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Guitar Picks of the Stars

Guitar Picks of the Stars

See a sampling of picks used by famous guitarists over the years.

Allman Brothers Band - Warren Haynes & Oteil Burbridge
Yngwie J Malmsteen
Mastodon's Bill Kelliher
Deftones' Stephen Carpenter
Eric Johnson
The Who's Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend
Thin Lizzy's Vivian Campbell and Ricky Warwick
Slash
Queen's Brian May
Def Leppard's Phil Collen and Vivian Campbell
Grace Potter
Maroon 5's James Valentine
Fall Out Boy's Joe Trohman
Buddy Guy
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Gary Rossington
Dave Matthews
Brian Setzer
Trivium's Corey Beaulieu
Sting
Anthrax's Scott Ian
Rush's Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee
Eddie Van Halen
Aerosmith's Joe Perry
Night Ranger's  Joel Hoekstra
Slipknot's Mick Thomson
Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Geezer Butler
Earl Slick (David Bowie)
Zakk Wylde
Ted Nugent
Sepultura
Greg Koch
AFI
Disturbed's Dan Donegan
Metallica's James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett
Slayer's Kerry King
John 5
Paul Gilbert
Velvet Revolver's Duff McKagan and Dave Kushner
Los Lonely Boys' Henry Garza
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine
The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach
Ritchie Blackmore (Blackmore's Night)
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine
The Cult's Billy Duffy
Kiss
Hoobastank
Exodus
ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons

Submit your own artist pick collections to rebecca@premierguitar.com for inclusion in a future gallery.

The finish on this 2019 PRS Custom 24-08 is called ā€œAngry Larry,ā€ but stare long enough and you’ll realize it’s not so angry, and has much more of a deep, mesmerizing kind of vibe. (And Larry? He’s not so angry either.)

Photos by Madison Thorn

This 2019 PRS Custom 24-08 has a 10-top, making it one of the company’s most elite models, and it longs to be played.

I recently borrowed a guitar from a friend and accidentally got his whammy bar mixed up with the one from my PRS. Midway through my apology and explanation, I realized my friend was staring at me. ā€œI just didn't think you’d have a PRS,ā€ he said, baffled.

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ā€œSometimes, I’d like very much for my guitar to sound exactly like a supa cobra.ā€

Luthier Creston Lea tells us about his favorite dirt pedal—an Athens, Georgia-made stomp that lets his guitar be a hero.

Let’s face it: Nobody can tell what overdrive pedal you’re using. Whether you’re in a carpeted suburban basement accompanying the hired clown at your nephew’s fifth birthday party or standing on the spot-lit monitor at Wembley, not one person knows whether the pedal at your feet cost $17 or $700, has true bypass, or has an internal DIP switch. Nobody leaning against the barn-dance corncrib or staunching a nosebleed up in the stadium’s cheap seats is thinking, ā€œHeavens yes!! THAT is the sound of a silicone diode!ā€

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A dual-channel tube preamp and overdrive pedal inspired by the Top Boost channel of vintage VOX amps.

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The compact offspring of the Roland SDE-3000 rack unit is simple, flexible, and capable of a few cool new tricks of its own.

Tonalities bridge analog and digital characteristics. Cool polyrhythmic textures and easy-to-access, more-common echo subdivisions. Useful panning and stereo-routing options.

Interactivity among controls can yield some chaos and difficult-to-duplicate sounds.

$219

Boss SDE-3 Dual Digital Delay
boss.info

4.5
4
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Though my affection for analog echo dwarfs my sentiments for digital delay, I don’t get doctrinaire about it. If the sound works, I’ll use it. Boss digital delays have been instructive in this way to me before: I used a Boss DD-5 in a A/B amp rig with an Echoplex for a long time, blending the slur and stretch of the reverse echo with the hazy, wobbly tape delay. It was delicious, deep, and complex. And the DD-5 still lives here just in case I get the urge to revisit that place.

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