Chris Cornell

Chris Cornell is seen playing a Taylor Acoustic Guitar 114 during his performance of "Burden in My Hand" at the Santander Performing Arts Center on November 22, 2013. The performance is documented in a YouTube video uploaded by Jim Powers.

Featured in this August 28, 2017 Premier Guitar tribute article by Caroline Guitar Company founder Philippe Herndon.

These are two of the pedals we made for Chris Cornell in May 2014.

I’ll always remember the guys in the office cracking up when I answered the phone—them overhearing a conversation devolve into regular utterances of “oh hey,” “oh wow,” and “thank you,” and then arrive at “Well, we would be honored to make something for Mr. Cornell” as if he was going to arrive wearing a top hat and monocle for a fitting. His tech Stephen Ferrara-Grand reached out to us and raved about the Cannonball pedals we’d made for Vintage King that Chris had used in the studio, and said that Chris wanted two more pedals with that same kind of raw, industrial look to be delivered that week, before Soundgarden went on tour.

I was uncomfortable delivering something we'd been making exclusively for a retailer. Keeping a promise of exclusivity is something I take seriously, even when it inconveniences our business or gets in the way of making a customer happy. That said, they were out of stock and not due for a restock in time for the tour. I instead promised we'd make something he would like just as much, if not more. I immediately drilled out two enclosures, then left to buy some Hammered gray spray paint from the nearest Ace Hardware. I went back home, rigged up a metal coat hanger to a planter hook, and sprayed the enclosures on my front porch. After taking the time to let them dry enough to be handled, I baked them in a repurposed toaster oven I'd bought from Goodwill for $3 with “No Food!" sharpied boldly onto the door. Fun fact, DIY kids: Once you use a toaster oven to bake enclosures, you will not want to put English muffins in there.

The next day, we wired the pedals with a voltage sag circuit we'd been experimenting with, tested them repeatedly, and labeled them with an old hand-held Dymo labeler that used to be in my mother's ceramic tile workshop. I remember how we were so fearless and haphazard and excited to get this done that I had no backup plan to propose if he didn't like them. I sent Stephen this very pic, and held my breath for the go-ahead. By the end of the day, we'd been paid, given a shipping address for FedEx, and away they went.

(…) Since his death, I've seen photos people have sent me from the last Soundgarden shows where one of these pedals was visible, still on his board. May we appreciate all he shared with us during his time here. We were honored to play a tiny part in it.

Stephen Ferrara: “They’ve made quite a few of these, but this is the five-knob version. I’m actually looking to find a few more of those. Chris’s main sound is coming from the amplifiers, and then when he wants to kick in some more gain and make it a bit heavier, he uses this.”

Soundgarden's last show (EVER :() in Detroit, MI @ the Fox Theater on 05/17/17 This is the guitar Chris use's while playing, 'Spoonman.'

In the Soundgarden subreddit (link here), a picture of Chris was posted in which he plays this guitar. Circa 1994.

Chris can be seen using a red ES-335 (not his signature one) during Rusty Cage at 24:34 and throughout the rest of the song.

Guitarworld.com said this about the guitars:

The first model is an ES 335 with Lollar Tron pickups and a bigsby in army green, and the second is an ES 335 with Lollar Tron pickups in flat black. Both models were made with brushed nickel hardware and Grover brushed nickel machine heads and tuners.

In the Premier Guitar Rig Rundown video, Chris Cornell is shown using Dunlop Max Grip Nylon 0.60mm Guitar Picks for both acoustic and electric performances.

You can see it clearly at the 0:32 timestamp

Chris Cornell used Neumann U87 condenser microphones for studio recording. At least it was so in the Superunknown Soundgarden album in 1994.

It was revealed that Michael Beinhorn, a producer who worked on the production of the 4th album of the band, including quirky details like the voice of Chris was so intense and powerful that he could burn 5 Neumann U87 microphones with or her own voice!

** Other sources: ** https://www.iheart.com/content/2019-04-16-chris-cornells-voice-was-so-powerful-he-would-often-break-microphones/ https://metalwani.com/2019/04/soundgarden-producer-on-chris-cornell-his-voice-was-so-powerful-he-would-often-break-microphones.html

Stephen Ferrara (Chris Cornell's guitar tech): “ We use this on Chris’s Songbook tours, too, as well as the Memory Man. For the song Rowing, one has a specific loop that’s a little bit longer, and the other one’s is slightly shorter. So, we’ve got vocal loops right now.”

Chris and Kim both used this amp on ultramega Ok and Louder than Love.

"He runs two pedalboards, one for acoustic and one for electric. The acoustic board consists of an Ernie Ball volume pedal, Boss FRV-1 reverb, TU-2 tuner and a Radial Tonebone PZ-Pre acoustic preamp. Electric-wise, there’s a Menatone King of the Britains, Electro-Harmonix HOG, Digitech Jamman, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and MXR 10-Band Graphic EQ, all powered by a Dunlop DC Brick. It’s an impressive selection and one that ensures Cornell’s acoustic shows are so much more than just, well, acoustic."

In this Rig Rundown, Chris' pedalboard has a covered up Radial SGI 44, which takes the output of the wireless receiver, and run the signal to his pedalboard and back. While difficult to tell, you can see the bottom labels coloured (In order) white, black, clear, clear, which is the only Radial box in that configuration.

Chris Cornell uses the Lollar Imperial Humbucker Pickup in his red ES-335, as demonstrated in the Premier Guitar Rig Rundown with Soundgarden's Kim Thayil and Ben Shepherd.

In the video for 'Blow up the outside world' (ive included the youtube link as proof) Chris is playing a sweet Supro Dual-Tone in Arctic White colour. I have one of these. His looks exactly like mine (which is a 58) So i'm thinking he is playing either a 1958 or 59 Supro. (Bowie's was a 59 or 60 i believe).

He used this Marshall blended with a Mesa boogie for the superunkown tone.

He runs two pedalboards, one for acoustic and one for electric. The acoustic board consists of an Ernie Ball volume pedal, Boss FRV-1 reverb, TU-2 tuner and a Radial Tonebone PZ-Pre acoustic preamp. Electric-wise, there’s a Menatone King of the Britains, Electro-Harmonix HOG, Digitech Jamman, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and MXR 10-Band Graphic EQ, all powered by a Dunlop DC Brick. It’s an impressive selection and one that ensures Cornell’s acoustic shows are so much more than just, well, acoustic.

"He runs two pedalboards, one for acoustic and one for electric. The acoustic board consists of an Ernie Ball volume pedal, Boss FRV-1 reverb, TU-2 tuner and a Radial Tonebone PZ-Pre acoustic preamp. Electric-wise, there’s a Menatone King of the Britains, Electro-Harmonix HOG, Digitech Jamman, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and MXR 10-Band Graphic EQ, all powered by a Dunlop DC Brick. It’s an impressive selection and one that ensures Cornell’s acoustic shows are so much more than just, well, acoustic."

Chris Cornell used a Taylor 414ce acoustic-electric guitar during his performance of "Burden in My Hand" at the Santander Performing Arts Center on November 22, 2013. This performance, captured in a video by Jim Powers, showcases Cornell playing the song in its unique tuning, which he reserved exclusively for this guitar.

As seen in the source picture, the Boss TU-3 is on his pedalboard of this article by Premier Guitar about his and his band's gear

Beinhorn says Chris used it to record BHS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng4f_fj9Lfc

"He runs two pedalboards, one for acoustic and one for electric. The acoustic board consists of an Ernie Ball volume pedal, Boss FRV-1 reverb, TU-2 tuner and a Radial Tonebone PZ-Pre acoustic preamp. Electric-wise, there’s a Menatone King of the Britains, Electro-Harmonix HOG, Digitech Jamman, Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man and MXR 10-Band Graphic EQ, all powered by a Dunlop DC Brick. It’s an impressive selection and one that ensures Cornell’s acoustic shows are so much more than just, well, acoustic."

In this Rig Rundown, Chris' pedalboard shows the Radial JR5, a switcher made for use with the JX44. The JX44 contains 2 effects loops, for which one is used with his SGI 44.

Chris has a JR-5 Remote on the top-left of his pedalboard, to control his JX-44 unit. The labels read from left to right: Savage, Savage, Mute, FTK-37, and blank.

In the year 2006, Chris Cornell recorded "You Know my Name" (Theme of the film James Bond 007 - Casino Royale) in a studio in Los Angeles using a condenser microphone Neumann U47

Source: https://www.mi6-hq.com/sections/articles/interview_david_arnold_cr3_ykmn

In a live performance at Pinkpop 2003, as seen in a YouTube video by krijnoor, Chris Cornell plays a Gretsch G3303 Historic Series guitar with a cutaway.

In this Youtube Video at 1:45 you can clearlsy see Chris playing Gibson J-45 during recording session of "You never knew my mind" - words by Johnny Cash and song made by Chris Cornell.

can be seen with Mellotron M4000D in this post.

In the YouTube video titled "CHRIS CORNELL Billie Jean LIVE," Chris Cornell plays the Martin 000C-16RGTE Aura for the duration of the song "Billie Jean." At the 3:46 mark, the make of the guitar is clearly visible from the soundhole, confirming the specific model used.