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.