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Mike
"[Mike's] guitars feed a Sony WRR-840 wireless into a Rocktron Rack Interface buffer/splitter. The Interface has a 'Wireless Through' output that [is sent] out in a loop that goes to the effects and back. From the interface, [the signal goes] to an original Dunlop Uni-Vibe, a Dunlop wah pedal with a built-in preamp that provides four different tone selections, an old Boss analog delay and then to an Ernie Ball Stereo Volume pedal set in the 'pan' mode. One side of the pan pedal, which feeds [the] clean amp, goes back to one input of the rack interface, while the signal from the other side of the pan pedal goes to an old, puke green Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer. That signal then also goes back to the rack interface and into the dirty amp. When the pan pedal is all the way back, Mike just gets the clean amp, and when he pushes it all the way forward all he gets is the dirty amp.

"The dirty amp is one of three Marshalls: a 1968 50-watt Marshall plexi or one of two 1969 100-watt Marshall Super Tremolos that have had the tremolo disconnected by Sal Trentino. They're all four-input amps, so [George jumps] the channels to get a little more gain. Those headers power a 4x12 Marshall cabinet.

The clean amp is a Mesa/Boogie Studio PreampVHT G2150 Classic power amp300-watt Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinets."

Stone
"From the guitar, Stone's signal is sent to his pedal board by a Sony WRR-840 wireless. 'We use different pedals to achieve different amounts of distortion and overdrive: a DOD graphic eq pedal that boosts the signal and drives the amps' preamp sections harder, a Boss Hyperfuzz and an old Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamer. Stone uses two amps, so [they] use a Rocktron Rack Interface that feeds the amps two totally separate signals to eliminate any impedance problems.

"Right now (ed. note -- in 1995), Stone is playing through a Matchless H/C-30 head powering a Marshall 1960 100-watt 4x12, and an old brown Fender Deluxe. He uses relatively low-powered amps and drives them hard, so he gets the tone and warmth of the power tubes working. Stone doesn't push them to where they really distort thought - he leaves that to the foot-pedals."

Jeff
"The singal from Jeff's wireless goes immediately to a D.I. box so the house soundman gets a signal, then to a crossover that splits the highs and the lows. The low-end signal gets sent directly to an SWR Grand Prix tube preamp and then to half of a dbx 166 compressor and to a Crest 6001 Power amp that drives three SWR Big Ben 18" speakers.

"The other half is the fun part: The signal gets sent out to the foot-pedals (a SansAmp GT2 Distortion pedal, a Dunlop Tremolo, a Boss CE-2 chorus and a Boss Octaver) and then returns to an Uptown Flash MIDI switcher/mixer which divides the signal and sends it to four preamps. The signal from each preamp then gets sent back to the switcher. This system allows [George] to select whichever preamp [he] want[s] at the press of a button, because Jeff likes to use different tones for different basses and different songs. The first two preamps are Pearce B2P's. They're two-channel units with a lot of eq capability, especially in the mids, which are parametric. One channel is meant to be dirty and one is meant to be clean, but you're able to use one channel at a time or a combine the two of the; Jeff can get a really dirty, distorted sound and combine that with the thickness of a clean sound. Each channel has its own master output, so you can blend clean and dirty in any ratio that you want.

The third preamp is an SWR SM-900 that Jeff can get a couple of clean sounds out of for his fretless. He's also playing a clean more and more with his regular four-string. Finally, there's an Ampeg SVP Pro, which is the only tube preamp that [they] use. It's basically an SVT preamp in a single rackspace that he uses mostly for his upright bass sound.

"The output of the Uptown Flash unit goes to the other half of the dbx 166 unit and out to two Crest 6001 power amps that drive three SWR Goliath II 4x10's."

Ed

• 4x10 Fender Super Reverb
• 1972 100-watt Hiwatt

Original article found in the April 1995 issue of Guitar World which featured "Alive: Mike McCready's Dark Victory"