We recently caught up with Guthrie Govan before an Aristocrats gig to get a look at the gear he's using for the trio's gigs. Watch him take us through the rig and demo each of his pedals in our video Rig Rundown:
Guitars
Guthrie is playing the third incarnation of his signature Suhr model. The guitar has basswood, rather than the mahogany used on his other models, with a plain maple top. Guthrie uses the basswood guitar for Aristocrats gigs because it has more frequencies, which is useful because each person in the trio needs to sound as big as possible. "I think of it as the mahogany plus more top-end stuff, plus more low-end stuff," he says. The guitar has a roasted maple fretboard, which helps maintain neck stability when Guthrie travels as all of the moisture has been baked out of the wood.
The guitar is outfitted with a Gotoh tremolo and a Tremol-No system. The pickups are Suhr FL (middle), Suhr SSV (neck), and Suhr SSH Plus (bridge). This guitar was also the one used on the Aristocrats debut album.
Guthrie uses 10-46 Rotosound strings and tunes to standard, with Drop D for a few songs.
Amps
When we caught up with Guthrie, he was using a Suhr Badger 30 amp with power scaling, which he turns all the way up for gigs. The cabinet has Vintage 30-style Warehouse speakers.
Pedals
Guthrie says his pedalboard philosophy is, "not to be awesome. It's to be portable." The pedalboard is a tea tray that's the same size as his carry-on luggage, and he says that at times he opts for the pedal that's smallest, rather than the one that's his favorite. He uses a Suhr Koko Boost for dirt (volume boost on the left, midrange boost on the right), a TC Electronic PolyTune, a TC Electronic Flashback delay that's always on in the loop set to an Echoplex-style TonePrint, a TC Electronic Hall of Fame reverb in the loop used for "Flatlands," a Providence Anadime Chorus, Guyatone WR3 Wah Rocker ("It makes me sound like a duck, which I enjoy"), a Dunlop Jerry Cantrell Signature Cry Baby, and a volume pedal.
