I had missed this video from Premier Guitar but it is really cool knowing that Billy Gibbons has one of the biggest live tones ever. I remember seeing ZZ Top live in 1994 and was blown way by the huge sound these three guys produced. I was still a guitar newbie and some guy told me that basically Billy Gibbons used Gibson guitars from the 17th century plugged into Bassmans from the medieval era, that is how much the guy is into vintage gear.

Well, this is actually not true, we can see here that Billy Gibbons gets his tone from Marshall JMP-1 preamps (I own one, they are killer) with a digitech EQ in the loop. This goes to power amps and then into a demeter ISO cab which means that no microphone is used! We can see a Boss SE-70 multi-effect unit at some stage but that is all. Maybe some effects are added at the main mixing console? Not super vintage but this goes to show you that it is the hands of the guitarists most of the time…

The rig is shown at around 8 minutes and there are even JMP-1 settings shown at 10:50. The first half of the video is dedicated to Billy gibbons’s guitars and they have some serious attitude. Enjoy.

To finish this mini-series of videos dedicated to the late Gary Moore, here is a clip where he demonstrates how a BOSS DS-1 (see my previous post about this pedal) adds some extra gain to his Marshall. This is a short excerpt of an early 80s UK TV programme named Rock School. This show was about teaching the general public about how rock music was being created, how instruments worked, etc. Pretty neat idea actually. The overall sound of this particular clip is not great since it looks like it was transferred from a VHS tape and the amp was obviously very loud but you get the idea:

Here is another really cool Gary Moore video which has been going around the guitar circles on the net a lot recently. This is a rendition of Red House by Jimi Hendrix and I must say this is probably the best cover of this song that I have heard. Playing in Wembley in 2004, Gary Moore had taken his Stratocaster to the stage, something he had rarely done since the late 80s when he became a Les Paul aficionado. The tone he is getting out of this Strat (which by the way is presumably stock, no fancy pickups) is properly enormous.