Stephen Malkmus

In this photo, Stephen Malkmus is holding his Guild S-100 electric guitar. In an 2014 article from The Current, he talks about it:

What kind of guitar are you playing?

This is a Guild; I think it's called the S-100. This is the same guitar that Kim Thayil from Soundgarden uses, and I was looking for a SG-style guitar, but I just thought I could take it in a more creative direction and get something a little more off the radar.

Do you remember where you got it?

My friend Reuben Cox sold it to me in Los Angeles. He's married to a good friend of mine named Miwa, and Reuben had just started a guitar store in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. He was just kind of getting his feet wet, and Miwa said, like, "You should just buy this."

She kind of really wanted me to buy it, but I did also. It wasn't like I was doing charity work — not in the least — but I wanted to buy it from Reuben. And now, his business is expanded to a point where, you know, he's really successful and is going great. So this reminds me of him and his business and how he's getting his feet.

How long ago did you get it?

Only like four years ago. It's relatively new in my arsenal. I'm known as a Fender player by most people. I don't know how geeky this series is, but it's not that geeky to say there's Fender people and Gibson people, and there's kind of a divide there.

But this guitar kind of bridges the gap in a certain way because it's not purely — well, Guild is kind of Gibson, but not dyed-in-the-wool Gibson, so my Fender side doesn't get offended. "O-Fender-ed"!

What do you like about the tone of it?

It's how you play it. Like any guitar, it can sound good if you play it right. Almost any guitar.

And I'm still learning how to play it with my amp and everything, and how to hit the strings, hard or soft. I like how it is when you don't bash on it too hard. It's kind of nice. But it's hard to remember to be a little light-handed with your right hand when you're playing a concert. You want to dig in. But a lot of great people don't really dig in.

Is that something you've been trying to work on?

Yes. I play with my fingers a lot more, too. You can kind of create more dynamics when you play with your fingers. You can have your guitar quite loud, but you can not hit it as hard.

And of course, with the distortion pedal, you can get all the sustain you need. You don't need to be picking. You can just pluck it a tiny bit and it will ring out forever.

Did you write a lot of the album on this?

No, I write on acoustic. That's just my way. I don't play electric guitars except in concerts or in rehearsal. I'm all totally acoustic when it comes to songwriting. That gives you a more round sound, it enables you to imagine a band a little more, and to sing along with that is easier than with electric guitar.

I mean, you can write songs on electric guitar if you have a practice room with a microphone and you can kind of fantasize, "I'm in a band when I'm doing this!"

But I don't really do that in the songwriting phase; I save the electric guitar for later with the whole group.

"His jazzmaster is an early 60’s with a few changes, and a lot of quirks."

The other main axe is a 70’s hard tail strat.

Malkmus can be seen playing the guitar in several photos.

Malkmus can be seen playing the guitar in this video.

Around 1:10 into the video he talks about the guitar

In this photo wr can see malkmus playing his Orange Retro 50 with a Fender Jazzmaster.

Fun Fact: with the time, malkmus take out the "O" letter of the amp so fans can read "Range" besides "Orange" (a reference to the song "Range Life)

We can see the name of the amp at the bottom right of the movie. But I don't know which jcm 900 exactly is this... ...

Talking about his Slanted and Enchanted-era gear, Stephen Malkmus says "Other than that, I don’t think I had anything else. I had this little Epiphone amp that my friend’s grandfather, or his dad, had had forever. That was the primary amp, other than Scott Kannberg had this solid-state Fender amp, which I would not recommend. Also maybe there was a Twin Reverb lying around. Basic stuff, you know?"

This photo found on Stereogum shows Stephen Malkmus' minimal pedalboard. The pedal on the far left (facing him) is the T-Rex Engineering Replica Delay/Echo Pedal. On the upper right corner of the piece of wood serving as his pedalboard, his last name "Malkmus" can be seen, confirming it is indeed his pedalboard.

Photo is from Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks @ The Village Studios (KCRW) Los Angeles, 8/24/11 (source here).

He has great control and touch with both his hands and his minimal effects, a T-rex Replica delay, and Diamond J-drive, and he likes his guitars set low and easy to play.

"would be a cool springbok puzzle yeah?"

Spotted in group, seen on Malkmus' board

In this photo posted by Malkmus, we can see Earthquaker's Dispatch Master.

In this Tweet posted by Malkmus, the SansAmp GT2 emulator is visible.

A Boss RE-20 can be seen on the right side of Malk's board.

A picture of Malk's board from 2007.

A Dunlop Crybaby can be seen at the end of the chain.

In this KEXP Video at the 7:54 mark you can clearly see Malkmus turning dials on his Grand Orbiter.

In this interview, Stephen Malkmus says "I always remember those DigiTech Whammy pedals. I used to have one of those."

In this interview, Stephen Malkmus says "Slanted and Enchanted was pretty much just a Rat. I had another pedal. I don’t remember who made it."

"Memory moog finally up and cranking-- voice modulation is the key to the kingdom"