Rig Rundown - Mr. Big's Paul Gilbert

Guitars:
Paul plays his Ibanez Fireman signature on the road. This particular guitar was the factory proof that he approved for the production model. Gilbert told us that he spent a lot of time working on the neck shape and neck joint so that it was thick enough to get a good tone, but still playable. The guitar is a set-neck with DiMarzio Injectors with a DiMarzio Area 67 in the middle. Gilbert says the single-coils have introduced him to using the Tone control on his guitar in a way he never did with humbuckers: rolled back for warmth and dialed up for a "snarly" tone. Gilbert uses Ernie Ball RPS strings in 11s, but was using 10s when we met up with him as he'd recently taken a two week break from playing. His acoustic is a Taylor 710 with a Feedback Buster.

Amps:


Gilbert uses a duo of Marshall Vintage Modern heads. For this tour, he also brought out his Marshall 2061x head which he's running into two Marshall 4x12s. He bridges both channels with a patch cable and cranks it all the way up. He used the Vintage Modern heads on his last few albums.

Pedals:


Gilbert uses a Sennheiser wireless system that routes into the Boss TU-2 Tuner, Boss CS-3 Compressor (only for "Just Take My Heart"), Ibanez Airplane Flanger ("toggle between two crazies"), and MXR "script logo" Phase 90 (used subtly on almost every solo) into a Lehle P-Split, which splits the signal between the pedals/amp and an HBE CPR compressor into a DI into vocalist Eric Martin's monitors so he can hear a clean sound. After the splitter is a Majik Box Fuzz Universe, Way Huge Green Rhino (in a wild card spot that he switches out regularly), and a Fulltone Choralflange. For his acoustic rig, Gilbert uses a coily cable into a Boss TU-2 and another HBE CPR compressor.