Kerry King

Kerry King shows a few of his Custom Graphic .73 Tortex Triangle Picks at 12:05 in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar. “People freak out that I use this big of a pick. The thing is like a bass pick, but essentially this is a 6 sided pick. And I can, as long as I don’t drop it, I can flip from chord to chord. If I have a spot that’s hitching me up, and it’s catching, and it’s making the fluidity not be that awesome, flip it that way and you have 3 more. It’s just completely versatile for me shredding picks like I do.”

Kerry King describes how he uses the Marshall Mode Four Cabs in this Premier Guitar Rig Rundown. At 8:52, he says “If I’m running 3 heads and I have 6 cabinets, I don’t have one head running these two, one head running these two, and one head running these two. Because then you have 3 distinctly different sounds as you walk across them and you’ll notice. So the way I set them up, if I have 6 cabinets, one head goes to 1 and 4, another one goes to 2 and 5, another one goes to 3 and 6. So you just get a big wash of the entire sound. You don’t stand in front of one and hit a spot on stage you don’t like. It’s really cool. I don’t think a lot of people do that, but I just did it naturally because it seemed right to me.”

Blood Crackle finish, Reverse Bananna Headstock, EMG 81/85 pickups, Kahler tremolo, neck-thru construction. Kerry Played these guitars during the period of time when bc rich wasn't making guitars.

Kerry playing on a B.C. Rich Mockingbird

During an interview w/ Premier Guitar for their Rig Rundown series an MXR ZW44 Berzerker Overdrive can be seen [@ 11:09] on Kerry Kings pedal board.

Kerry can be seen here playing on a Dean ML 79.

They were used on all guitars to record Reign in Blood, both him and Jeff. Those pickups were also creme-color-only, in those days, and you can see photos of that too.

He used this Gibson Flying V in 1981

Kerry King is pictured with the ESP Custom Kerry King Explorer in promotional photos from around 1990, as seen on Laweekly.

Kerry King states that he uses Dunlop .009-.042 strings a 5:42 in this Rig Rundown from Premier Guitar. “All my D# tuning is 009–.042”

According to this Forum post: "Kerry King approached Marshall about a sig JCM800 around the time some of the ones like the ZW and others were coming out. Marshall apparently did not see the value in a Kerry sig at the time. Kerry ended up with with Tony at Krank (I believe based on some input from Dimebag) and Tony built out 3 of these prototypes. Kerry kept #1 and took #2 and 3 out on tour in 2005/2006. It seems Marshall became aware that Kerry did in fact find another amp company to work with and caved. They then used the concept of what Kerry came up with with Krank and developed what became the JCM800 KK."

Kerry King’s Signature Marshall JCM-800 Amps are shown at 7:35 in this video interview. He describes the amps saying “The one that this is based on is called the beast and I had it sent to Marshall to find out what was so great about it and see if anyone modded it over the years before I got it. The reason that head was so good, Marshall has parameters, and every transistor, everything has to be within this range. My entire head, everything was straight up. It was the perfect head. It’s how it was supposed to be and they don’t all come out like that, but that was the perfect one and they based this off of that.

He continues “It’s got the beast button which engages the assault mode and the assault mode’s got a built in gate because it’s basically taking my 10 band equalizer with a decimal boost and putting it in the head. And you can’t change the parameter, but it’s the parameter that I always had set. And you can add more or less of it. It’s really cool. I could go anywhere in the world and if this rig didn't show up, I don’t care, I’ll play through a cable if I have to. But if I have one of those heads, you wouldn’t notice any difference in my sound because I go directly into that.”

Red Monkey has been building custom guitar straps for Kerry King for years.

Kerry here holding a Marshall JCM 800 2203 head.

Picture of Kerry using a Fender Champ II (bottom left corner) in the 80s in what looks like a backstage area.

Kerry King's gear includes an MXR Smart Gate Noise Gate, according to Dunlop's website.

Kerry King uses his signature Dunlop strings, according to Dunlop's website.

In a video by theraptors79, Kerry King receives a Dean Dime Razorback V from Dimebag's family and Dean Guitars.

Kerry King uses an MXR KFK, according to Dunlop's website.

Jamesound mentions in this blurb that Kerry uses a MXR Cry Baby KFK.

According to Kerry, he switches to this pickup for the intro to the song "Dead Skin Mask"

From the manual of the MG10kk, page 2: "During the development of the JCM800 2203KK,Kerry's signature Marshall Head, he often mentioned his use of the MG10CD, one always on tour with him and one always kept at home. With this in mind I decided that we would extend our thanks and produce an MG10KK, a special edition MG10CD echoing the design of the 2203KK."

In this video, at 3:25, Kerry king Guitar Tech Guitar Tech Anders Aho shows us Tech 21 SansAmp GT2.

"He gets his aggressive crunch, overdrive and sick lead tones from the EMG 81, EMG 85 and the PA2 Gain Boost Switch that makes up his signature EMG KFK Set."

A photo from the 1980s shows Kerry King using a Boss GE-7 Graphic Equalizer, possibly a GE-6, in his setup.

During an interview w/ Premier Guitar for their Rig Rundown series an MXR Flanger can be seen [@ 11:10] on Kerry Kings pedal board.

Kerry King states that he uses Dunlop .010–.046 strings at 5:45 in this video interview from Premier Guitar. “My C# is .010–.046.”

At 1:56 of this "Rig Rundown" Kerry shows this guitar where he says it is one of his main guitars! Premier Guitar writes in this accompanying article that this is a "2nd generation B.C. Rich Kerry King V loaded with his signature EMG KFK 85 in the bridge and a Sustainiac in the neck (which he uses on the intro to “Dead Skin Mask”) along with a Kahler 2315 tre."

Kerry King is shown using a B.C. Rich Bich in his live rig, as evidenced by the image from Guitareuromedia.

In a user-uploaded photo on Guitareuromedia, Kerry King is shown using the Marshall 1960BV guitar amplifier cabinet.