John Frusciante

"What microphones did you use to record your guitars?

I use a Shure SM57 positioned on axis a couple of inches from the cone. On some tracks the engineer, Ryan Hewitt, added a Royer R-121 ribbon mic, positioned about 15 feet away, in order to capture some of the room sound. We used a Telefunken Ela M 250 tube condenser mic on the acoustic guitars."

In a Total Guitar interview from May 2005, Frusciante talks about recording his ninth solo album Curtains. Total Guitar comments that the performances on Curtains have an intimate quality, likely due to them being recorded in John Frusciante's living room. Frusciante responds, "Yeah. It was just me sitting on a pillow on my living room floor with my back leaning against the couch. There was a mic [a KM-54] on the guitar and another mic [Telefunken 250] for vocals.I would just go back and forth between my living room and the library, which is now the control room, and listen to what I'd done. Sometimes [engineer] Ryan Hewitt and I would make an edit between two different takes."

The KM-54 refers to the Neumann KM-54 Tube Microphone, which as mentioned above was used to record Frusciante's guitar sound.

In an interview, Frusciante talks about how songs for his solo album Curtains were recorded in his living room, with a Telefunken 250 mic capturing his vocals. (original source: Total Guitar magazine, May 2005 issue)

"What microphones did you use to record your guitars?

I use a Shure SM57 positioned on axis a couple of inches from the cone. On some tracks the engineer, Ryan Hewitt, added a Royer R-121 ribbon mic, positioned about 15 feet away, in order to capture some of the room sound. We used a Telefunken Ela M 250 tube condenser mic on the acoustic guitars."

John Frusciante is using Audix OM7 Microphone for your backing-vocal, in live performance in 2007. You can see it in minute 9:22 of the video.

Used for the acoustic guitars on Stadium Arcadium, as stated by Frusciante in this Guitar Player article.

What microphones did you use to record your guitars?

I use a Shure SM57 positioned on axis a couple of inches from the cone. On some tracks the engineer, Ryan Hewitt, added a Royer R-121 ribbon mic, positioned about 15 feet away, in order to capture some of the room sound. We used a Telefunken Ela M 250 tube condenser mic on the acoustic guitars

Featured in this Reverb.com listing.

This legendary Sony C-37A mic came from the world famous Cherokee Studios (Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, Ella Fitzgerald, Judy Garland, Gina N Roses, Van Halen, Tom Petty) before it's closing. I purchased this from John Frusciante of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. I've recorded with it and it's wonderful. I fell in love with the production of Daniel Lanois (U2 Joshua Tree) and this is his go to mic. I have 2 of them!

John Frusciante has been using the Shure BLX14 BLX Wireless Guitar System since his return to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2022 during the Unlimited Love era. This equipment choice is evident in live photos from various tours since 1998, where he is consistently seen without traditional guitar cables, opting instead for the practicality and comfort of different wireless setups. The transmitter of this system operates solely on batteries. The proof of this can be seen in the image available on Equipboard.