AC/DC's Angus Young & Stevie Young Rig Rundown

[Music] everyone this is Chris keys I'm very special rig rundown so glad to tell you this ac/dc you guys been asking for lucky enough to have trace foster here might recognize him from the Joe Perry rig rundown he is very gracious with this time and we're going to talk about Angus Young and Stevie young skiers let's start with Angus excited to see this too by the way are you gonna watch it yeah gonna be great exciting let's get right into it we want to know about the guitars specifically the SGS that Angus is known to use for years first of all I want to say that at first I thought I'll pull out 1516 Magnus's guitars but that's not how he works yeah Angus is very specific about a couple guitars that he really enjoys and he'll play them all tour that's kind of what he does okay so I've brought those out which is my normal daily routine and I brought one of the new ones that he's been playing which we do which we use once in a while so what I want to do is I'll start you right here with it with his main guitar that he's using this tour all righty okay this guitar is a 1967 MSG okay he thought it was a little older but we dated it off the serial number the pots have been changed a thousand times because he sweats and these get rusty and you get to change them so this has all been basically changed pickups could change anyways this is a legacy with some statistics if you can remember the pots and the pickups because people are gonna want to know this well it's just standard Gibson profit but just to make sure that I'm okay nothing funky nothing crazy okay a wired standard just like anybody else would you know tones volumes to pick up everything works nothing funky there these are custom one on Seymour Duncan's they the DC resistance is seven point eight seven point seven so that that's kind of important that they're all right around that same card okay so that really is our consistency do you know like would you say like a Seymour Duncan pick up that's off the rack that's similar to this is I got JB or pearly gates so the billets are hotter I would say okay I'm sure there's going to be 8,000 comments like oh that guy's an idiot but they're using the idiot then oh ah maybe both but so you can tell like iLab I've tried I replaced this these pickups before because again you know he sweats and it gets in there yeah I've I've tried everything there's foam underneath here these pickups are wax which is important as well to keep them working through the show okay because otherwise water electronics not so visa fraud yeah so that's this guitar all right like I said he's had this guitar since we think he said roughly the let there be rock album so 77 so he's had to talk a very long time and that standard tuning standard tuning we are at 440 straight up just like the records now and it's just it's Saints so rock and roll machines to Sirius rock and Ross before we get onto the next one rings okay specifically rings are there all the strings are all the same okay one thing you should probably know that most people already know is these guys are creatures of habit its Angus won't change anything he doesn't have to these are Ernie Ball 9 slinkys 9 242 standard gauge pink um you know pink little yeah that's what he uses ok nothing's funny we use fender extra heavy picks they say fender extra heavy on that's what that's what they do that's you know I mean it's somebody there you go see straightforward fairness there it is everybody there's the pick now he does have picks with his with his name and this you know is character on it those are giveaway picks ok these are the real this is what we play with ok so that someone gets a Fender extra heavy there it's a special one yeah and he'll I mean another thing is they don't make these anymore like this these are actually hot stamped oh now they're all silk string why's he preferred the older ones you can grab that a little easier there's a grip there which is quite standard ok let's go over here to number 2 this is uh my favorite why is it your favorite because this is the guitar from the back and black tour oh so this is like yeah you can feel the energy be like I mean be this guy no don't touch it whatever you doing like hey this is amazing in it this guitar is a 1970s - custom this used to have three pickups and it was walnut color you can find pictures online of him with this which is unbelievably cool and I had the you know the ball it was just really really cool he didn't like the three pickups after a while he wanted to change it so he painted it you probably cannot see this but it's been fixed now there was a square chunk taken out of here that's where he used to put the battery the wireless off okay when he would go out front people are grabbing at him and the path would always get ripped off the strap or something really funny what happened so this thing that was perfect the problem is Wireless electrical up against sweaty body it creates a little bit of an issue so we repaired that this year to a year ago January we fixed that and this is a guitar that he did basically the whole back and blacktrunk Wow now as far as the recording of the record I don't know but he bought this right before they started working on it so I'm assuming it's on the record as well man and I mean obviously they're finished in black but for both these guitars they seem pretty clean like I mean there has had surgery in the back way it's it's if you if you actually look at these guitars up close they're kind of they're kind of funny because it does look really clean but as you get up close these guitars I mean he played well you see how it plays these guitars really hard and so there's a lot of maintenance I feel like you can probably see I mean it's pretty pretty crusty and I only change stuff when it's broken yeah this is this is the if it ain't broken don't touch it seriously and that that's that's what they live by and it's worked for 40 40 something years so I'm not going to change it yeah right and let's see what else and the people had asked about specifically and it maybe you don't know or maybe do is where he rides in the tone knob and I dunno okay yeah cuz people were was curious about okay rolls that off and on what he does is eight roughly eight is his rhythm area but he knows from the stage he'll find that spot word just about the take-off and he'll he'll that's just that's just go to spot and once he finds it he's good to go and then when he needs more he's got that extra couple yeah a little you know and that's that's that's from that's just that's a seventies thing that's what we you seen in the seventies that's what they did they didn't have all these boost pedals and all this other stuff they rode volumes you know noisy amped volume off between and breaks in between songs you know that's he's still that way as you'll see when you see his rig goes it's pretty much been the same way for a long years okay so that's uh that's the number two guitar so this is the number one this tour this is his number two this isn't like a backup where's this one set up for certain songs no it's um there is no guitar specific song okay this is his guitar he will play till it's out of two sometimes you'll look at me and heels like am I out cuz you know yeah sometimes you just you in the moment you can't tell and I'll be like yes come over here you know otherwise he just let him go he's the last show he played every single song but one on this guitar it was in tune because he's got a really good touch yeah I mean it's pretty amazing so I'll show you the third one here this is actually a Brian Ray model a from ah Palmer Palmer yeah Brian gave this to Angus big angus fan he personally said i want you to have one of these and it was made with angus respects so it's it's amazing I put Seymour Duncan's in there was only thing we did to change it and he uses this one now - it sounds really really good feels good I mean the thing about these guitars every single one of them feels totally different I bet you grab one the neck feels right he grabs another one the next different and that's just just the way they were to happen here we got a mismatch or is that was he no no he likes he likes the of the grand oral for the for the grip yeah so that's what what he does there and like I said don't think we've changed I think it's the pickups and uh that's it I mean it's it's a rock machine and before maybe we will talk about this when we move over there but the wireless units okay here some over here now actually let's do that over there alright because that's what I'm looking at sports going alright let's go there let's move alright so we're making move over the rack here underneath the stage next to the cannons trace this is holy ground yes I can I feel I feel not worthy but you know just steal the lots of ways I just weren't really I really was people say this the first time that I literally touched these amps and those guitars and everything it was like did you pinch yourself it was deep and I was one of those things you just go wow this is just this is it yeah this is what it's all about and it's you know so there's always that special care and special because this is this is rock world - yeah this isn't just you know some band it'll be working Guitar Center next week this is the real deal this is what everyone's been hearing aids act for years and years man though there you go okay so what do you want you want to start we start with the the wireless let's start over here with my ball our let's go there huh okay this is good you're gonna love this ready this is called a cocoon suit oh okay it's a Japanese power supply this right here is probably one of the secret weapons of this rig and it's a very expensive secret weapon because what this does is it's a it's a power supply that allows me this whole rigs on 240 okay okay this allows me to down in exact voltages and it will sustain that so I've got it I've got it to 36 right now optimal voltage for Marshalls has always been 230 for my kill who's responsible for basically the jcm800 told me straight up 234 234 was a little spongy for what we had going on we what the 236 and it's it's just spot-on and also this allows us to stay at 60 Hertz 60 cycles whether we're in Europe or whether we're here so once you get everything biased and tweaked in do not want have to change it because learning different so consistent so I know that these amps are going to sound as close you know these elements as far as outdoor you know rainy Sun and there's those elements but as far as power wise it's it's it's a no-brainer there is a parametric in here what this is for is we do really small places there's a one does ac/dc do small rehearsals I'll say that okay feeling a bit of coal right now this is kind of small 20,000 the there's like a resonant frequency in his guitar and the rig when we're when there's a wall in front of him every time he gets the kick drum even if he's not playing it starts feeding back so we just notch out a little to 4120 the lower all the time and it's it's gone takes it right away so that's not used that's not a that's not in the loop right now that's only first you know rehearsals got perfect okay now we go to the rack okay sure exeunt that's why I was by far I don't feel familiar with these no I'm not okay the exeunt actually it stores frequencies and it will tell us hey there's an issue we should change channels and it you can program it to where it'll change automatically it will change his pack out there and change at the receiver or you can do it manually we of course I think it's set to just let it change this is all run into the monitor world where our monitor engineer John actually allows it to pick frequency I think it stores like eight frequencies so I mean and it's I don't know if it's ever changed frequencies ever and it's pretty rock solid this thing and it sounds amazing I think he could go to another city and it would still be working so so we love that these are spare batteries batteries for days okay so here's a signal flow it goes wireless for channels into this box that I had built by Mike Hill okay then Mike Hill box is for in okay and it's for right there one two three four this allows me to either have all the packs on or only one of them so I have all the model all-time so no matter what Angus can go I want that guitar here you go it's ready to go ready to go it's right here is I'll back there's a 70 foot all that sits around the corner just in case all else fails but it never has thankfully what are you ready now we're ready and it has its own little trim pot so if we need to you know we've matched the levels so that's good from there this is this is a backup to it everything's pretty much has its own backup from this guy it comes to a 1 ounce 4 in one out the one out actually goes into yes the Schaefer replica was been asking of course this is the first Tori's ever use them so it's not like he's been using them hidden for 40 years it's it's in it I don't know what you want to know about these things but I can tell you what it does for me and for Angus is it's not it's not it's not his definitive tone let me just say that and then I guess real quick to give it a history the people that yes familiar he used those in conjunction with his wireless units to supposedly get the boost signal Ken Shafer when he built the original wireless is that most rock guitar players used back in the 70s put a preamp in the box because of the signal loss from the wireless there's a rumor that Angus was recording back in black and it wasn't happy his guitar tone and Mutt Lange had asked him well what's different and Angus I said well the only thing different the chains I'm not on my wireless I said well use your wireless the rumor has it that he used well I've never asked him about it maybe I will today but he used the wireless to record so it's at that point it really was part of his thing we he's obviously had his sound for 30 years 25 20 years without this thing what this allows us to do is it allows us to really kind of tighten it all together because I've got well you'll see I've got nine different amps going everywhere it allows it to really come together and really just sing and we're able to dial in just enough he calls the fizz box just enough is in there to give him that sustain that he likes I mean it's really cool I mean it's a really good I dress the towers verses because now they do have a pedal unit to now stompbox yeah and we've never even tried to stompbox we've just always Phil had brought one of these over to Angus when they're in the studio doing the last record and that's where it all started and then I have two of those ones a backup this is the backup to that one from there so we've got wireless for one into this okay it goes into a hush pail rocktron because when you're dealing with old seventies amps you get a lot of nut and drinking these are cranking as you'll see in a second okay so then from the from the hush which is barely on by the way it's very because if there's too much he feels it and he wants to turn back so it's just taking the edge off like rolling off it small most like a noise gate you know anything else these things are a lot more subtle than some of those some of those just really squash this is a little more rolling off the edges I like to say so from the rocktron it goes into the jd7 from the jd7 it goes two amps galore goes into every every head has its own its own channel so I can turn them on and off I can check phase I can you know because as I'll tell you in a second to get it was would go across we are changing these heads all the time we would go through a lot a lot of amps oh yeah we in rehearsals we had I think it was sixty-two heads just to go through what we need I have probably 1012 backups and we have a full time amp guy on the road that his job is to put them all back together every day or see I like it I'll show you in a room will take they meet Simon he's in a bunker he's in there he's like just you know amps everywhere in parts and he's in there soldering way yeah and he's uh it's a full-time job because what we do is I'll take about the amps first and we'll get to the specifics but I thought this is going to be a quick one but I guess it's gonna be a little more in-depth life on so let's get to the to the heads I've read so many articles of anguses tone and it's pretty interesting how people think that we've arrived you know where we're at now but these are all 100 watt heads okay we have one two three four five six seven eight I have nine heads okay this is the arena setup this is not um this is not the stadiums this is the club set oh this is the club yeah this is this is the practice rig what we do we use hundred watt heads they're all hunter watt they're all super leads and we have like I said I have like 12 back up heads so they come in and out I think I have three two or three super bases what's your PI freaked people out they were actually using super basic but these are all super leads I think five years ago it should be last tour maybe two tours ago I wasn't here so I can can't quote us they added a master buyer why is that I think they were looking for a little more gain with the ability to turn it down so now we've got a preamp and a master so it's you know it's a little more JCM ish right yep okay that works out really really well is there like a year specific okay that he wants to get these in in terms of that heads himself it's all about the Sun if you open up every one of these heads they're all completely different they've had some had a lot of things done to them some have never been touched summer like museum pieces some look like you know they just they're you're surprised are still working but overall we have a lot of the reissues which is I think there were 1987 okay and what the 87 allows us to do is we can do more things to them and we're not hacking up a museum piece for channel we have he has he has heads that are just to the studio that are like the pristine you know the the Plex ease of this and they're just like we don't we don't even touch those we have heads that are just for this specific purpose but what we do is the secret so you know nice little flame action going on that's not my amps I hope not yet anyways oh we gotta go take them to the that's right Willie will show yeah okay what we do is one of the secrets with this rig is one when we when we bias the amps we don't do mathematical calculations we go ahead and we just do actual playing all these biasing it that's what we do is we get to a certain point and then we push the envelope it's we just make sure that you know we got a map guy so we blow up a bunch of tubes it's it's it's it's so it's so his sound I mean that's your sound has always been on the edge and it's always that I mean it's it's the greatest record melt or Never so to achieve that we got to push the boundaries and sometimes you push them pretty far and I will I've the most I've loved I did blow up three heads in one show that's that's the most ever shows that I don't remember I like to forget those things it was in Europe summer I know that so we're pretty good now once we get indoors everything kind of stabilizes we can kind of get these things tweaked in and and they they last probably three four shows in the tube so we'll just keep replacing tubes and we just check them and there any specific tube that you guys are going for wheeze JJ's right now okay um imagine 34 sealed yeah yeah l they're all el34 sorry and you might want to take a look at the settings because that's what'll freak people out their answers the settings because you would never imagine this as the settings this is kind of general general there they move a little bit depending on the AMPA yeah they're all kind of the same ballpark and yeah general difference yeah the presence is on one basis on three middles on three troubles on three that's our that's this is our volumes on six and eighths the preamp so just get that little preamp gain so it's a lot different than mo I want to watch people say how the tone is here all over the place this is what it is this is uh as you see there's the other all about the same they're all about the same and what we do when we set all the stuff up we actually go through each individual amp one at a time we tweak it we dial it move on to the next and front-of-house guide pads been with him for a really long time he knows how it's supposed to sound and he'll be up on the stage when we do this it's it's a long involved process usually everyday we don't just throw in turn stuff on because like I said to you earlier with Angus there is no pedals too hot to hide something that's not right you can't you know just turn up the distortion pedal or you know turn the delay more delayers it's got to be right he doesn't sound check he comes in every night and he gets his guitar on and he goes and and it's got to be right and that's that's the job I want to give a shout out to my man Brett Brett petuzi took his son to his first rock concert up in Minneapolis ac/dc he said it was the greatest live sound that he heard for rock and roll tone and he was curious as we all are as premier guitar employees how that front-of-house mixes okay's amp sound because of we have this one I hear is number two this is actually this is a real a real one this isn't a reissue this is like a 72 I think and it it is the only live cabinets that's miked okay that goes to front of house down below us is a nice oak a big giant box with a 212 cabinet that is also another head powering that that also goes to front of house yeah exactly good one college you could do this and he and PAB mixes the blend and just you know gets it all dialed in and I have I have five sects in front of me here behind this behind this curtain is five stacks and in the arena's I have two stacks over there Stevie has two cabinets over here as well so it's as he walks across it's a solid wall he doesn't lose any sound and it's like again that's part of dialing in the stage every day we make sure that it's it's a good walk and there's no holes in the stage because he doesn't wear ears he's got to have that sound so it's a lot more in depth like I said it's the easiest Guitar Rig I've ever I've ever been associated with probably but it's also probably the hardest gig I've ever had yeah it's because of the potential for things to go south really quickly and also for it a little thing to not be right it's a big thing there is there is no second chance there's you know it's it's good in the cabinets that you touched on it though or they're all loaded oh yeah he uses greenbacks I use this 25 watt slushing greenbacks and then the is you know over for this Diedrich oh yeah that's all on it will as you see as you swing by it will blow your head right off it says you're going by it's great it's the taste it's the way that it's that it should be alright trace thank you very much for allowing it to come down to Lana check it out appreciate it I'm sure there's a lot of things I forgot to ask oh me too um this is uh this is angus young's rig man s jeez and marshals and we're gonna check out Stevie's gear with Greg his tactical will check it out the guys are gonna have a blast and you're gonna see the show right absolutely I mean you can't come without seeing the show no I got the Caymans ha ha thanks guys all right everyone we moved over to Stevie's world Stevie is the nephew of Angus and Malcolm and you might recognize this of your nice deep easy fan I'm here with Greg Howard Greg please tell us about this instrument this is a Malcolm young 63 Gretsch jet Firebird this is his number two his number one is at home with him in Australia but this is Stevie's number one so it's his it used to be red obviously it took the finish off just like he did his number one originally had a middle pick up that he added humbucker took that out so basically it's pickup volume out and Stevie uses a cable no wireless what makes these kind of sound unique is the burns vibrato that's not used but because of the string length behind it kind of gives it a different feel and and Stevie uses 12s with a wound G so it goes the derry-o 56 212 what's the pickle what's the filter Sean in there it's the stock filter drop I would assume this is the stock one or at least a vintage one because this and I actually had to look at this pot it was a little scratchy when I first started and it was dated I dated it to 1976 so and I didn't want to change it I think it's changed listen absolutely has to be so your Stevie or Malcolm like how long he's had this one specifically I don't know but I think I'm sure he's had it a long time so this was you know his number two for for many many many years there's a lot of stories to tell him yeah yeah unique sounds yeah and is this like with Angus does he use this all night if he doesn't go to tuna break a string yeah he used this all night unless he goes out of tune and if it goes out of tune we switch to the number two guitar just for one song and then it's straight back to this one why does he prefer to go cable versus going Wireless like woah he stands right on the edge of the drum Rises he's literally five feet from me and then he walks up does his vote background vocals walks right back he and cliff but same thing he had Malcolm cliff the same thing for forever yeah so they always stand right next to the drum riser they look at each other they stay in in sync yeah super tight all night and then just suffer the for the BVS he's right there so well let's take a look at the number two sure so this is Stevie's number two which is actually really belongs to him a Malcolm gave this to him it's actually a left-handed 63 jet Firebird black and super rare I've never seen another one never seen another left-handed obviously he plays it right E but you can you can tell it's a lefty because it has mm yes so but this is this was Stevie's guitar and starfighter and in his band for years when they open for ac/dc in the 70s and 80s and yeah this is a great guitar and this is this we go to when uh when there's any kind of tuning issues and then he'll play it for like I said one song maybe two sometimes very rarely the only played it on one song last last show we did and you mentioned the last on the atlast guitar the only thing you had done - you looked at the pot is there anything you'd add this one haven't done anything to this one it's basically you know obviously the electronics have been changed and same thing pick up volume jack and this one so it was pretty obvious in the first one there's some padding or stuffing inside the kaisers yep in there there's actually no stuffing in this one let's not have the feedback but it doesn't because of the middle pickup not being there it doesn't have as much feedback and you can see there's a little bit Stevi place or just pick dust whenever I go to change strings is just pick dust all over the guitar II see it a little bit better on the black one let's check out the other two great yep so this was one of malcolm square guitars obviously no burns vibrato it's been removed it's got to stop tailpiece says Gretchen on the headstock not a Gretsch made by JD in the UK same guy that made Iommi's SGS made some SGS for Angus so made Malcolm some some Gretch style stuff so this guy used this was originally Stevie's number 2 when I first started with them and we switch to the black one just because the string tension is different and the black one is closer in tone to the to the number one but still cool guitar yeah yeah and then this is a brand-new Gretsch Custom Shop Steve Stern made this champagne Sparkle and Stevie wanted this not for not for ac/dc but for most of the studio stuff so he left all the electronics stock the the tail piece is non-functional but still a and it's a copy of the burns and but still has the string tension and a little bit of relic in but just a beautiful guitar these guys do great great work yeah it's real life it's beautiful yeah and I just cleared up all 12 on G and all the guitars on all this on all the stage to charge this has 11th on okay let's check out the amps yep cool Greg talked to me about amps I'm assuming Marshalls uh yes Marshalls so so Stevie goes from from the cable actually into this uh this little more pure boost pedal which we I use on TNT only just a fat in the signal up it's not no boost it's just a little bit of EQ it's just all the way it's down all the way down so I just a little bit EQ and I basically tuned it to by ear pretty much every night if it's if it's a little off you're just just a thicken up because Stevie plays a solo rhythm part at the beginning of TNT that's it and then it goes into a radio jd7 and that distributes out to five amps so number one amp is all all Malcolm's amps Malcolm's number 1 1971 metal front marshall super bass it has a mod on it has an extra tube for slaving it out in the studio we don't use that live so it's basically stock there's no master on any of them and we're only using the the base channel and so so number one is the 71 super base number two is a 1966 66 late 66 early 67 jteem 45 100 super white panel you know very few of these I have three of them in my rig I'm so so that's the number two gets number three is a 1976 super bass pretty much stock those are all running six cabinets on stage so I've got six running on stage on this side so two of two stacks to the top counters I'm not running just to keep it feedback from us this TV has a semi hollow and then and then I'm also running for angus cabs on this side and then I run a another 67 Super Bass I'm sorry 67 1845 100 another white panel that's for my eye so cab so that goes to front of house and then also a 67 very early 67 Black Flag super lead which drives a couple of cabinets on Angus aside and my spare is a 66 to 1845 one hundred white panel you know and I think I at least have at least another white panel somewhere in my spares and these are the Melvin's collection so I assume maybe some of these were used on the records yes yes there are they have labels on them that say studio one studio too so you have seven whatever I mean these guys have a lot of Marshalls and to clear up any misconceptions I know this is Stevie's rig now or he's using it Malcolm obviously was your longest time was there any effects that they're using besides them no pretty much that's that's pretty much it that was this is pretty much unchanged except for the jd7 is just a newer you know version to distribute the signal there was some custom switchers in here and we also use the kikusui for power and i run it at 236 which is a good voltage it gives it a little bit more clarity and is he also running 25 watts less greens know we're running finished 30s oh so that's a little tighter a little cleaner different um different different sound alright I think think you got everything man I appreciate it Greg yeah thank you covering Stevie's gear cover name this is Greg ac/dc man I can't say enough thank you guys Greg and Tracy preciate it Christine don't forget to sign up for PG perks your all-access pass to exclusive gear giveaways and discounts on premier guitar calm

Channel: Premier Guitar

Views: 3,607,756

Keywords: AC/DC, AC DC, ACDC, Angus Young, Brian Johnson, Hells Bells, Back in Black, Highway to Hell, Malcolm Young, Cliff Williams, Bon Scott, Gibson SG, SG, Gretsch, angus young guitar, angus young sg, malcolm young, malcolm young gretsch, gretsch, gretsch usa, gibson, gibson guitar, marshall, marshall amps, marshall amplification, acdc gear, acdc guitar, guitar, guitars, electric guitar, guitar player, rig, rig rundown, rig rundowns, guitarist, angus young gear, malcolm young gear

Id: j5C7GKGxICg

Length: 33min 12sec (1992 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 13 2016