Joe Bonamassa Setup REVEALED | Mike Hickey Interview | Guitar Tech Tips | Ep. 103 | Thomann

hey guys chris here for two months guitars and basses in today's guitar tech tips i will talk to mike hickey the legendary guitar player in bands such as venom chronos etc and joe bonamassa's guitar tech we'll talk about joel's preferences in terms of guitar setup strings pickup height and all that we'll talk about bursts and a lot more actually this is going to be awesome [Music] this is uh a special moment for me i love uh first of all i love what you're doing i've been following uh your work uh for many years and uh i don't even know when uh it was when i first saw you as joe's joe bonamassa's in case anyone was wondering uh guitar tech that must have been like at least five years ago probably longer how long is your working relation with with joe i think it started in 2012 maybe it was about nine years we worked together on a regular basis you know and obviously you know if you work with joe you're constantly touring constantly recording and constantly coming into contact with super cool guitar oh yes so we have mutual friends um one of them being derek sherinian the self-proclaimed greatest rock keyboardist ever [Laughter] so derek and i we go back to college as friends wow so um when joe needed a guy he called derek and derek says i know one guy and then i had met joe at a jam session in hollywood for a minute and uh i just thought he was easy to deal with and then i also knew he had bursts and that's something as you know i'm very interested in and we have a mute another mutual friend elliot michael at rumble seat music so i you know i called elliott and i'm hey like hey call joe and give him you know give him the lowdown he's like yeah i'll tell him you owe me money you know all that stuff so uh we just hit it off really well especially because of the burst thing and um i have a deep appreciation of vintage instruments and you know and i also like to rip on the guitar so i like to work with someone who rips you know i mean i i prefer someone with large amps high volume and incredible chops so i got my wish yeah and and it makes it better you know i've worked with other guys who do other styles and it would always be kind of a not that they were bad musicians but it you know it might be a tale or acoustic into a direct box which i don't want anything to do with that that's kryptonite so um it was a really a great perfect timing perfect storm for us to work together and uh you know in in the with the challenges of the past couple years of not touring i had to get involved in other things because we weren't working and uh i had to move on from the organization but you know of course we remain close friends and stay in contact regularly crazy how's joe to work with is he on a fellow guitar nerd level when you're talking about like you know this guitar guitar he's just regular dude uh super chill you know he knows the string may break he knows the amp might blow up okay the battery might die the cable might the bed he knows this stuff because he started you know he did everything he strung his own he drove the van he set up the pa he probably ran the mixer on the side of the stage and he worked his way up to a point where you know now he can just walk in and play the guitar when i started there were 22 guitars on the tour and then as we progressed over the years and he got more and more vintage gear we we honed it down to specific instruments for specific sounds so you probably would recognize there's a rotating burst situation there'll be two or three and then at times there'll be a 58v and then of course there's some es models and then of course there's one beautiful 55 hardtail strat that they called yes and that guitar that thing it's essential i mean it's been refretted a few times and it's just the best strat and i played hundreds and hundreds and it's for me you know someone else might play and go this is rotten i don't think so but i i i think that guitar stands above a lot of the others just like with the bursts um there's certain ones that have come through the lineup which have a little more something than others and but they're all cool i mean you know who doesn't want to burst yeah and you know he plays his sound is very clean even though it is distorted um and as you've seen over the years it's gone from a giant hodgepodge of amps to basic tweed with a wawa and a boost and you think think about it too when these guys are that advanced on the instrument and they're hyper sensitive to small things even in even in this crazy hundred decibel situation like with joe's rig it's i i think it was it's around 109 decibels behind the the plexiglas only really 109 you know average i mean that's not quiet don't get me wrong that's that's good loud i was kind of expecting 120 or something like that no seriously well and and you know and then of course he's got wedges yeah up in the front and in front of him um so the guitar is everywhere he goes and um i mean obviously i played through that rig all of those rigs every day for years yeah what i did learn though is the tweed twins are probably the all-around greatest stamp because you can put a box in front of it and get hyper gain going yes but you still get that clarity and that that amp is like just it's so aggressive and if you know how to play above a certain level that amp will allow you to go there yeah it will also i i won't name anybody but i've had metal friends try the rig and they're crippled you know the last show i've seen you guys uh play was here in germany a couple of years ago before the whole pandemic thing happened and it was the four tweed amp era like the dumbbells were not back yet it was just the two i think the two modern and the two vintage ones um okay sure i i guess it was that period and i was like okay i'm really looking forward to hearing these amps it was a like a big hole obviously and um not open air and this was the first concert in my life that um i've heard this way i was not sitting like in the first row or whatever it was like medium midfield some somewhere in the middle of the room and i've heard his guitar from somehow from the stage as much as from the line arrays like the pa system and the band was pretty much only coming from the pa and it was such a ridiculous three-dimensional crazy tone that i literally had goosebumps just because of that experience of i can actually hear his amps on that stage that's like 100 meter away from me and that was just unbelievable i mean obviously the whole band was mind blowing but that tone that experience that i've never had before was enough to prove to me that there's there's a good reason why joe decides to go for his rigs because everyone was like so surprised like oh no dumbles okay no marshall what uh are you sure it's like oh it was perfect and that period is you know we're rolling with four twins and the the signal path it was to you know the wawa into the um either well it ended up being a clone later but it um would have been the double land special yeah yeah the way huge with the two settings so we set one side for strat one side for humbucker and then he added in like a i don't know it's a blue petal with like a a so a way huge hippo blue hippo yeah yeah um and so then that goes back and went to a tc chorus which was always on very very little and that was the splitter which then went to two lele orange p splits and those are magic boxes yes because you got your phase you've got your ground lift and and then it went out to the twins and that was it like there's no there's no trick other than being able to play well i've seen i've seen a pretty awesome guitar in front of you what is it okay this okay i borrowed this from joe last year and i'm you know currently not answering his calls or if a strange if a strange car comes in the driveway i'm like the lights go out but um duck this is this is a 56 les paul um that was converted in the 70s wow by a store called strings and things in memphis and you'll know of them because jeff beck's oxblood les paul was done there and also his stripped burst um his strip burst they they're the people who added the flower pot inlay on the headstock and put the binding and the little jb and then he was all upset and but they converted this and so it already had a tuna matic it's not reset they just stripped it and they found all this beautiful flame i don't know if we can see how much flame because of the the weird lighting i have but now you can super it's super flamed but the seam is here yeah yeah so like common on a gold top um so these are real pafs and i think they're out of like a 355 or something they have goals yeah last year over a couple of wines i was like hey man what are you doing with that guitar and he's like i'll just take it you know and i'm like oh we'll work something out and it's like you know he's got enough guitars i mean i don't need this guitar i have some i have les pauls over here um but it's it's just it's as close to a burst as i can have in my possession without borrowing a burst and uh so and if he needs it back he can have it back any time because it's not like i have i don't have any shows to play or anything yeah yeah i'm just here recording and you know doing stuff like anybody else yeah it's been pandemicized but pandemicized so to get into the stringing of a les paul um everyone knows that i like to put ball ends there you go right and i was cutting them off for years and then one day a bag of ball ends show up from ernie ball oh that's sweet because joe's assistant was like hey man i got your present so so all i do is i thread it on just like a needle right and it comes all the way down okay and it ends up it's hard to see but it ends up just there okay so then of course we're top wrapping all these things all right okay so that's the reason for the ball lens right yes and this is something i came up with in the 90s which started because i got an old les paul and the bridge was caving in and i top wrapped because billy gibbons did it and i thought it looked really cool it's cool yeah and then i started breaking strings on on on the back side here where you can yeah and what i realized is when you put the string through the the winding part where it's double wound yeah at the end you would think that's the strongest area but actually when you bend it it's a weak area as opposed to just the string itself yeah it's not flexible yeah and you're forcing it to sort of right bend yeah so so i came up with this idea i'll put this ball and on and so then i feed everything's through and and to string the guitar i always put all six strings through because we're in a hurry okay okay i'm with you i'm i'm paying attention i'm just uh doing the same thing remove the strings and uh i have the first bowl end on the on the sixth string already so in this case where we're running 11's which are it's a hard ride for most people to use 11 yeah and i've gotten used to it over the years and um and now i prefer it my left hand doesn't prefer it because i because i i like a lot of legato hammer on it's more work it's more work right now the right hand loves it because i can pound the hell out of it and you know uh especially with my death metal background i like a little resistance and you know i came from playing tuned to b or c sharp um with 12s 12 through 56 you know and and i got used to that tension uh on the right hand and the thickness so you know again back to the perception of somebody you get hyper sensitive to the tiniest thing can ruin absolutely show so the other reason for top rapping is if you've got your your posts all the way down because you see some guys they raise the post to make less tension exactly i in my my mind's eye i still have this visual thing like i want to see that thing on the deck yeah so so the other cool thing it does is if you just have them normally through they tend the strings tend to touch the back of the bridge which is because it will not help with the uh with keeping the the strings on the guitar right because that's a point where it could break it could break it can cave in the bridge easier yeah you got the you got the studs all the way down to the deck for better sustain in theory and then you're also the string is just touching the saddle it's not touching any other part at that point so you've got this open area for the string to just do what it needs to do yeah yeah and and sustain and now there'll be guys that'll argue all day with you that that's not the way to do it and that's cool too yeah but you'll you can you can argue all you want but you'll never be as cool as billy gibbons with a top rap you know yeah now another thing which we were saying before about the ball end you know it now what we've done is we've essentially we've moved the string back right by that much yeah yeah and and now where we're gonna where we're gonna bend it is not on the seam yeah it's on the action the thick part of the uh the winding is inside the bridge it's inside the hole correct yeah yes and and also you're not gonna on the on the unwound strings you're not gonna have the little piece sticking out and rubbing on your hand or cutting your flesh yeah yeah and everybody says well how come your hands back there well you know i might be doing a windmill or you know something cool you know so so and so before i put the strings on i get the big ben's nut sauce or whatever whatever you like okay got you covered right so this stuff's great yeah um and i think it works it might also be placebo and i just feel like okay and and all i do with it they come with this little thing to apply it and everything i don't i throw that away i don't put it on the bridge okay because that's metal anyway yeah this is not gonna do anything metal to metal probably not yeah you know um so the nut is your only spot okay that really for me for me anyone else can do what they want all right in fact you know so so so all i do is i just blast it six times across the slots okay it's just just in the slots like a yep okay so it's just a little bit you gotta dab it in there on the higher ones yeah and then i just i just i just wipe it off all right it's in there okay and um let's see i can uh what if i can make this camera join no that won't work okay so we'll go we'll go to vertical cam for the stringing so i take the string and i bend it at the tailpiece my finger yep i set it in in the slot there and then i put it through the headstock line it up and this is this is the real trick here okay i i pull it up to the next tuner okay so you pull it straight and you put your finger to the next uh next tuner yeah then i then i pull it back okay all right okay so that one inch in a bit distance yeah and then i bend the string over the top and then i put a bend in the in the end of the string all right all right okay then i grab my trusty peg winder and now i'm going to go under the strings under the string so we're over this oh we're over the string coming out when we when we bend it over the top right you bend it uh clockwise or counterclockwise like the first this is this is clockwise okay so the first is clockwise yeah and then then you bend the end of the string up straight yeah and then as i'm coming around where the string comes out of the peg i go under it so it locks it okay so it's locked and i'm also i don't know if you can see but my other fingers here keeping the string yeah keeping the string off the nut uh yeah because what i what i don't want to do is run this string through the nut and and wear out this the slot yeah yeah so i don't i don't until i'm gonna go to pitch i don't touch the string into the nut slot yeah yeah and and then so what you end up with is one over and one under on an old yeah yeah and this does two things it locks it in without a knot and you see these guys they have sailor knots up there and all kinds of stuff yeah and the other thing it means is when i've got a restring in a hurry it comes off fast all right okay so and also let's say this guitar is going to be used at a gig it's probably gonna be used for one song okay the chances of it going out of tune with fresh strings are pretty slim in about six minutes unless you know you put it on the wrong way and um so then i just get it up there okay and uh make sure it's in the slot and then i stretch the hell out of it ah you see you do stretch quite intensely okay yeah like i tr one thing i always try to do for joe i try to break the string before it breaks with him yeah yeah and also what i would do is if if i'm prepping a guitar for the next song i would play licks in that key and i'm tuning as i i'm constantly tuning at the show i would i would either use uh the poly tune pedal okay but but in the day time when i'm stringing i would use the clip-on poly tune and then i just clip it right at the top of the uh tuning post okay just straight across and that's it and um basically you want it so you don't want it sticking out and everyone gets poked you know like uh i'll i'll never catch lockjaw or anything or tetanus you know i i took i took the uh ernie ball vaccine all my life so um you have met enough metal in your blood or whatever yes yes in more in more ways than one yeah and so i don't generally i don't generally tune it until i've got all six strings i do i do tune it up but not to pitch yeah just to have some tension okay okay and and so when i get to the d string obviously i've got no other tuner to measure yeah so i just go yeah i just go to the end of the headstock ah nice okay and then and then put it around and same okay now i got you okay i actually did the first string wrong uh but now that i've seen you do the a and the d i'm i'm 100 sure that i i got that uh that loop thing okay so i pull it so with my finger to the next uh tuner then pull it back then move with the string not with the slack basically yeah and do it from the outside to the inside which is above the rest of the string and then you do the turns where you put the strings that you wind up underneath that's how you have one above it comes right yeah okay okay gotcha it's actually super simple and i do it differently but i do the same thing like my first uh circle the first round is above the the string you will cut off and the rest goes under and i try to stick to two to max like three turns yep that's about enough and you know it's uh and obviously the the g string everything's reversed yeah yeah yeah so when i get up there and and with the unwound strings you can have a little longer um measurement because there's they're thinner of course and so with the g you know i'll go up above the headstock and again i'll do it slow i've made a loop i can't get over and then and again here's the the string is really low almost touching the grommet in there yeah yeah and so you don't want too much extra i don't fix amps because i don't want to get electrocuted so like if we had an amp blow up and i know there's guys that do fix them and bless them but yeah we have this thing we have this great invention called fedex yeah or or we use yelp and uh we find the local amp guy yeah and they always lose their mind you know when i show up in in in my uber yeah and i bring and i bring this up dumble oh yeah it's joe's what yeah and and uh you know there's always somebody around that can fix an amp and obviously at the level of joe or any other professional they're not showing up with one amp yeah yeah there's there's a whole spare everything which can be switched over quickly you know of course in the case of um and i've had it happen many times in the case of the twins there's no option other than to walk out there and muscle the amp out from the back line yeah and get and get pummeled by the volume and and then stick another amp in there i would just walk out if he was out of tune i would just walk out with another guitar and just i would plot it for when he was singing and not performing or like if joe broke a string he would you know he'd look over at me and i'd probably be on my phone looking at guitars what what what you got a problem what am i supposed to work you know and and then i just go give him the guitar but i'd wait until he was going to sing yeah yeah because then the the band can carry him and and the change is so fast one time uh i think it was in germany actually and we had used the firebird for one song specifically tuned to open d minor and okay and then we brought that guitar out for a different song but in my brain like the firebirds d minor yeah right so i had set it up and i'm all like this thing's so in tune it's gonna sound great tonight oh no and i walk out and i hand it over and he goes all wrong and this and in d minor there's no faking it right he was expecting his heart to be in e standard right he thought it was gonna be open g open g okay wow so unbelievably i had a a a a bona bird you know the blue thing yeah yeah um i had that in open g spare so he looks at me i look at him you know this seems like it's an hour but it's it's it's literally four seconds like so i just grabbed the guitar because that's the backup yeah yeah just and i hand it to him yeah and i get back and i'm like i put the guitar on the tuner and you know the firebirds raised in the middle but we've got the whammy bar pushed back so we thought it was on there and slipped off and changed the tuning and then i it all hit me when i plugged into the tuner and saw the notes and i'm like oh man and when i went when i went out for the next song he goes what was up with that i'm like we'll talk later and he said what what did the did the trem slip or something and i'm like no i did yeah i i and so then i like really made of the point like to really focus on yeah i'm going to make sure for these open tunings so i'm just tuning this standard pitch [Music] and i get it generally around you know the area yeah oh that sounds good after you tune then you stretch again yeah right okay and i did watch the video with tony iaomi's guy he said he doesn't yeah he told us he doesn't want to because he feels like the strings are going to be dead after it like if there's no more slack in it they just don't sound as as fresh and dynamic anymore i don't know well i think with tony's touch yeah yeah it's very light and that may work and he probably uses pretty light strings then the next step after i've retuned it again is just to start bending and and really so that's all that goes on with these and uh that thing should be good to go for three or four songs in you know preferably three in my world yeah and um i don't know if i i do have another important thing for me is that everyone should know before they go drilling vintage guitars yeah yeah wait let me show you something all right what do you got a six pack of gross there yeah sure this was from a beer bottle and this is the download one that locks in right that also works really well i i kind of mix whatever i have it you know in my hands yeah so that for me that's that's the trick yeah that ain't going nowhere i mean it's not like we're in in cinderella and spinning the guitar um but those are essential and of course um we made monolocks which were just these that said bonolock on them i don't think they were a big seller because i have a lot of bags of them still [Laughter] but you know it's funny i i i sold a burst a couple years to a well-known guitar player and the first thing his tech did was put shallowers on and i'm like you know this guitar has been fine for 60 years without your help now what what's up with the setup because uh i i honestly cannot even think about like guess how meticulous uh joe is with with his setups is he like whatever you know this is higher than most people okay but it's not i mean it you know i might have have you ever imagined anything with jokes well look here's here this will crack you up you know dan you know dan early wine right oh yeah sure of course of course okay so about four years ago he gave me this string action gauge oh it's still in the plastic bag so you you literally never measure these things with joe right so this is the the same still not unboxed measuring gauge you got from dan years ago yeah it looks to be point eighty eighty thousands okay so inches right point eighty yeah and what's up with the first string i'm at point sixty i'm at 90. okay wow so the first string is higher higher than what you would call like a comfortable low action okay right and that's for so you can bend yeah wow wow okay okay let me and and the pickup it looks to be about 110. uh-huh okay and then down here uh-huh about the same yeah that's 110 and for the next pickup as well yeah okay and on on the old guitars because they had covers so this is going to look low yeah we would have had the color yeah exactly yeah and um quite often during a show joe would adjust oh so he might want it down yeah yeah you can do about a quarter of a turn but that's that's pretty standard for pafs right that kind of uh hide what you have on the guitar yeah they can only go so far yeah yeah like if you get closer you're gonna hit it with the string i guess at one point yeah and that i mean and on this guitar there's wear on the on the ring yeah yeah by the way is there any other difference uh between like the 58 59s or the 60s because joe prefers the 60s is that just the neck that is thinner or is it the voicing like an overall general tone difference there's the neck pitch is slightly more on us a late 60. okay okay and the also your your tenon is short yeah this yeah yeah so with the higher bridge for the neck angle you get more of a trebley bite snap yeah he he may like that i i mean everyone wants a 59. and he never had a 58 got one last year from south africa and um great guitar crazy flame and uh great story but the early 60s they have um they're basically like a burst a regular 59 and then when you get to the zero seven thousand seven thousands which is the latest that's when the red yeah comes in yeah and they change the neck angle and those are great yeah yeah i mean i i've been really fortunate of probably played 350 400 bursts so oh wow wow okay i mean that's that's in 20 20 years wow you know and um i've documented them all i want to make a book you read a yeah yeah yeah and and i i just make it simple you know just there's the guitar and away you go so [Music] [Music] i really really enjoyed this one yeah what a good time it was great talking to you and thanks for all the insights and all the the stuff that you you gathered over the years and um it's it's precious info and um i will treasure it and i'm 100 that the viewers will do the same thing and appreciate it yeah i hope i hope you'll enjoy it you know in case you have any questions left let us know in the comments below i'll reach out to mike and try to get those answers for you you guys take it easy don't be afraid of setting up and fixing your guitars yourself it's time to become your own guitar tech [Music] you

Channel: Thomann's Guitars & Basses

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Keywords: thomann, music, thomann's guitars & basses, guitar, rig rundown, Tony Iommi, Tony Iommi live rig, Tony Iommi gear, Black Sabbath sound, gibson, Tony Iommi guitar, kris thomann, Tony Iommi guitar setup, Guitar Tech Tips, Les Paul, steve vai, setup, rig, Black Sabbath, Mike Hickey, Joe Bonamassa, Bonamassa, Joe B, Bonamassa guitars, Bonamassa Les Paul, Joe Bonamassa guitar tech, Bonamassa guitar setup, Bonamassa guitar rig, Bonamassa rig rundown, Joe Bonamassa Setup REVEALED

Id: xmBejjAMzQo

Length: 37min 33sec (2253 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2022