Stevie Ray Vaughan Rig Rundown

By Seth Lyda

October 2012 Issue

Last month marked the 22^nd anniversary of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s death. His influence on contemporary guitar playing is profound, and he helped spark the blues revival of the 80’s; a time when hair metal ruled the airwaves. In honor of SRV, this month’s Musicians’ Corner will be dedicated to Stevie’s legendary guitar tone. The way Vaughan made the guitar scream has become the stuff of legend, creating a herd of blues pickers futilely searching for what many consider the holy-grail of electric guitar tone. There is no article in the world that can make a reader sound or play like Stevie, but I’ll dissect Stevie’s guitar rig in its entirety to give you an idea of how he got his sound, and maybe get you a little closer to that signature tone. 

Stevie is most associated with Fender Stratocasters, and his main guitar, or #1 as he called it, was, by best accounts, a 1962 Strat with a veneer fret board. (This according to Rene Martinez, SRV’s guitar tech and architect of the famous sound). The pickups were stock, but the guitar had a few modifications. A 5-way switch was added, as well as the left-handed tremolo. Martinez also installed a dummy coil under the bridge pickup to reduce hum. SRV always tuned a half step down to E flat, and his string gauges from high to low are as follows: .013, .015, .019, .028, .038, and .058. (Most guitarists would find these strings far too uncomfortable to play, especially bending them the way Stevie did.)

Vaughan’s tone came largely from the neck position pickup but would routinely flick to the bridge pickup right before a big bend for added emphasis and presence. He also occasionally used the middle positions 2 and 4, like on the riff to his hit “Couldn’t Stand the Weather.” 

His amplifier rig was complicated, and consisted of several amps, all running at once. Here’s the rundown: Two Blackface Fender Super Reverbs, a 150 Watt Dumble Steel String Singer with a 4X12 Dumble Cab, a 200 Watt Marshall Major Head, also played through a separate 4X12 Dumble Cab, and a Blackface Fender Vibroverb, that powered a Leslie style rotating speaker. All his speakers were changed to Electro Voice models. 

His pedal scene was much simpler, and always included an Ibanez Tube Screamer, starting with the original 808 model, eventually moving onto a TS-9, and finally landing on the TS-10 Classic. He also used Vox wah wahs and a vintage Dallas-Arbiter Fuzz Face (much like Jimi Hendrix).

Stevie’s music has touched so many lives across the world, and I believe a true testament to an artist’s greatness is how many others they’ve influenced. In this regard, Stevie Ray Vaughan is certainly one of the greatest of all time.  Playing with such authority is something to be admired, and if there is one lesson that I’ve learned from SRV, it’s not about what notes you play, but how you play them. No one will ever play the blues like Stevie did; no one. In closing, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Stevie quotes, and it perfectly captures his aggressive, take no prisoners approach to playing the guitar. “I use heavy strings, tune low, play hard and floor it. Floor it. That’s technical talk.” 

*Quotes from the article were taken from the liner book of the SRV box set.