow it when I was working with him. He did bring one in to try, but I was not satisfied with the sound, compared to an amplifier.

The amp used, almost exclusively, on Eliminator was a Legend. This was about a 50 watt hybrid unit, employing a tube/valve preamp, and a transistor power amp. This is the amp which has a finished wood case, and a rattan-type cane grill. It has one 12" Celestion speaker. Legend were later bought by, or at least distributed by, Gibson, but they were independent when we started using them. I still have this amp; it is almost new. A couple of years ago I plugged one of the Eliminator guitars into it, just to see...there was the sound!

The guitars were custom built by Dean. Dean were out of Chicago, and were trying to break into the high end (a la Jackson, PRS) market. They were very nice, albeit different, instruments. Subsequently however, they got a contract with Sears to make guitars, so they opted for the big bucks, Korean manufactured, low end market instead. But the ones we used were very nicely made. There were two which we employed. One was somewhat like a cross between a Flying-V and a Moderne shape, very long "ears," and the other was a sort of a warped, pointy Stratocaster-y shape. Both guitars had a single DiMarzio Super Distortion high output pickup, and almost no controls. I don't think there is even a tone control...what would you need one for? They have big, heavy, brass bridge/tail pieces bolted into the body. These guitars were very live, very resonant, and would verge on resonant feedback at all times; they were also very hard to keep in tune because of this. But they were always alive. Billy has the first one mentioned, and he gave me the latter, which I still have.

The guitar was recorded with basically only one setup; one amp (Legend), one speaker (12"), one guitar (Deans, the two were almost exactly the same), one mic (AKG 414B-ULS, I still have it) in one position (about 5" from the cone, placed at a slight angle off axis), one mic pre (the SpectraSonics console). 98% of ALL guitar on this album, whether lead or rhythm was done this way. Any variations were from the player himself, who, remember, did not even have a tone control. That's how good Billy was back then. We did use very briefly a small amp by Ross, but we didn't like it much, and I think only a tiny part or two was kept from this, if any.

The rhythm guitars were done in a precursor-to-Protools style. Short phrases were played, and then double tracked, onto one set of tracks, and then the chord change/next phrase was played on a second set of tracks. This allowed a seamless transition between changes; since the Deans were so close to feedback at all times (acoustically, through the fairly loud JBL monitors), we couldn't even lift the fingers to change chords! Then I would trim the edges of each section by punching in and out to silence at the beginnings and ends of the phrases (somewhat analogous to "trimming the region" today). This method also "eliminated" to a degree the loud harmonic squeaks between chord changes. The punch in/out points, if done exactly perfectly, made for a primitive cross fade of probably 10-20 ms, and ended up sounding very different as rhythm guitar, sort of like a big train rolling down a track, almost out of control; without knowing how it was done, one wouldn't really realise why it was different.

For the leads, as always, there was a lot of punching done.

The bass was mostly played either by Billy or by me, and was either a bass instrument, or a Moog Source (the Source was a Mini Moog [rhymes with 'Vouge'] analogue synth with digitally controlled parameters...I still have this, too). Synth chords were played on a Memory Moog (polyphonic Mini).

Billy sang great, different vocals, as usual, and the harmonies were done either by Jimmy Jamison or by me.

There are a MILLION more things which could be told about this distinctive album, but as mentioned, most of it is probably better left unsaid. But one interesting thing, at least to me, was the recording of "Legs." We had tried it a couple of ways unsuccessfully at Ardent, so I decided to try a new approach. I had a 24 track studio in my attic at home, so I took Billy's lead guitar and vocal home on a 1/2" two track L/R ("samples"). I recut the entire track myself, and then hand flew in Billy's parts onto the track. This meant careful timing of the play button on my MCI 1/2", for each and every phrase, as after a few seconds, they would drift out of sync. I mixed it there through my Soundcraft 1200 console (these were also the mic pre's) onto the MCI 1/2". The multitrack was also the Soundcraft 2" machine, which I really loved. Then I did a totally different version, which became the long "dance mix" later released to clubs, and it is now included in the new box set. Later, I saw a review of this dance version credited, to Jellybean Benitez ...go figure!

Anyway, that's a lot about Eliminator for now. Thanks for your interest!

Terry

Used for bass on Eliminator, as stated by engineer Terry Manning in this February 15, 2005 ProSoundWeb forum reply.

[Tue, 15 February 2005 09:20]

tenaciousJay wrote on Mon, 14 February 2005 12:05

Terry I wonder if you could comment on the guitar sound in Eliminator. What I always heard it was all Rockman - but was there an amp mixed in as well? And thoughts on the direction of that album as a whole - it certainly was a huge change in sound, even if there were hints of it on earlier albums.

The full story of the making of Eliminator (the politics, the chicannery, the technical aberrations, the high social drama, the exodus, the payback) is one that I cannot tell. Even if I could, there certainly wouldn't be room for it here! It probably won't even make it into "the book" (or the movie). Just don't forget that truth is often stranger than fiction!

However, I will address certain specific musical or technical issues, and I'll begin with your guitar amp question.

THERE WAS ABSOLUTELY NO ROCKMAN USED ON THIS RECORDING!

Not a little bit, not a tiny bit; NOT ANY. I don't know how these stories get started. Billy may indeed have used Rockman at a later date, after I left the situation, but I did not allow it when I was working with him. He did bring one in to try, but I was not satisfied with the sound, compared to an amplifier.

The amp used, almost exclusively, on Eliminator was a Legend. This was about a 50 watt hybrid unit, employing a tube/valve preamp, and a transistor power amp. This is the amp which has a finished wood case, and a rattan-type cane grill. It has one 12" Celestion speaker. Legend were later bought by, or at least distributed by, Gibson, but they were independent when we started using them. I still have this amp; it is almost new. A couple of years ago I plugged one of the Eliminator guitars into it, just to see...there was the sound!

The guitars were custom built by Dean. Dean were out of Chicago, and were trying to break into the high end (a la Jackson, PRS) market. They were very nice, albeit different, instruments. Subsequently however, they got a contract with Sears to make guitars, so they opted for the big bucks, Korean manufactured, low end market instead. But the ones we used were very nicely made. There were two which we employed. One was somewhat like a cross between a Flying-V and a Moderne shape, very long "ears," and the other was a sort of a warped, pointy Stratocaster-y shape. Both guitars had a single DiMarzio Super Distortion high output pickup, and almost no controls. I don't think there is even a tone control...what would you need one for? They have big, heavy, brass bridge/tail pieces bolted into the body. These guitars were very live, very resonant, and would verge on resonant feedback at all times; they were also very hard to keep in tune because of this. But they were always alive. Billy has the first one mentioned, and he gave me the latter, which I still have.

The guitar was recorded with basically only one setup; one amp (Legend), one speaker (12"), one guitar (Deans, the two were almost exactly the same), one mic (AKG 414B-ULS, I still have it) in one position (about 5" from the cone, placed at a slight angle off axis), one mic pre (the SpectraSonics console). 98% of ALL guitar on this album, whether lead or rhythm was done this way. Any variations were from the player himself, who, remember, did not even have a tone control. That's how good Billy was back then. We did use very briefly a small amp by Ross, but we didn't like it much, and I think only a tiny part or two was kept from this, if any.

The rhythm guitars were done in a precursor-to-Protools style. Short phrases were played, and then double tracked, onto one set of tracks, and then the chord change/next phrase was played on a second set of tracks. This allowed a seamless transition between changes; since the Deans were so close to feedback at all times (acoustically, through the fairly loud JBL monitors), we couldn't even lift the fingers to change chords! Then I would trim the edges of each section by punching in and out to silence at the beginnings and ends of the phrases (somewhat analogous to "trimming the region" today). This method also "eliminated" to a degree the loud harmonic squeaks between chord changes. The punch in/out points, if done exactly perfectly, made for a primitive cross fade of probably 10-20 ms, and ended up sounding very different as rhythm guitar, sort of like a big train rolling down a track, almost out of control; without knowing how it was done, one wouldn't really realise why it was different.

For the leads, as always, there was a lot of punching done.

The bass was mostly played either by Billy or by me, and was either a bass instrument, or a Moog Source (the Source was a Mini Moog [rhymes with 'Vouge'] analogue synth with digitally controlled parameters...I still have this, too). Synth chords were played on a Memory Moog (polyphonic Mini).

Billy sang great, different vocals, as usual, and the harmonies were done either by Jimmy Jamison or by me.

There are a MILLION more things which could be told about this distinctive album, but as mentioned, most of it is probably better left unsaid. But one interesting thing, at least to me, was the recording of "Legs." We had tried it a couple of ways unsuccessfully at Ardent, so I decided to try a new approach. I had a 24 track studio in my attic at home, so I took Billy's lead guitar and vocal home on a 1/2" two track L/R ("samples"). I recut the entire track myself, and then hand flew in Billy's parts onto the track. This meant careful timing of the play button on my MCI 1/2", for each and every phrase, as after a few seconds, they would drift out of sync. I mixed it there through my Soundcraft 1200 console (these were also the mic pre's) onto the MCI 1/2". The multitrack was also the Soundcraft 2" machine, which I really loved. Then I did a totally different version, which became the long "dance mix" later released to clubs, and it is now included in the new box set. Later, I saw a review of this dance version credited, to Jellybean Benitez ...go figure!

Anyway, that's a lot about Eliminator for now. Thanks for your interest!

Terry

The story of Billy Gibbons' "Mr Deadwood" guitar can be read on Vuorensaku's website here.

On the official Vuorensaku Guitars site, Billy Gibbons' guitar tech, Elwood Francis, is quoted as saying:

He did take it with him on his bus and the last I saw it, it had a couple of his stickers on it. So he digs it if he’s decorating it.

This guitar can also be seen in this video of ZZ Top performing Jailhouse Rock in 2016.