Scott Henderson

Oh, I forgot to tell you, the main thing, the coolest thing is that Bruce Forman -- who is one of my favorite jazz guitar players -- he loaned me his hollow-body for the last tune. And it’s a Sonntag that was made for him by Stefan Sonntag. But, it’s one of the most beautiful hollow-bodies I’ve ever heard. It’s just gorgeous sounding.

So, he was kind enough to loan me that guitar for “Chelsea Bridge.” And that’s just a beautiful sounding guitar, man. I had fun playing that thing. What a gorgeous guitar. I’m very tempted to call that guy in Germany and ask him if I could get some kind of deal, if he could make me one too, because I love the sound of Bruce’s other guitar.

He mainly plays an L5, and I love the sound of a Gibson L5. But, this guitar has a single coil, so it has a different kind of thing. And I’m just really attracted to it. Maybe it’s just because I love single coil pickups on my Strat, and the single coil pickups on that hollow-body give it such a beautiful tone. In fact, that might be my favorite tone on the whole record.

"This is the Scott Henderson model and actually the only thing that makes it different from the Classic is that at positions 2 and 4, the tone knobs are bypassed," says Scott Henderson, at 0:30 in this video, talking about his signature Suhr guitar.

On "Thick", I was playing a Fender Strat that John Suhr made for me while he was working at the Fender custom shop. I finally got away from the preamp thing when Custom Audio made the OD-100 head, which I used for the whole record. I improved my home recording scene a lot by building a big box to put the speaker cabinet in. It was made of pressboard with a layer of cork inside and a layer of two-inch cotton. The box lowers the volume a lot, but it gives the tone it's own frequency that isn't completely natural sounding, though it's a fairly subtle thing that you wouldn't notice unless you were comparing it directly with the same cabinet miked up outside of the box. One cool thing about this idea was that I could take the box to the studio sessions with me, and when I wanted to keep my live tracks but fix parts of them at home, my tone stayed the same. If you're playing a loud cabinet and change rooms between sessions, you'll have a difficult if not impossible job of dialing up your original tone.

On the Blues tune, I use the Trombetta Robotone, which is a great pedal because when you pick kind of a -- what do you call it -- medium pressure, or medium force – it sounds like a really nice distortion pedal, but when you pick hard, these kind of overtones come out that almost makes it sound like a trombone.

In this video Steve talks about the EWS SVC at 1:10 saying "you never heard those subtle changes in volume because I'm doing them in small increments."

According to Fulltone's website, Scott uses a Plimsoul pedal.

"And then, if I wanted a high gain solo, I use two or three different ones. I use mainly the Klon Centaur and I use a Maxon SD-9 and a Fulltone PlimSoul. Those are my three favorite distortion pedals." - Guitar.com

Fulltone's website states that Scott uses a Fulldrive2 MOSFET.

Fulltone's website states that Scott uses an OF-2 Octafuzz.

"The Maxon SD-9 is the best distortion pedal EVER made, period. It has the clarity and punch you get from a pedal, while retaining the low bass you get with amp distortion. The SD-9 is one of the rare pedals which sound equally great on both the neck and bridge pickups, whether they're humbucking or single coil. It's been a very important part of my tone for many years."

"And then, if I wanted a high gain solo, I use two or three different ones. I use mainly the Klon Centaur and I use a Maxon SD-9 and a Fulltone PlimSoul. Those are my three favorite distortion pedals." - Guitar.com

Designed in conjunction with jazz fusion and blues guitarist Scott Henderson, the RC Booster SH model improves on the original RC by adding an additional gain switch that gives players access to a whole new level of gain control.

"The Vertex Boost has an extremely transparent sound that I find the most useful for clean blues playing and chords. It has a huge low end and makes the guitar sound big and musical."

"SOLD!!!!!!!!! This Beano Boost is AWESOME!! It's exactly what I'm looking for!

My MXR micro amp is cool but it accents the bass too much when the knob is above 2 o'clock and the mids get thinner. The Beano Boost gives a much more even boost all over the range of the guitar. And the tone is sweet!

I don't wanna bore you but I'll just tell you a quick story of how the Beano Boost changed my life… I've been using the TS-9/Voodoo combo with my three single coil strat, and using the MXR micro for the clean sound. Lately I've been really tempted by my other Strat with a humbucker in the treble position and the Ibanez SD-9/808 mod, which is a beautiful tone… but the SD-9/808 is a little brighter, so when I turn down the treble for that pedal, the micro amp is unusable… anyway, enter the Beano Boost and all problems are solved!! Now I'm using the SD-9/808 for higher gain sounds and the TS-9/808/Silver for fatter rhythm pickup bluesy sounds. The Beano Boost kicked my micro amp AND Voodoo out of my rack!

I'm using the MID range boost - I don't have a use for the treble boost yet but it's nice to have that option for recording."

"I've been using the TS-9/Voodoo combo with my three single coil strat, and using the MXR micro for the clean sound…"

"I've been using the TS-9/Voodoo combo with my three single coil Strat…"

Scott's website states that he uses the ZWEX Fuzz Factory.

"Yeah, with an expression pedal -- so that’s a great pedal. I use a Z.Vex Fuzz Factory for the solo on “Festival of Ghosts,” which is that really wicked solo that makes all the noisy kind of sound. I use that same pedal on the “Mysterious Traveller” solo on the HBC record. That’s a fun pedal. It sort of reacts to how you have your volume control on your guitar set. When you move your guitar volume up and down, it warbles out and makes the weirdest tones." - Guitar.com

Scott's long time favourite is this old chorus pedal, the gear page on his website lists it among his current gear.

The Boss RC-3 Loop Station isn't a true bypass pedal so it's not connected. Scott hooks it up in place of the wah during soundcheck to check his tone in the PA. The black box on the top right contains five 9v batteries which power all the pedals. It has an on/off switch, so no need to unplug pedals when not in use, or take pedals off the board to change batteries. Scott uses a Snark SN-8 "Super Tight" headstock tuner.

According to the gear page on his website Scott uses this headstock tuner.

Scott uses a wet/ dry setup. The amp is dry, and the effects are in a second amp, usually a Fender combo. Scott uses a Suhr Line Out Box which is plugged into an external speaker jack on his amp. The Line Out Box converts the speaker signal to line level, which is sent to the SVC next to the wah, then into the input of a Boss SE-70 multi-FX, and then to the second amp. All SE-70 patches are 100% wet, and the SVC allows Scott to control the wet/dry mix. The Tech 21 MIDI Mouse is used to switch programs on the SE-70.

"I also use a Strymon Lex which is their, sort of, their Leslie simulator. That’s a beautiful pedal. It makes some great sounds and you can rev up the rotor. When you play a sound you can make the rotor go faster and it’s really nice. It gives this great effects." - Henderson about Strymon Lex.

I use mainly the Klon Centaur and I use a Maxon SD-9 and a Fulltone PlimSoul. Those are my three favorite distortion pedals.

Well, let me think about that... What do I use? I use the Ola Chorus a lot. That’s a Strymon pedal. That chorus sounds better than any plugin that I have.

Fishman was kind enough to send me their MIDI guitar pickup. And I used that to make the charts for my play along version of the records. I have a play along version you can buy off my website – where you can take the guitar mix, or the bass mix, or the drum mix, and turn them off and play along or solo the tracks..

Thanks to Fishman and their guitar controller we’re able to get the notes into the computer so that Digital Performer can spit out those charts.

Yeah, the TriplePlay. And it was just infinite help writing those charts – oh, my God.

I enter the guitar analog through a little Pandora that I use for writing. You know, it’s just one of those little Korg boxes that has a bunch of different sounds in it. And it’s fine for writing because I don’t want to burn the tubes out of my amp for composing.

On the photos accompanying this article a Vox Wah is visible on Scott's pedalboard.

On the photos accompanying this article a Boss Volume pedal is visible on Scott's pedalboard.

"I think it's the best boost pedal I've ever heard for blues."