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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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
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
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?"
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.
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
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
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
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