![Helmet’s Page Hamilton Rig Rundown [2024]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-helmet-s-page-hamilton-2024.jpg?id=52471968&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
“I could not exist without guitar,” admits Helmet founding lead guitarist and singer Page Hamilton. “I know this to be true because I’m a miserable asshole if I don’t play guitar. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is play guitar. It’s an incredible instrument and I just love it.”
But what does one do with that creative codependency? Page Hamilton’s impactful contributions to rock music were cemented when Helmet wrote and recorded a pair of back-to-back blisters with 1992’s Meantime and 1994’s Betty. Those pillars of ’90s alternative metal and guitar granite forever chiseled out his place in hard-rock history.
Since 1989, Hamilton and Helmet have dished out a total of nine studio albums (plus a live set) that balance punishing, fastened-down ferocity with mercurial moments of melody that make their sledgehammer fall harder.
Beyond that legacy, Page was a part of David Bowie’s band for the 1999 Hours tour, playing Saturday Night Live and being included on two live albums from the Starman. Further diversifying his guitar vocabulary, he’s contributed to several film scores for Heat, Titus, In Dreams, Catwoman, and Chicago Cab. He’s explored the instrument’s outer realms with German avant-garde guitarist Caspar Brötzmann on a live improv album (1996’s Zulutime), and expanded his vocabulary by diving into jazz guitar, noting in our Rundown he’ll release an album next year. Hamilton has even put out a guitar instruction DVD, Sonic Shapes: Expanding Rock Guitar Vocabularyfor Hal Leonard. All of this (and more) accomplished because guitar is his lifeblood.
And we found out during our Rig Rundown—filmed May 7, 2024 at Nashville’s Exit/In—that most of this material was spawned from three key ingredients, all still in his rig: ESP Horizon guitars, Fryette amps, and DiMarzio humbuckers. These partnerships with each company are not gratuitous or grifting. He’s been aligned with ESP since 1989. He started working with DiMarzio in the early ’90s, and he and Steven Fryette have sharpened his sound since 1996. These three friendships have fostered an integral strand in Page’s tonal DNA, and Hamilton covers each at length with us. Plus, he breaks down the simplifying move from a complicated Bradshaw rack-switching system to something more modern and efficient, with five Boss boxes and a duo of H9s.
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A friend suggested Hamilton visit ESP Guitars’ small NYC shop in 1989. He wanted to find an instrument that looked good and sounded better. After trying a few out, he landed on a magenta Horizon Custom that still shapes Helmet’s sound. After thousands of shows, several surgeries, and having the original Horizon Custom go missing for weeks when touring in Mexico, Hamilton now keeps the old friend at home, but he still honors his 35-year connection by bringing out the above relic’d ESP LTD PH-600 MG Page Hamilton Signature. The lone humbucker is a custom jobber from DiMarzio’s longtime chief design engineer Steve Blucher, who originally voiced the pickup with Hamilton in the early ’90s. (DiMarzio’s current offering of this pickup is the Air Zone model.) Helmet typically tunes to drop C or drop D depending on the era of material. All his guitars take D’Addario EXL140 Nickel Wound Light Top/Heavy Bottom strings (.010–.052) and he attacks them with Clayton 1.52 mm rounded triangle guitar picks made from acetal.
Like its inspiration, the pink Horizon Custom has a pointy reverse headstock and Floyd Rose tremolo.
Silver Is First
Most Helmet fans will associate Page Hamilton with his pink Horizon. Its radical hue and the trem spring in place of a neck pickup certainly make it a head-turner, but his first signature collaboration with the Japanese brand was this brushed silver ESP LTD PH-600. The look on this PH-600 is taken from an aluminum-leaf finish originally done in the ’90s by NYC artist Erik Sanko (of the Lounge Lizards and Skeleton Key) on one of Hamilton’s old guitars. When ESP and Hamilton were workshopping the collaboration, Page thought he’d use a neck pickup for film work and other projects, but quickly found out that the extra knobs and controls only got in the way during Helmet shows. (The production model featured a DiMarzio FastTrack in the bass slot.) This run of signature models included a Wilkinson VS-100N vibrato.
“I drive ESP crazy because they build me these beautiful guitars and then I have them rip everything out. I just can’t deal with a neck pickup in Helmet,” Hamilton laughs.
Let's Dance
When Hamilton was a part of David Bowie’s touring band for the Hours tour in 1999, this ESP Vintage Plus S-style joined the party with its custom DiMarzio HSS configuration. If you dig up Bowie’s Saturday Night Live performance of “Rebel Rebel” from October 1999, you’ll see Hamilton riffing on this same Vintage Plus ESP. Additionally, while only playing eight shows with the Thin White Duke, Page and this guitar were featured on a pair of live releases—Something in the Air (Live Paris 99)in 2020 and At the Kit Kat Klub (Live New York 99)in 2021.
Hamilton describes his brief time around Ziggy Stardust as “just hanging out with your super-cool uncle who happens to be a genius.” Hamilton shared a few more quotes that Bowie bestowed on him about Page’s approach to guitar: “He was really complimentary about my guitar playing, noting ‘that it sounds like it’s very abstract what you do, but it’s very thought out. And you remind me a bit of Phil Manzanera [of Roxy Music].’ That was an amazing experience.”
Viper
Here’s a late-’80s ESP Horizon Custom that Hamilton got around the same time he scored the original magenta Horizon that was his main dragster for decades. This one is wrapped in a snakeskin finish and still gets used on a nightly basis.
My Way
This sunburst Horizon is in a custom drop-D tuning (D-A-D-G-D-E) that gets used for “Sinatra” off Strap It On.
Fryette Firepower
Hamilton has worked with Steven Fryette for nearly 30 years when a VHT power amp (then owned and operated by Fryette) helped salvage the recording of Aftertaste. Since then, Hamilton has slowly morphed his live rig to only having Fryette gear, eventually landing on a KT88-loaded Pittbull Ultra-Lead 3-channel head over 10 years ago. Page uses complex chords in Helmet and doesn’t want the note nuances and melodies lost in the mix of a mushier amp. This head runs into a Fryette 4x12 cab outfitted with Eminence P50E speakers.
Page Hamilton's Pedalboard
Hamilton used to travel with a full Bradshaw rig with rack gear, but he’s reduced things to a digestible manner with a pair of Eventide H9 units and a handful of Boss boxes—a PS-5 Super Shifter, a MT-2W Metal Zone Pedal Waza Craft, a TS-2 Turbo Distortion, a NS-2 Noise Suppressor, and a FB-2 Feedbacker/Booster. A couple of Peterson Stomp Classic tuners keep the Horizons in check, and a Boss ES-5 Effects Switching System organizes all his sounds and settings.
Shop Page Hamilton's Rig
ESP LTD Horizon 87 Solidbody Electric Guitar
DiMarzio Air Norton
D'Addario EXL140 XL Nickel Wound Electric Guitar Strings - .010-.052 Light Top/Heavy Bottom
Eventide H9
Boss MT-2W Metal Zone Waza Craft
Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion
Boss NS-2 Noise Suppressor
Boss ES-5 Effects Switching System
Pedaltrain Nano+
What if Deftones’ lead singer Chino Moreno fully leaned into his love for the Cure and Depeche Mode (think “Digital Bath,” “Teenager,” “Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event,” and “Cherry Waves”)? The short answer is Crosses (often stylized as †††). And the sole sonic sniper pillowing and piercing through Moreno’s moodily melodic vocals is multi-instrumentalist Shaun Lopez.
Prior to working with Moreno in Crosses, Lopez cofounded Far—an influential post-hardcore 1990s contemporary of the Deftones in Sacramento—and has tallied a variety of producer credits, collaborating with Chon, Rob Zombie, Lupe Fiasco, Dead Sara, Whitechapel, and others. That versatile background is evident when experiencing Crosses with a pair of headphones or seeing them live onstage.
Lopez and bassist Chuck Doom had been jamming together in the late 2000s, and later recruited Moreno to front the dark dance party. As Crosses, the trio released three EPs and a self-titled debut full-length between 2011 and 2014, before going on hiatus in 2015.
Crosses was revitalized in 2022 with fresh material. Then, following the departure of bassist Chuck Doom, the remaining duo doubled down on their digital-based dynamism to feature even more synths, keys, and electronic experimentation. Now, for almost 15 years, the band has been weaving together sounds of new wave, electronica, goth rock, industrial, and ambient pop, as if they’re producing a soundtrack to a neo-noir readaptation of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Part of Lopez’s post-hiatus experimentation included sampling his guitar through his keys. “When we started Crosses, I was just learning to play piano,” he shares. “I think, back then, I wanted to make synthy-sounding songs, but I didn’t know how to play synths. I was like, ‘How can I get my guitar to sound like a synth?’ So I just incorporated pedals, lap steel, and anything else to make my guitar unrecognizable.
“Since those first songs, I’ve really learned how to play keyboards, and by better understanding that new instrument, at times, I’ve become more inspired by synths over guitar,” recalls Lopez.
But no matter how many synths or keyboards get put to tape, you’ll still see Lopez onstage with a guitar draped over his shoulder.
“I do prefer to play guitar live because it’s more fun and I can run around,” he shares. “I am always chasing sounds no matter the instrument it takes to get there. My sound is growing because I’m always learning. I think if you stop learning, you stop progressing … but guitar will always be home.”
Before Crosses’ sold-out show at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works, Lopez welcomed PG’s Perry Bean onstage to dissect his setup. The lone instrumentalist showed off six stellar guitars, broke down the heavy lifting his FM9 endures for Crosses’ sets, introduced a peculiar pedal he can’t live without, and demoed a Gretsch that sounds like an angry orca.
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C Beast
“It’s the best-looking guitar I’ve ever seen in my life,” contends Lopez. The Gibson Les Paul Custom 20th Anniversary 1974 model is set for drop-C duties, and takes a custom set of Dunlops (.011–.070). He upgraded its original pickups with a set of Bare Knuckle Warpig alnico-5 humbuckers.
Special for Standard
Chino left this over at Shaun’s place long enough that Lopez fell for the devilish doublecut. Before he bonded with Chino’s SG Special, Lopez stayed away from SGs because of the uncomfortable neck dive, but he says this rocker balances really well (especially with a wireless pack), and the P-90s make a perfect contrast to his other guitar tones. This one rides in standard or drop D, and like the rest of Lopez’s electrics we’ll see, it takes a more standard fare of Dunlop strings (.010–.046).
Little Red Corvette
While he was picking up a 1978 P bass at Guitar Center in L.A., Shaun spotted this 1960s Gretsch Corvette. It had been at the GC for months collecting dust, so they made Lopez a sweet deal and he left the store with both instruments. While the Les Paul might be his favorite guitar, he did admit that this cherry Corvette is his favorite to play, and that’s clear with all the finish that’s been thrashed during this Crosses tour.
Shaun tunes it to standard or drop D, but when the crowd hears it, they won’t believe their ears—as he uses the pitch-block parameters within the Fractal Audio FM9 to drop down the Corvette 17 levels. It sounds like an angry orca!
Midnight Cruiser
The above Gretsch G2420T Streamliner Hollow Body Single-Cut with Bigsby was resting in backup duties compared to its Schecter counterpart, but its hotter BT-3S humbuckers have proved it mightier for the stage.
Easy Rider
The previous Gretsch took over first-chair hollowbody touring duties for this Schecter Coupe’s sibling that’s safe at home, but Lopez notes that the Coupes were the most-used guitars while recording Crosses’ 2023 release, Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.
T Time
Lopez caters many of Crosses’ sounds around the Tesla TV-ML1 humbuckers found in his Schecter Coupe. He tried to acquire another hollowbody, but Schecter no longer makes that model—however, they pointed him towards their PT Fastback that uses the company’s UltraTron humbuckers, which are very similar to FilterTron-style pickups.
To Infinity and Beyond!
Shaun slides around on this Fender FS-52 Deluxe Lap Steel. All the strings are tuned to D, creating a powerful droning effect.
Also, notice below that the FS-52 sits a Sequential Prophet-6—a 6-voice analog synthesizer that gets used throughout Crosses’ albums and live sets. And the Novation Launchkey 49 MK3 controller triggers samples, loops, and works with Ableton Live for show production.
Shaun Lopez's Pedalboard
Creating Crosses’ serpentine soundscapes involves an abundance of gear. Lopez doesn’t really document his methods on their recordings, so when playing live, he’s left to recreate his tones from scratch. To help accomplish that feat in a compact and efficient fashion, he centers his live rig around a pair of Fractal Audio FM9 units powered by a Fryette LX II Stereo power amp. One transforms guitars into everything but, and the other partners with his FS-52, unleashing a tidal wave of Daniel Lanois-inspired washes and sustain. Two effects that the FM9 couldn’t replicate were the Chase Bliss Mood and a modded vintage Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer. Utility boxes include two tuners—Peterson StroboStomp HD and TC Electronic PolyTune 3—MIDI Solutions Thru 2-output box, a pair of BeardBuilds AB boxes, a Dunlop Volume (X) Mini, a Mission Engineering SP-1 pedal, and offstage, a Radial ProD8 8-Channel Rackmount Direct Box. A Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus and Truetone 1 Spot juices everything up.
Shop Shaun Lopez' Crosses (†††) Rig
Gibson Custom 1968 Les Paul Custom Reissue
Gibson SG Special
Gretsch G2420T Streamliner Hollowbody Electric Guitar
Schecter PT Fastback Electric Guitar
Sequential Prophet-6 - 6-voice Analog Synthesizer
Novation Launchkey 49 MK3 49-key Keyboard Controller
Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer Analog Guitar Microsynth Pedal
Peterson StroboStomp HD Pedal Tuner
TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Polyphonic LED Guitar Tuner Pedal with Buffer
Dunlop DVP4 Volume (X) Mini Pedal
Mission Engineering SP-1 Expression Pedal
Radial ProD8 8-channel Passive Instrument Direct Box
Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 PLUS 8-output Isolated Guitar Pedal Power Supply
Truetone 1 SPOT Slim 9V DC Adapter
![Rig Rundown: Steve Vai [2023]](https://www.premierguitar.com/media-library/rig-rundown-steve-vai-2023.jpg?id=38640211&width=1245&height=700&quality=85&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Steve Vai is much more than a great guitarist. The American guitarist has established himself as a key figure in guitar culture, and one of the world’s leading masters of shred. Vai broke on the scene in 1980 as Frank Zappa’s transcriptionist, until Zappa hired Vai, age 20, to join his touring band—Zappa allegedly called Vai his “little Italian virtuoso.”
Bolstering his guitar theatrics with sharp songwriting and producing, Vai went on to conquer the world of guitar music, winning three Grammys and selling 15 million records. PG was lucky to be invited to Vai’s recent show at the Country Music Hall of Fame’s CMA Theatre in Nashville, where his tech, Doug MacArthur, took John Bohlinger through Vai’s jaw-dropping current touring rig.
Special thanks to Doug MacArthur for explaining this incredibly complex rig.
Brought to you by D’Addario XS Strings.
Evo
Currently on its fifth neck, Vai’s trusty axe has been a constant for touring and recording since roughly 1992. It sports DiMarzio “Evolution Bridge” pickups in both the neck and bridge position, “EVO gold” Jumbo frets, and a cosmo black Ibanez LO-PRO tremolo. Vai keeps this one in standard tuning, courtesy of .009-.042 Ernie Ball Super Slinkies.
Flo III
Flo III has been Vai’s main guitar since the late 2000s. This Jem was assembled at the Ibanez Los Angeles Custom Shop, where it was fitted with a Fernandes Sustainer, and modified with a lightly scalloped fretboard. It’s outfitted with EVO gold jumbo frets, a DiMarzio Evolution Bridge pickup, and an Ibanez LO-PRO tremolo. This one also lives in standard tuning, with .009-.042 Ernie Ball Super Slinkies.
Bo
A truly unique aesthetic. Circa 2001, BO was the prototype for the “Jem 77BRMR” model. You’ll notice the mirror crazing under the finish, on the forearm contour. This was worked out for production models, but Vai fell in love with the sound of this particular prototype, and has kept it in the touring lineup since the early 2000s. The neck boasts blue LED front and side dot markers, which were done by Martin Sims. It’s equipped with Jumbo Jescar nickel silver frets, a Fernandes Sustainer, a DiMarzio Evolution bridge pickup, and a LO-PRO Ibanez tremolo. This one rides in drop C tuning, with a set of .010-.052 Ernie Ball Skinny Top Heavy Bottoms.
Little Pretty
This one is a production model Ibanez John Schofield JSM, outfitted in a loud Bonvillain Dip, with gold leaf binding and unique pin-striping on the back. The electronics are stock, although the tone controls have been disconnected. Little Pretty sports locking Grover tuners, and a Tusq nut. Doug MacArthur has also re-radiused the fretboard to 16” throughout, and re-fretted it with Jumbo EVO gold fretwire, giving this guitar a very familiar feel to Vai. Plus, it’s gussied up with a very well-loved fluffy white strap!
Zeus
Zeus is a 1998 one-off prototype for the Hoshino 90th anniversary Jem model. Only one 7-string with this aesthetic was made, and it has remained stored away in Steve’s collection until recently, when pulled into touring duty in early 2023. It’s got custom chrome-topped DiMarzio Blaze pickups, and abalone dot inlays, mods made by MacArthur to get it ready for its first tour. It has jumbo nickel-silver frets, and hangs in standard tuning with a low A, thanks to .009-.056 Ernie Balls.
Candle
Made in the early 2000s by the Ibanez Custom Shop, this unique Jem/Strat hybrid boasts a classic sound while still maintaining the Vai aesthetic. It’s loaded with Fender Fat 50s single coils, a Wilkinson tremolo, and EVO gold jumbo frets over 21 frets with a custom 12” radius.
The Beast With Three Necks
This Frankenstein monster, known as the Hydra, has one body, two headstocks, and three necks, accommodating both seven- and 12-string guitars as well as a four-string bass and half-fretless neck. Pickup combinations include a sustainer, humbuckers, single-coils, and a piezo. Oh, and did we mention there’s also a harp onboard?
The Beast With Three Necks
The Hydra has two outputs. One is an ethernet cable, and the other is midi.
The ethernet plugs into a custom Hydra Brain built by Ibanez, which is mounted in the middle of the rack. The ethernet input distributes the signal for each individual instrument on the hydra, and the brain gives each instrument its own 1/4” output, as well as a master level control for each instrument. The harp, bass, and 12-string 1/4” brain outputs go into individual inputs of the AXE FX III TURBO, for the Hydra Song Patch. These three instruments utilize effects and amp modeling in the Fractal, and come out stereo to the front-of-house mixing console. The 7-string, however, doesn’t utilize modeling at all. Its output from the brain goes into the Little Lehle III A/B pedal on Vai’s pedalboard, which gets routed into his pedalboard and normal amplifier signal path. In other words, the 7-string runs through Steve’s rig just like his normal guitars.
There are 3 small MIDI trigger buttons hidden in various locations on the Hydra’s body, which trigger sound effects featured in the song. The MIDI cable goes into a small custom-built splitter box, which feeds each trigger button into a Roland TD-27 drum module, hard-mounted in the middle of the rack and routed to front-of-house.
Rack 'Em Up
Vai runs a neon green, 60-foot-long custom DiMarzio instrument cable from his guitar to his board. The first pedal in the chain is a Little Lehle III A/B switch, that allows Vai’s team to switch between the Hydra and his regular guitars.
From there, the signal hits Vai’s Dunlop 95Q automatic wah, modded by MacArthur to remove the gain switch and add a volume and Q control on the left side of the wah. Vai runs the volume pot all the way up, and the Q around 95 percent of the way up.
From there the signal hits an Ibanez Jemini Distortion then a Digitech Whammy DT. Vai always has the right side of the pedal set to jump 7 semitones up from the moment the switch is stepped on. He uses this constantly, and its work can be heard on songs like “Weeping China Doll,” “Lights Are On,” and “Greenish Blues.”
Then the guitar goes into the input of the rack unit. There’s a Morningstar Effects ML5 MIDI looper, which has an Ibanez Jemini (seen on top of the rack) in a loop, that only comes on during various points during the Hydra performance, via MIDI.
After the ML5, the signal flows into two Synergy SYN-2 preamps, which are daisy-chained together to allow Vai full use of all four modules that are loaded into them: two Synergy VAI modules, and two Synergy B-MAN modules. The 2 Vai modules are set fairly similar—the first is his main tone, and the second one is set virtually identical, but with the gain backed down a bit. The B-MAN modules are used mainly for their beautiful clean channels, but also for their great ’70s overdriven channels, which Vai occasionally uses throughout the night. The module channels are controlled via the Mastermind LT MIDI footswitch on Vai’s pedalboard.
Shred Synergy
From the Synergys, the signal exits into the input of a Fractal Axe FX III Turbo. This unit is controlled simultaneously by the FC-12 switcher on Steve’s pedalboard, and a second FC-12, at MacArthur’s guitar boat. Each song in the set has its own patch in the Fractal, mainly utilizing different digital delays, chorusing, and reverbs for each song. Vai runs his rig in stereo, so the signal exits the Fractal’s outputs via left and right.
From the stereo output of the fractal, the left and right outputs now go into the left and right inputs of the Fryette LX-2 Stereo Tube Power amp. This power amp is 50 watts per-side, and both left and right are controlled via one single volume control, which allows Vai’s team to maintain even levels between the left and right guitar cabinets. Vai usually rides the volume around 1 or 2 o’clock (depending on the venue), with the depth control pushed in. A second LX2 powers Vai’s front-stage 1x12 stereo guitar monitors, which were custom-built by CARVIN.)
The main Fryette sends its output to the Carvin Legacy 4x12 cabinets on stage left and stage right. These cabs are each loaded with a quartet of Celestion Vintage 30s, and feature unique “Inviolate” artwork grill cloth, which MacArthur had custom-made by NoiseyHammer. These cabs have been with Vai for a long time, and can be seen in the Where The Wild Things Are DVD, when they were fitted with custom grill cloths from the Sound Theories album artwork.
