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8/9/2019 Dweezil Zappa http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dweezil-zappa 1/27 Dweezil Zappa All Things Dweezil Dweezil's Gear Guitar Rig !!""##$$%%&& ((##)) Every guitarist strives to create a tone that is synonymous with their playing style. My guitar sound and style of playing has evolved over a long period of time. I have used many different sonic tools to make music since I first started playing. The earliest sounds I made were on a Fender Music Master that was given to me by my dad at age 6. I plugged it into one of his spare Pignose amps. Dweezil Zappa Tour Dates  ZPZ  Dweezilla  The  Playgroun ! Log in  " Sign up itar Rig - Dweezil Zappa http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/pages/gu f 27 10/21/14 1:

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Dweezil Zappa All Things Dweezil Dweezil's Gear Guitar Rig

!!""##$$%%&& ((##))

Every guitarist strives to create a tone that is synonymous with their playing style.

My guitar sound and style of playing has evolved over a long period of time. I have used many

different sonic tools to make music since I first started playing.

The earliest sounds I made were on a Fender Music Master that was given to me by my dad at

age 6. I plugged it into one of his spare Pignose amps.

Dweezil

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I started playing through Frank's Acoustic amps that he used on stage in the early 80's. That is

 what I used on the recording sessions for the single "My Mother Is A Space Cadet"

Next I got my green Charvel and played through Carvin X100B amps, also from what Frank was

using on stage in the early 80's. I used that amp and an Ibanez UE 405 for the "Havin' A Bad Day"

album. I remember that the delay in the Ibanez was main thing I used and it was mainly for the

song "Electric Hoedown". I used this set up in mono.

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 After that I started collecting a few more guitars. I had some more Charvels and Fenders

mainly. Even though I really liked them I didn't play Gibsons at all in those days.

Towards the end of 1986 I switched to Mesa Boogie amps.

I used those with a variety of rack effects like the Yamaha SPX 90, and TC Electronic 2290, and

Eventide H3000 in a stereo set up. A little later I also used a Roland GP-8. Slightly off topic, my

Dad liked the sound of many of my presets on the GP-8 so I went to Guitar Center and bought

him one. I copied all of my presets into it and he used it extensively on his 1988 tour. The clean

sound that you hear him soloing with is him playing his blonde Performance Guitar through the

GP-8.

 

I had some other pedals as well at that time but it was nothing out of the ordinary, some

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mine since his broke. I should see if he's done with it...

 Anyway, that is what I used when I made the 1988 "MY Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama" Album.

The stereo guitar can be heard on the intro and outro to "Your Money Or Your Life" and the solo

on "Before I get Old."

 The next phase of guitars and gear came around during the sessions for "Confessions..."

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I was still using Mesa Boogie amps and some rack effects in stereo with a Bradshaw switching

system. By this time I was using a Steinberger guitar with a trans-trem as my main guitar. It's

all over that album. The Madonna signed Charvel was used a lot as well as a sea foam green

Fender Strat. The mixed record is a lot brighter than my actual sounds were in the room.

 Next came "Shampoohorn."

 Around that time my rig changed a lot. I started using Peavey 5150s and Classic 100s. At one

stage the rig consisted of three 4X12s powered by 3 different amps, creating a stereo outside,

dry center array. I even had Fender Bassman as a center channel at one point. I used a lot of the

same rack effects and a few pedals too including an old 60s Octavia and Fuzz Face. The main

guitar I played at that time was a Purple Ernie Ball Van Halen model guitar. I also played a

champagne colored Fender Strat and a turquoise Fender Strat that later went through a

transmogrification and became the vintage cream colored one seen in the 2006 Zappa Plays

Zappa DVD. I also played my chartreuse sparkle Baritone guitar on that album on a few tunes,

most notable "Did I Mention It Was Huge?". That guitar is visible on the far right with the black strap.

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 Around that time I started recording the basic tracks for the majority of the project that is still

in progress called "What The Hell Was I Thinking?" I also wrote and recorded the theme music

for the EMMY winning FOX TV series "The Ben Stiller Show."

 Subsequent touring for the "Shampoohorn" record saw me using an original mid 80's Kramer

that was painted green but later was covered in faux cow hide material by Performance Guitar.

That guitar had a sustainer in it. It became my main touring guitar for a while. I did use it on

"Shamppohorn" and many other studio projects to follow. I also used a custom made Moserfretless guitar with a Les Paul junior body and a Fender strat style fretless neck.

 The amp and effects rig went back to stereo for a while but my taste in guitars changed a bit. I

started playing a cream colored 60s SG and I also played an old sunburst Fender Telecaster

that has a signature from Albert Lee on the back. It was already there when I bought it. (An

interesting connection to him comes later.)

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 I did also utilize both of my blue and orange custom designed Performance Guitar DZ models.

The orange one had a 3 band parametric in it which was later removed and put into the

Performance Guitar Jumbo Foot Pedal.

I've used extensively on stage and in the studio since 2010. Another guitar I used a lot at that

time was my gold sparkle Ibanez Iceman. It was given to me by a friend who found it in the

closet of a house he had recently moved into. Originally black, I had it painted gold sparkle by

Dan Lawrence. That guitar is most notably featured on the song "Badass." Dan did a lot of the arton my guitars going back to the Charvel/Jackson days. The watermelon guitar and the Madonna

guitar were a few of the earliest graphic guitars he did for me. While at Moser he painted The

Dr. Seuss and Where The Wild Things Are guitars.

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He also painted the "Sheik Yer Bouti Guitar" I played on Zappa's Universe DVD.

 

 After "Music For Pets" I designed an amp with Peavey called "Wiggy."

This became my main amp for a while. It was solid state with an interesting low mid frequencygraphic eq circuit. Tonally it was very reminiscent of the Acoustic amp Frank used in the mid

70's alongside his Marshall. The Wiggy is what I used when I recorded with Lisa Loeb on "Cake

 And Pie." At that time my main guitar became an Ernie Ball Albert Lee model. I didn't realize the

subliminal effect of his signature on my tele until the time I started playing his signature

model EB! He also played a very memorable solo on "What The Hell Was I Thinking?"

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that I used on the entire 2006 Zappa Plays Zappa tour.

 That rig included 2 Cornford heads and a Blankenship Leeds head going into 2 Cornford 4X12s.

The effects were TC 2290, Eventide Orville and a variety of stomp boxes. The one I used the most

 was a Tech 21 XXL. It provided a slightly softer Fuzz Face style sound and attack and it's mostnotably heard on the 2nd half of the solo in Inca Roads from the ZPZ DVD. That rig morphed

throughout 2006 and 2007 and eventually included a Fender Cybertwin along with the

Cornfords and the Blankenship. I was still chasing after the best recreation of my dad's classic

tones. Up until that point I had not been using any of his actual gear to recreate the sounds.

 By 2008 I made more radical changes to my set up. I started using the FUCHS triple overdrive

supreme heads along with FUCHS 4X12 cabs and a traditional Fender Twin in the center.

 Pictured here, a version with the Cyber Twin in the center.

There were 2 giant racks that I called the Twin Towers. In them I housed some vintage and

modern effects. The most modern were the Digitech GSP1101s. I had 3 of them. They had amp

modeling and great effects in them. For an analog rig I had some ridiculous routing flexibility inthe towers. I was using a Switchblade to route effects. Many different pedals including some

Butler Tube overdrives, some Fuchs boost pedals and a variety of other boutique items. The

available tones multiplied exponentially.

 There were 3 main effects that I used that my father used to use to get some amazing signature

tones. First, the MicMix Dynaflangers (Shut Up An Play Yer Guitar tone), 2nd, Oberheim VCF (for

Ship Ahoy and envelope), and 3rd, the Systech Harmonic Energizer (Pojama People.) Those

effects and many more pedals were available so I could blend amps and morph effects. This rig

 was by far the most expensive rig I ever had built and most complex of any I had ever put

together. It sounded great but it was not very reliable. Over time it did not travel well and was very expensive to ship around the world.

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Crazy view of the wiring in the back!

 View Full Size 2008 Diagram(PDF)

 By 2009 I had decided to downsize out of fiscal necessity but I did not want to give up flexibility

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Not only did the rig get smaller and more easily transportable, it became way more flexible and

easier to use and program. The core tones and FZ tones I could recreate became more reliableand more detailed. I made a rig utilizing 2 Fractal Ultras and multiple effects pedals. I included

the FZ effects like the Dyna Flanger and the Oberheim VCF and Systech. This rig had a larger

pedal board than previous rigs but took up far less backline stage real estate.

 

 View Full Size 2010 Diagram(PDF)

 

Back to the guitars again, the main guitar since forming Zappa Plays Zappa has been my walnut

Gibson SG. I've played it at every single Zappa Plays Zappa concert I performed up until the FZ

"Roxy" replica was made by Gibson in 2013. The walnut SG was a real workhorse and I

absolutely love that guitar. It is the one guitar that helped me transform my playing the most

and I would hate to part with it. It has been slightly modified since the 2006 tour to include

push pull tone knobs. The bottom tone splits the coil of the brigde pick up and the top tone

knock the neck and bridge pickups out of phase. It's very close to how Frank had his "Roxy"SG

set up. It was recently set up at the Gibson custom shop in Nashville and it plays better than

ever. They put it on a machine called a Plek which analyzes fret height and shaves offending

frets. It made a huge difference to the playability and intonation of the instrument.

 I have played a few other guitars on ZPZ tours. A Fender Strat that started it's life as a cream

colored Jeff Beck model but later became a lipstick pickup sparkle factory. It was featured in

some tour ads campaigns and I used it on "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" and "Suzy

Creamcheese" in 2009. I've played a few Eric Johnson model Fenders as well over the years. A 

 white one, a tobacco burst one and an ice blue one. The latter guitars have 22 fret necks and

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custom shaped strat pickguard inspired by Jeff Beck.

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 View Full Size 2011 Diagram(PDF) 

I've played my 58 re-issue Gibson Les Paul and a few Hagstrom Vikings, including an original

1969 Viking that was recently given to me as a gift during the 2011 Dweezilla music bootcamp

by Ago Totaro.

 I also played my Dweezil Zappa signature model Paul Reed Smith guitar and will continue to do

so at future shows. The one I have is beautifully made and truly inspiring to play.

 As our touring continued the worldwide shipping costs increased too. The upside is that thecapabilities of the Fractal rig increased as well. With each new firmware upgrade it could do

more and more. Over time I was able to remove a few items that I was carrying in the rig that I

could now duplicate within the Fractal itself. Knowing that it was possible to do that made me

excited for the future.

I have made several iterations of guitar rigs pairing things down to one Fractal and a few

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 View Full Size 2011(Baby Rig) Diagram(PDF)

 It was good to know that a smaller rig could work for a wide range of material but over time when I began to dig deeper into more of the songs from my father's catalog I found that I had to

revert to a dual fractal set up and an assortment of pedals in order to have the maximum

flexiblility and best sonic landscape. This was mainly because I would run out of DSP inside the

programs I made in the single Fractal set up. Another reason is that I wanted to be able to split

my signal so that I could autonomously drive effects to individual Fractals. This way I would be

able to create blended fuzz sounds with attack differentials and also utilize the envelope in the

dynaflanger at the very begininng of the signal. I have access to 6 pedals per input of each

Fractal. They are remotely switchable via the RJM effects gizmo.

My sound goes direct to the PA but I use QSC monitors for stage spill. If I didn't have anyspeakers on stage there would be a chance that people up in front of the house pa would hear

my guitar from behind them. The QSCs have a very accurate full range sound and a lot of

headroom. http://kformusicians.com/english/artists/electric-guitars/dweezil-zappa/

These days the pedals I use do change out fairly frequently so I made a modular set up on the

pedal board with non specific cable lengths. It's definitely less streamlined looking but way

easier and fluid in its ease of use. I even designed the pedal ledge to work as if it is hinged,

allowing access underneath for other pedals and power supplies etc. The whole pedal board is

built into the bottom of the case it travels in. At the end of the night the top is fastened onto it

and it's wheeled away to the trailer.

I don't have a diagram for the current rig but here are some photos of all of its components.

(A new updated version of the rig exists... I'll upload photos soon... DZ September 2014)

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 ATTY (Passive mute for QSC Speakers) Hinged Pedal board view

QSC Speakers and Main Guitars. Zen Drive

Tom Quayle Signature Pedal TWA Systech Harmonic Eneregizer Protype

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Tarkin (Custom Made 2 channel Fuzz) SolidGoldFX ZETA Drive

SolidGoldFX Rosie Overdrive SolidGoldFX Envelope Filter

SolidGoldFX - Delay Paul Trombetta (Custom Made) 4 Fuzz Cey-Zo

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Paul Trombetta Robotone 1 Paul Trombetta Robotone 2

Heavy Acoustics FUZZ pedal Jam Pedal Feedback Tremelo

Tone Concepts Distillery Boost Catalina Bread - Echoplex pedal

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# Comments

Marcus Fastenrath wrote on May 31, 2014 at 6:28 AM

# Reply

John(Lizweedus) wrote on Mar 18, 2014 at 5:40 PM

# Reply

David D. wrote on Mar 3, 2014 at 9:52 PM

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Hi Dweezil,

how did you connect the AXE FX with the Eventide H9?

Fantastic. How you remember what does what sound is amazing.

This is seriously awesome. Love the new site.

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# Reply

Mark T. wrote on Feb 27, 2014 at 7:36 PM

First off this page is awesome. The Vermont Masterclass I attended was incredibly

informative and highly recommended for anyone who plays. Of course goes withoutsaying Dweezil and the Band were tremendous. Can't wait till you guys come

back. Post that rig rundown you did.

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