"I use a Fernandes, which I've played for 10 years. Their guitar shapes are unique - mine has the thickness of a Les Paul and looks a bit like a hybrid of a Les Paul and an Iceman. I’ve also got a Monterey. Both are heavy like Les Pauls, but they’re not as dark sounding."

According to Mike Cassidy and Pete Skermetta from Fernandes, Kushner plays Ravelle Elite models. They're fitted with Fernandes Sustainer neck pickups and Seymour Duncan bridge units. The neck and body are mahogany and the top is a 5A Carved Canadian piece of maple. Grover tuners are fitted. Dave's newest axe sports an ivory finish, and he also has a custom metallic blue model. These are all individually built for him.

Dave: "I used my Bogner amp [an Ecstasy 101B model. A 100Watt EL34 amp with three channels: clean, crunch and solo sitting on two Bogner straight cabs fitted with Vintage Celestion 30s], and for some rhythm stuff I used a Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier with this modified Marshall Head. And a shitload of pedals. Dunlop wahs: bass wahs, regular wahs, the Dimebag wah, the Rotovibe. Sometimes, I use Dunlop bass wahs because they have a lower frequency sweep, and I’ve also been using the Dime Distortion and Dime CryBaby. Another distortion pedal I used a lot on this record is the Line 6 DM-4, which I like because you can program it for four different effects."

Dave plays the Fernandes Ravelle guitar through an array of effects pedals (see below). All his pedals are run straight into the front of his amps - only a Hughes and Kettner Rotosphere (Leslie rotating cabinet simulator) is used through the effects loop. In the near future, Kushner hopes to use a Ground Control switching system that will allow him to use combinations of his effects with the help of a programmed footswitch.

Info from Total Guitar Magazine, April 2004.

Kushner's Kit [click here for a picture]:

Guitars:

Fernandes Ravelle

Pedal Board:

Boss Chromatic Tuner TU-2; Boss Flanger BF-2; Boss Super Phaser PH-2; Boss Chorus Ensemble CE-5; Boss Digital Delay DD-3; Dunlop Rotovibe pedal; Dunlop Dime Cry Baby wah (rackmount)

Gear in rack:

Line 6 Filter Pro; Dynacord CLS222; Rocktron Hush II CX Noise Reduction System.

Guitar Rig:

Bogner head; Bogner cabinet; Marshall JCM2000 Dual Super Lead; Ernie Ball strings; Dunlop Tortex picks.

Additional pedals:

Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeller; Line 6 DM4 Distortion Modeller; Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeller

Slash's guitar tech Adam Day has given most information about Slash's gear in an interview with Total Guitar Magazine, April 2004:

Slash's main rhythm sound was achieved with a combination of three Marshall heads: his Slash Signature Series model, a regular JCM800, and a 1973 model 1987 four-input non-master volume head. This mix was then run into a Marshall 100Watt cabinet loaded with 25Watt Celestion Greenback speakers. A classic Vox AC-30 valve combo was added for some sonic variation.

Adam: "In the past we've used three or four Marshalls and blended them together to create one voice. However, this time we tried the AC-30 in the mix."

Clean rhythm sounds on the album were created with a 1956 Gibson Les Paul plugged into the Vox, which is also fitted with Celestion Greenbacks. All cabinets were recorded with Shure SM57 mics.

While Slash always takes to the stage with a variety of guitars, his main instrument for Velvet Revolver will be his new Gibson Signature Series Les Paul - a replica of a classic 1959 model (still considered the very best) with an aged tobacco sunburst finish.

The guitar is fitted with a Fishman Power Bridge piezo for an acoustic guitar tone - it has an onboard switch to select the piezo pickup, humbuckers or both. He will also travel with a pair of custom-made BC Rich guitars - a 10-string Bich, set up for six-strings, and his famous Guns N' Roses-era Mockingbird. He will play his Guild Crossroads double neck guitar on stage too - a unique combination of an acoustic and an electric guitar that he helped design. Slash will perform all of his acoustic parts live on this amazing guitar.

Slash's pedals are run through the effects loop of his dirty amp and include an MXR 10-band graphic EQ and a Boss DD-5 digital delay. The latter is kicked in for soloing - the EQ provides a midrange boost to enhance feedback and to boost leads.

The only effect that Slash will operate himself onstage is a custom-made rack-mounted Dunlop Crybaby wah system. This also enables him to run up to four pedals at various locations on the stage. Adam typically handles all effect and amp switching offstage, including a Heil HT-1 voice box.

Slash's Set-Up [click here for a picture]:

Amps:

>>> Check out www.slashmarshall.com for in-depth info!

2x Marshall JCM Slash Signature series Jubilee heads (for dirty tones);
Marshall JCM Slash Signature series Jubilee head (for clean tones);
Marshall JCM Slash Signature series Jubilee head for talkbox;
Marshall JCM Slash Signature series Jubilee head as backup talkbox head;
2x JCM Slash Signature Marshall 4x12 Cabinets

Guitars:

Guild acoustic; BC Rich; Gibson Les Pauls. Ernie Ball strings; Dunlop Tortex picks.

Gear in rack:

Peterson strobe model 590; Cry baby; DBX 166 Compressor; Yamaha SPX90 (discontinued by Yamaha)

Pedals:

Boss Digital Delay; MXR M-108 Ten Band Graphic EQ, Dunlop Heil HT-1 Voice Box.

>>> Also visit the Slash Guitar Page for more info on Slash's gear.

Slash / South Park Dunlop Pick:

European Tour Summer 2005 Tour Pick:

Duff McKagan's main bass is an inexpensive mid-‘80s Fender Jazz Special with Seymour Duncan Hot Stack pickups and Rotosound strings. “Before we started recording I was playing a Music Man bass instead, to get more of a growl,” he says. “It was great live, but when we made the Velvet Revolver record I went back to playing my Fenders.” A longtime devotee of Gallien-Krueger amps, Duff's current tone is based on the classic G-K sound but with a bit more aggressive rasp and bite. In the studio and on the road, he's using a 2001RB head into two G-K RBH 4x10s, an 800RB head into a G-K wx15 for distortion (G-K is designing an 8x10 for touring), and for extra bite, a Marshall JMP guitar head, THD Hot Plate power soak, and a Marshall 1x12 guitar cabinet. “The combination of the Gallien-Krueger bottom and the Marshall growl is perfect for me,” says Duff. “I still own and use the G-K rigs from the Guns N' Roses days. They've never broken down on me.

I evolved from my first amp, which was a GK400RB then I raised that to the 800RB, and now I have a 2001RB." [Note: Daniel Elliott, from Gallien-Krueger describes the 2001 head as a 1080 watt dual mono amp comprised of two 540-watt amps that can be utilized either separate or bridged. There is a separate 50-watt amp powering a tweeter in a bi-amp situation. The cabinet is a 4x10 RBH model fitted with GK speakers and front-ported. Live, Duff will take out three tops, two for actual use and one as backup. In addition, he'll stand in front of four 4x10 RBI I cabs. Elliott describes the rig as brighter and punchier than other bass setups. "It's more efficient. It cuts through without being overbearing"].

He sometimes also goes through an MXR —80 distortion box, and he used a Z-Vex Woolly Mammoth on the tune “Set Me Free” from the Hulk movie soundtrack. “Those are great pedals. On the road with Velvet Revolver I'll probably end up using some delays and stuff, but not a lot. Mostly I go for a straightahead sound. I'm not going to get too trippy.”

McKagan uses Dunlop Tortex picks, straps, and straplocks. “I’ve been using the yellow Tortex pick (.73) forever,” he says. “I’ve tried to use other picks, but, nothing beats the yellow Tortex. As far as the straps go, I’m a tall guy and have always had a tough time finding a strap that was long enough,” says Duff. “The DD strap is perfect—comfortable and long!”

Guitar World's Bass Guitar asked Duff what he thinks of 5-string basses: "Fuck no. Somebody fucked up and put one too many strings on there! (laughs) I’m too old-school when it comes to bass; it’s got to be four strings. Otherwise, (Motown bass legend) James Jamerson would be looking down on me going, “What the fuck are you doing?” I do tune down, though; a third of our record is in dropped D." (*)

Does he ever use active basses? "Nope. I once had a bad experience with one. We were playing a live show for MTV and at the beginning of our first song, “It’s So Easy,” I hit a note and… nothing. The battery was dead. So I threw the bass back to my tech, got my passive Fender Jazz Bass Special and kept on playing." (*)

Bass tech Mike Mayhue showed that Duff’s bass rig hasn’t changed much since the Guns days. Aside from the D-38 DD Straps, the only real difference is that Duff is using the MXR M-80 Bass D.I.

“I’m glad he’s using the M-80,” says Mayhue. “The added tone of the pedal makes his rig sound that much bigger. Plus, the distortion side give a massive push to his sound.” Mayhue says that Duff has never used any effect as much as he uses the M-80. “The pedal is on all the time! I really like the way the M-80 sounds. The clean sound is well rounded and the distortion is very tunable.”

McKagan elaborates: “In the past when I’ve used distortion, the bottom end always went away. With the M-80 I can blend in a really full clean sound with the distorted tone. Plus, I can put the M-80 in front of any amp and get my sound.”

Thanks to tech Mike “McBob” Mayhue for help with McKagan's gear details. (info from Bass Player Magazine, February 2004)

Duff's Stuff [click here for a picture]:

Basses:

Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass; White Fender Precision Special bass.

Amps:

2x Gallien Krueger 800 RB heads (live he will be playing through the 2001 model); GK cabinets.

Matt about the recording process of 'Contraband', and the equipment he used: “We recorded the bigger rock stuff at NRG Studios in the Valley. It’s funny, when Andy Wallace mixed it, he didn’t use a lot of the room. The drums are really tight and in your face. He did some interesting things texturing the drums, but it sounds modern. It still sounds like me. And then we did the one track that’s called ‘You Got No Right,’ which is like a mid-tempo ballad that was recorded in more of a ‘70s room. I wanted a really in-you-face drum sound, and they’re really punchy. For ‘Loving the Alien,’ I did a two-mike setup on the drum kit with some baffles.”

Sorum’s considerable expertise in the studio shows with his careful consideration of snare drums. “I mixed it up with a few different snares. I thought I needed a couple of higher-sounding snares because it brought out the attitude a lot, and really moved the track in a fresher perspective. When it’s all thumpy and padded down, it doesn’t seem to give it much attitude. If you have a little more boink in the snare, you get a little more sizzle out of the track. On a ballad where I want something deeper, like the nice pocket on ‘Dirty Little Thing,’ which sounds like an old STP song, I used the bell brass, just to make it sound honking.”

Serving as a great complement to the thrust of Sorum’s snare work is his hat mastery, which comes through in subtly effective ways throughout the disc. “It’s all about the open hat, isn’t it?” he says. “I used 14” Zildjians – they had a lot of attitude. I love a nice swishy, open hat. For years I played 15s, they were a little deeper and darker sounding, but for some reason the set of 14s that I found, people were like, ‘What’s up with those?’ So I just like playing them, and I left them up the whole album.

“I’ve always felt like I’ve been more finesseful on my cymbals than on my drums. When I play my cymbals, I try to finesse something and play them with some swing. I like the open hats, but I listen to Ian Paice and John Bonahm, they used some great ‘sneaky Petes,’ you know, the ‘tssss tssss.’ I’m like, ‘That’s so cool!’ I kind of do them randomly. If you listen to old rock drummers, they just randomly did them, they weren’t in any order, and he’d just throw them in there, like the and of two, not even a spot where you’d expect it. I think that comes from funk drumming, and Duff McKagan.” (*)

While laying down the drums and bass for the track "Loving The Alien," Matt Sorum learned that legendary rock engineer Eddie Kramer was working in a studio down the hall. Sorum ran into him, and after consulting with Abraham and Williams, he asked Kramer if he would be willing to mic his kilt like he did John Bonham (Led Zeppelin drummer). "I had a little vintage 1963 Ludwig kit," he said of his red sparkle drum set. " I had it baffled off in the corner. Eddie came over and miked it up. That was so cool. Eddie being a legend. I said 'it would be an honor if you'd come over and help me mic this kit. I'm doing one song and I want it to have that big Beatles' compress sound, kind of old school'" Kramer entered the studio and proceeded to put a D30 in front of the kick drum and three Neumann U 47s over the top - left, right, and center. Williams ran the results through an EMI stereo limiter ("...to give it the pinched, sort of ' Ringo' sound...") and a Paltec EQP1A. The result, says Sorum, "...sounded amazing! We ended up going with U 47s and one D30. No other mics at all."

The track with his Ludwig kit was a departure from the norm for Sorum. For the bulk of the tracks for Contraband he used his Pork Pie kit. He explains, " I endorse DW so I played DW for all my touring and I did one track where I used my DWs. But for most of the album I used Pork Pie kit with a Gretsch kick drum - I used a 22-inch and a 24. One kit had sort of an ambient stage in the room. I used it on more of the slower demo songs, it had more air," he concludes. "The Pork Pie has bigger drums, more rock, and I had a whole Gretsch kit sort of underneath a lower ceiling. I used it on a song called 'Illegal Eye.'"(*)

Sorum's Set: [click here for a picture]:

DRUMS: DW
1. 24” x 18” Bass Drum
2. 14” x 5 ½” Brass Snare
3. 13” x 10” Tom
4. 16” x 14” Floor Tom
5. 18” x 16” Floor Tom

CYMBALS: ZILDJIAN
A. 14” A Custom New Beat Hi-Hats
B. 18” A Custom Crash
C. 19” A Custom Projection Crash
D. 22” Rock Ride
E. 19” A Custom Medium Crash
F. 20” A Custom Medium Thin Crash

PERCUSSION: LP
G. Ridge Rider Cowbell

Matt Sorum also uses Remo heads, Zildjian sticks, XL Specialty cases, Levy’s Leather bags, and DW hardware and pedals.

Scott uses Shure Beta 58 Wireless microphones, and Speco ER-370 megaphones.

Producer / Engineer Douglas Grean about Scott's megaphones and vocal effects: "He's kind of an effects addict. Typically in the last few years he's been partial to doubler, medium and long delays and filters. The megaphone is just another way to filter a vocal. It's quick and easy and adds a little distortion at the same time. We actually had 2 megaphones on this record. Each having a different unique sound." (*)

Many thanks go out to Mick Rockster in PA, U.S.A. for these pictures of the differen guitar picks that were used on VR's tours!

Australian Tour 2005:

Japan Tour 2005:

U.K. Tour 2005:

New Year's Eve 2004 - Las Vegas, NV: