• Pearl-white solid-body Ibanez
• Time Guitars
• Europe acoustic
• Original blonde (1987) *
• Padauk blonde (1990)
• Koa hollowbody (1996) *
• Wentzell acoustic *

• What amps does Trey use?
• What effects does Trey use?
• What picks does Trey use?
• What pickups does Trey use?
• What strings does Trey use?
• What tricks does Trey use?

The first guitar Trey got made by Paul was a short-scale travel guitar he took to Europe with Pete and Dudley (both also of Space Antelope). Prior to that, he used a pearl-white solidbody Ibanez (which he used to write "I Am Hydrogen" in his father's basement), last seen at his bachelor party jam session. (Thanks to Dave Abrahams, 3/97)

The Wentzell acoustic

Trey's newest acoustic guitar was made by Michael Wentzell, whose website includes this description: "This guitar is a very unique combination of woods. The sides and back are made of Quilted Hon. Mahogany, the top is Larch, the bridge and bindings are made of Flamed Maple, and the rossette and headcap are also of Quilted Mahogany. The neck is Hon. Mahogany and the fingerboard is ebony."

Three Electrics: Trey Anastasio has three Languedoc guitars, all built by Paul Languadoc, soundman for the band who also built Mike's bass. (A second bass was stolen during the summer of 1992.)

Trey's guitars include:

• Old reliable, a blonde beauty built in 1987 from a combination of spruce and maple, with 2 humbuckers and a piece of plastic filling the middle pickup hole (where a single once was). This became Trey's backup until the koa was built in 1996.
• His main guitar, built in 1990, with the same (blonde) finish as the main one but made from padauk, with a different inlay on the headstock, a large inlay from frets ~11-13, and two chrome soapbars. (This is the one Paul is talking about below.)
• A koa hollowbody built 1996, with a darker, redder finish, almost like mahagony, with different inlays, and two soapbars. He used this for the first three or four tunes at Hartford, which included PYITE and AC/DC Bag, and for the Waste encore 10-16-96 and for PYITE, Poor Heart and AC/DC Bag 10-23-96. (Thanks to Julia Mordaunt) Mainly a backup, it was used increasingly throughout 1996 and into 1997, though the padauk remains Trey's main axe.

Trey Anastasio has thre"index.html"ul Languadoc electric guitars, all built by Paul Languadoc, the soundman for the band. Trey's guitars include:

1. "Old Reliable," Trey's first custom electric guitar. This blonde beauty was built in late1987 for Trey when he told Paul that he wanted a fatter sound. Paul built it from a combination of spruce and maple, with 2 humbuckers and a single coil in the middle. The back and sides are spruce and the top is maple. This became Trey's primary guitar until his next one was built in 1992. When Paul began to build Trey's second guitar, he removed the single coil from the middle, and covered up the hole with plastic. Photos from 1992 show Trey using the spruce guitar with the plastic pickup cover, indicating that construction had begun on #2. When #2 was complete, Old Reliable became his backup guitar. 2. Trey's second Languadoc, built in 1992, became his main guitar in the beginning of 1993 primarily, until late 1996. This one has the same natural finish as the first one but the body is made from padauk (as opposed to spruce). There is a slightly different inlay on the headstock, and the inlay on frets12 and 24 are larger while the rest have been thinned down. The upper and lower bouts of this guitar are also not as curved as the original. Paul put the single coil pickup from the spruce guitar into this one, replacing the vacant hole in his old one with a plastic cover. 3. Trey's third, and current Languadoc is a koa hollowbody built during 1996. This guitar is all koa with a maple neck, and the same tapered body shape as the second one. The finish on this one is a darker, redder stain, with a slightly different headstock shape, different (even smaller) inlays, and two chrome-covered humbuckers. The saddles are bronze on this guitar as opposed to the bone of the first two. He used this for the first time in October of 1996, and sporadically for the remainder of the year. In 1997, it completed the transition to his main axe, leaving the two blonde ones as backups. Languadoc states that "The koa guitar is the best of all of them because the wood has the most elegant and solid sound of the three."

According to Guitar World (12/98), "Each has a carved top and bottom (with minimal interior bracing), exquisit fingerboard inlays, and six-in-line headstock, a custom tail-piece, and a hand-carved bridge. (The padauk and maple/spruce guitars are made of bone, but the koa's is bronze to give it a more brilliant sound.) The hand carved, arched top hollowbodies have a shape reminiscent of a scaled down Fender Starcaster. The tops, backs and F-holes have multiple layers of white and black binding. The laminated curly maple necks are set and glued to the body with carved heel-joint, and have 24 fret, bound ebony fingerboards with a 25-1/2" scale. The shaped headstocks (with chrome plated Schallar tuning machines all on one side) have multiple binding and black faces with exceptional mother-of pearl inlay work depicting Trey's dog Marley. Bone was used for the nuts and two piece bridge saddles and bases on the first two guitars, and bronze was used for the saddles of the koa one, for a more brillian sound. The cello-style tail-pieces are all hand carved ebony. Trey's primary Languedoc (before the koa one) has a top of European curly maple - preferred by cello builders - and the back and sides are padauk with no back bracing. The guitar's wiring harness and controls are painstakingly accessed through the F-holes. The electronics consist of a pair of Schallar Golden 50 humbucking pickups with individual volume controls,,a tone Control, and a 3-way pickup selector."

Misc.

Surrender to the Air: Eric Liebman posted (3/7/96): "Trey used the following gear on his solo album: Vox AC30; Paul Languedoc guitar; wah pedal; Digitech WP II whammy pedal (for pitch-shifting and pitch-bending); Ibanez digital delay; Alesis Microverb; Univibe (recreated for Trey from other components)."

Thanks also to Jonathan Epstein (11/4/96), Charles Dirksen (3/18/97), Julia Mordaunt (10/27/98), Chris Mcmillan 10/22/97, Brad Sarno 1/20/98, Mike Flouton (6/30/98), and Jeffrey D. Goldberg (4/2/2000), and Andy (8/16/00).

See also: The official site (phish.com) offers a picture of Trey's rig -- click the red picture to the left of the discussion about Amy's Farm on the band page to see it. (Thanks to Adam Gallina 12/3/97.)

Rigs

Rigs/Amps: There are (at least) three eras of amp/rig setup: 1992, 1995, and 1996. (Thanks to Steve, Trey's guitar technician, who sent the rig diagram and legend 10-19-95.

1996 Rig: PGM emailed (7/14/96) that the August 1996 issue of Guitar Shop [p.28] "features the lowdown on Trey's live setup, as well as the Languedocs. As an added bonus for you bass players with $35K or so to throw around, Mike's bass rig is featured as well. ... Trey uses a midi-switchable rig with multiple loop paths, which many of you might not be familiar with; for an excellent description of such a setup, consult the fantastic book "The Complete Guitarist". There, amongst _tons_ of other great info which you can't live without if you're a guatarist, you'll find a very detailed description of rigs of this sort. -- An interesting thing is that the article shows the tone settings of the preamp, which if accurate are _very_ different from the Boogie settings described in the HPB (as I recall, an inverted "V", analogous to cranking the midrange and cutting the highs and lows; I've tried these settings on Boogies, and it really sounds kind of harsh...perhaps Trey footswitched the EQ out on the Boogie except when he really wanted a stinkin' sound...." The article also notes that Trey uses Schaller pickups (Joey "wwbohl@aol.com" said (5/28/98) that they're Schaller humbuckers -- which, Eric Christman emailed (9/13/97), are "somewhat hard to find": he had to order his from Germany.

Jeffrey D. Goldberg emailed (9/26/96) that, "as far as effects are concerned, Trey uses two Ibanez Tube Screamers (the classic TS-9 model... NOT the re-issue, the TS-808, TS-10, and certainly not the TS-5 soundtank). Trey most consistently uses only one of the pedals with the drive set just below halfway. This is the sound you most frequently hear (listen to the beginning of 'It's Ice' on Rift for a clear example of what I'm talking about.) This sound is a distortion, but not as you might think. The Tube Scremer has a smooth distortion at this setting. There is no muddiness, but it is definitely distorted. The other 'Screamer is turned on only during certain songs (Chalkdust Torture, Sloth, etc.) In this case, the first is shut off, and the second is turned on. The difference is that the drive is turned up all the way on this one. The only time Trey turnes on both of them is at the end to a crazy jam (Maze, Bowie, etc.) This makes his guitar wail. --- Trey uses a Mesa Boogie Pre-amp and celestain speakers. [Mark Powers corrects that "He _used_ to use a Boogie Mark III _amp_, but as far as I know has never used a Boogie preamp. He uses a CAE three-channel pre with a Groove Tubes stereo amp."] He also has a roto-Vibe [Mark Powers adds that "Jimi Hendrix popularized this effect. It simulates the sound of a rotating speaker."], a phase shifter, a wah-wah, and a volume pedal. -- Oh yeah, and trey switches to his neck pickup for clean sounds. He also switches the channel of his pre-amp, and turns on the vibe. This is for songs like Mano Song, and the beginning of the guitar solo in Foam. I hope this helped, if you have any more questions, send me a mail!"

Mark Powers posted (9/27/96) the portion of an August '96 Guitar Shop article that details Trey's setup at that time: "Trey's new amp rig is a monster, allowing instantaneous access to an infinite variety of sounds. It was co-designed by Steve Dikun, a professional guitar tech from Cleveland. Its brain is a Custom Audio Electronics 3-channel preamp with a Bradshaw switching system to control multiple effects. Power is supplied by a Groove Tubes Dual 75 selectable stereo tube amp. "There are actually no new GT tubes in there", says Trey. "Steve Dikun collects old tubes, new-in-the-box, ane he loads up the amp, and my preamp, with those. I'm using this Bradshaw, 3-channel preamp now, and even that has old RCA tubes." The GT's 75 watts per channel [a highly inflated rating imo with EL-34 or 6l6-GC output tubes] drive a pair of 2x12 speaker cabinets also built by [Paul] Languedoc [which as far as I know still contain Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, which are awesome speakers ;-)]. Sharing the same rack with the CAE preamp and the GT D-75 are a pair of CAE 4x4 Audio Controllers [used to switch between different combinations of effects], four reverb units (three Alesis Microverbs labeled Reverse, Vast, and Full, and a Peavy rackmount reverb/tremelo), a CAE Super Tremelo, and a CAE Black Cat Vibe, about which Trey says "Bob Bradshaw recreated the UniVibe with quality parts, so it's not so noisy. It's silent and sounds great--I love that thing!" [obviously ;-)]

"The second rack contains another pair of CAE 4x4's and many more effects. These include an Ibanez DM2000 Digital Delay, an old Electro Harmonix Small Stone Phase Shifter, Roland MS-1 Digital Sampler, a pair [;-)] of Ibanez Tube Screamers, a Ross Compressor, and a Tone Works DTR-2 Digital Tuner. A 24-switch control board [which controls the 4x4's to select the aforementioned combinations of effects, aka "loops"] shares floor space with a number of pedals: a volume pedal, a wah-wah, speed and waveform control for the CAE trem, and a Digitech Whammy Pedal, one of Trey's favorite toys. [This is a pitch-shifting device which can be used to emulate the dive-bombing effects normally produced with a vibrato bar; it can also make a guitar sound like a bass and vise-versa, which is what Trey and Mike do when they "switch places", as was done in the ALO Tweezer]. Topping it all off, literally, is the horn and crossover unit of a Leslie rotating speaker, which sits atop the first rack, surrounded by four microphones for quadrophonic feed to house or board." [Trey's rig also includes an additional reverb (a Midiverb), used only in the quad configuration (its outputs are DI'd into the board), an A-B switch for the D-75, a panner for the stereo/quad setup, and a partridge in a pear tree. ;-) ]

1992 rig: R. Stern posted, "Trey uses a Mesa/Boogie MkIII head pre-amp, (with Russian tubes: "Sovtek 5881" -- shelly). Here's the best I can remember off the top of my head. Some could be off by +-1.

Pre Volume: 10 !! Lead Drive: 2.5 Treble: 5 Lead Master: 6 Mid: 4.5 Master: 3 Bass: 4.5 Presence: 2 (on back of the amp) Reverb: 0 (he uses the Microverb)

There is an Alesis Microverb (not II) sitting on top of his amp. He uses a Large 2 or Large 3 setting. He doesn't vary it at all...reaches for it quite often and just touches the knobs without changing the settings :-). His pedalboard has a volume pedal, a cheapo Ross(?) compresser, 2 Ibanez tube screamers, and the lead/rhythm switchbox for the Mesa (maybe more...). The Tube Screamers are the new version Tube Screamer Classic. Both have the volume turned all the way up, which really confused me at first. He doesn't seem to get much of volume boost when switching them on, and mine gives a huge boost if I set the volume all the way up. What I think happens is this: since his Mesa Pre-Volume is at 10, the input is already overdriven. So when he switches in the Tube Screamers, they can't drive any more volume out of the pre-amp, and simply give more overdrive. That's my best guess anyway :-). .... One of the keys to his cool tone is the way he uses the Tube Screamers and the Mesa lead mode. He has the Mesa eq switched to only work for lead mode, and he sets the eq in an upside down V (lots of mid boost, lots of high cut). One Tube Screamer is set for a very light crunch, and the other is set for full screaming overdrive. Trey will often start with a light crunch, then turn that off and turn on the full overdriver. Then he'll turn back on the crunch (so he has both Tube Screamers on!). Then he'll kick in the Mesa to lead mode for a final push over the edge :-) !! By mixing and matching any combination of the 3 distortions, he gets an incredible variety of tones. Add in the unique feedback properties of his semi-hollowbody guitar, and wow ... Yes, he does sound quite amazing!!"

 

	?????

In Guitar Shop Magizine they said Trey played a white Late 70's early
80's Ibanez ES-335 Copy (posted by botchalism@aol.com 11/19/97)

	lemonwheel rig:

Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 00:17:11 -0400
From: Judy Pidgeon 
basically what i saw (or thought i saw) was a rig exclusively enclosed
in the rack. the wooden cabs were nowhere to be seen, and there were
lots of red LED's on the silver portion of the rack. he used the new
guitar (with the soapbars) and danced on his effects as much as ever.

Special thanks to....

"My three all-time-favorite guitarists are Jerry [Garcia], [Jimi] Hendrix, and [Frank] Zappa. They are all totally unique from one another, yet oddly similar. They were all striving for this depth where a solo would take you on a journey. But the journey was their own vibe: Zappa was sarcastic, Hendrix was bluesey, Jerry was downhome. I guess I have a suburban vibe. But I still want to get to the places that they got to."
-- Trey Anastasio, New York Post 1/1/99