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With four Grammys, loads of gear, and millions of tour bus miles, Isbell is back for an updated Rig Rundown with his 400 Unit co-guitarist, Sadler Vaden.
Jason Isbell’s last Rundown was in 2019. The guitarist and songwriter, who we’ve called “Americana’s poet laureate,” is a huge gearhead though—and his collection is truly the stuff of dreams—so a lot can happen in a few years. Currently touring with his acclaimed 400 Unit band in support of the highly acclaimed Weathervanes album, he rolls with a stash of vintage Fenders and Gibsons that would make even the least gear-motivated among us blush. That’s not to mention his enviable traveling amp and effect closets. Isbell invited Perry Bean and the PG team to the Ryman for a look at his current touring rig and that of Sadler Vaden, the band’s ripping co-guitarist whose relatively more modest collection is still quite the enviable one!
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The Finest of Fenders
The guitarist’s own Jason Isbell Custom Telecaster features a sunburst finish and cream double-binding on its ’59-style Tele Custom body, a mid-’60s C-shaped maple neck, a 21-fret rosewood fingerboard, custom Jason Isbell Telecaster Pickups, and a modified bridge.
Way back in April 1965, this candy-apple-red Tele came out of the Fender factory, and its bridge pickup and neck profile were the inspiration/template for Isbell’s signature instrument.
While it boasts many 1957 features, like a V-shaped neck and ’57-like finish, this sunburst Strat is a ’58. Isbell has updated it with a 5-way switch.
The Greatest of Gibsons
This 1961 Gibson ES-335 is the first really old, really awesome guitar that Isbell obtained. It’s mostly original with a few key upgrades: Isbell had famed Nashville luthier Joe Glaser give the guitar a refret and install a TonePros tailpiece along with new tuners since, after years of use, the originals started to look like “a dead man’s toe.”
Old Gold? The Bigsby and tailpiece on Isbell’s 1953 goldtop Les Paul were installed by longtime Neil Young tech Larry Cragg, which makes it kin with Neil’s Old Black.
This 1961 SG has lived a long life playing and managed to avoid any neck breaks. It features the original PAFs.
This rockin’ 1960 Les Paul Custom features at trio of original PAFs, an all mahogany body, and a “Red Beauty” custom finish. It’s been refretted with bigger frets. All of Jason’s electrics take Ernie Ball Slinky .010–.046s. He hammers away with Dunlop Tortex 1.14 mm picks and gets slippery with Dunlop 218 slides.
And a Pair of Martins
Isbell tours with two new Martin Modern Deluxe dreads. One is tuned down to Eb, the other in standard. Both acoustics stay strung with Martin Lifespan 2.0 medium (.013–.056) strings.
Amp Army
Stage right of the Dumble lives Isbell’s 1964 Fender Vibroverb with a “Diaz” mod (named SRV tech Cesar Diaz), which means they pulled the preamp tube in the vibrato channel. (For what it’s worth, this mod can be done to the normal channel, too. You just need to pull the V1 preamp instead.) The impact of the mod is summarized best by PG columnist Jens Mosbergvik on his Fenderguru site: “The other channel’s tube will be hotter biased and offers more gain. The amp will play louder than before given the same volume knob setting. The stronger signal will push the second gain stage (V4 tube) harder and give you increased sustain, compression and harmonics.” It has a 15" JBL speaker and was a Christmas gift from wife Amanda Shires.
Above the Dumbles, Isbell runs two 22-watt Magnatone Twilighter Stereo 2x12 Combos in stereo. Not pictured is Isbell’s Fender ’59 Twin-Amp High-Powered Tweed 80 Watt, which sits stage left of the Dumble.
Along for the ride is this 1971 50-watt Marshall and a 1964 Marshall.
Effects Heaven
While many of the effects from Isbell’s 2019 Rundown are still in the rack, several have been removed and many have been added. Additionally, the rig can be used in a wet/dry/wet configuration (it toggles throughout the show), with the two Magnatones carrying the weight of any all-wet effects. Tech Michael Bethancourt points out, “TheMagnatones we have are one of a kind, or three of a kind I guess. We wanted to retain the Magnatone vibrato we love, but I wanted it to pan between the two active amps. After some time spent speaking with Obeid Khan, someone who has worked closely with Magnatone for a long time, we came up with a plan to mod the amps in a way that would drag the vibrato through the stereo field. The LFO from one amp is ‘hijacked’ and sent to the other amp’s vibrato circuit in reverse phase, so when the vibrato is engaged via the expression pedal on the pedalboard, the vibrato pans from side to side. In the wet/dry/wet mode, that vibrato swirls up big reverbs or can be set to mimic the world’s goofiest ADT, lots of options there. In dry/dry mode, the vibrato is the classic pitch-shifting stuff that Magnatone has produced for years to great effect.”
On the floor, the pedalboard itself is a little different from last time. It’s a simpler layout now, no effects on board, just a PolyTune tuner, MXR Custom Audio Electronics buffer, his RHM Mastermind GT controller with expansion and a few Mission expression pedals. A Strymon Zuma delivers power.
Also new to the rig is the Radial JX44v2, which serves as the core signal manager. If the RJM Mastermind is the brain, this is the beating heart. Above on the rack is an Echo Fix Chorus Echo EF-X3R.
Moving up the rack, this drawer includes an Ibanez DML10 Modulation Delay II, Earthquaker Devices Tentacle, and a trio of stereo-field-only effects: Boss MD-500, Strymon Volante, Hologram Electronics Microcosm.
Continuing upward, Isbell’s stash includes a Chase Bliss Preamp Mk II, Chase Bliss Tonal Recall Delay, Chase Bliss Dark World Reverb, Chase Bliss Condor EQ/Filter, Chase Bliss Gravitas Tremolo, Chase Bliss CXM-1978 Reverb (stereo-field only), Keeley 30ms, gold Klon Centaur, Analog Man Sun Lion Fuzz/Treble Booster, Analog Man King of Tone with four-jack mod, Keeley four-knob CompROSSor, Pete Cornish OC-1 Optical Compressor, EHX Micro POG, AnalogMan ARDX20 Delay, and a trio of Fishman Aura Spectrum DIs.
Sadler Vaden's Acoustic Duo
Tele Trio, Strat Stash, a Glut of Gibsons, and a Rick
Sadler picked up this 1968 non-reverse Firebird this year, and it’s all original as far as we know.
On the rockers, like “Honeysuckle Blue” and “Deathwish,” Sadler reaches for his all-stock Murphy Lab Les Paul Standard. All of his electrics wear Ernie Ball .010s. Sadler uses Dunlop .88s for picks and Dunlop Blues Bottles for slide.
Finally, here’s Sadler’s 1992 12-string Rickenbacker 360-12.
Amp Duo—and More
Sadler runs a more svelte (it’s all relative!) two-amp rig. At stage left is a black flag-era Marshall plexi head into a Craigslist-find, 2x12 cab with Celestion Vintage 30s. The plexi is attenuated with a Weber MASS 200. At stage right sits a 3rd Power British Dream combo with a Celestion Alnico Gold 12" speaker. Sadler also carries a ’60s Vox Pacemaker and a Vox AC30HW, which are on stage but primarily there as backups. Occasionally the Pacemaker gets the call for more stage volume and flavor.
Pedal Posse
Vaden’s pedalboard chain starts with a Dunlop Clyde McCoy Wah, then a Lehle volume pedal, which feeds the Gig Rig. Vaden has a few patches setup for songs like “24 Frames,” which save him from tap dancing too much, but he mainly works it like an old-school board. He uses a Line 6 M5 with a Dunlop expression pedal for a lot of his modulation effects. Other pedals include a Crowther Prunes & Custard, Nordvang No.1, and an Analog Man Dual Analog Delay, Comp, and King of Tone, a Strymon BlueSky, and a Greer Lightspeed. Every effect is isolated into the Gig Rig. The board has four outputs, two for each side of the British Dream, one for the plexi, and one that goes to an aux line and splits to the Pacemaker.
The aux line serves as a backup in case Sadler’s amps go down. It consists of a Strymon Iridium into a Seymour Duncan Power Stage that goes to FOH.
Sadler’s acoustic pedalboard consists of a Shure wireless running into an ART Tube MP/C preamp into a LR Baggs Venue DI, with a Radial Engineering Bigshot selector.
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After eight years, New Orleans artist Benjamin Booker returns with a new album and a redefined relationship to the guitar.
That evening, Booker played a release celebration show at Euclid Records in New Orleans, which has become the musician’s adopted hometown. He spent a few years in Los Angeles, and then in Australia, where his partner gave birth to their child, but when he moved back to the U.S. in December 2023, it was the only place he could imagine coming back to. “I just like that the city has kind of a magic quality to it,” he says. “It just feels kind of like you’re walking around a movie set all the time.”
Witness was a ruminative, lonesome record, an interpretation of the writer James Baldwin’s concept of bearing witness to atrocity and injustice in the United States. Mavis Staples sang on the title track, which addressed the centuries-old crisis of police killings and brutality carried out against black Americans. It was a significant change from the twitchy, bluesy garage-rock of Booker’s self-titled 2014 debut, the sort of tunes that put him on the map as a scrappy guitar-slinging hero. But Booker never planned on heroism; he had no interest in becoming some neatly packaged industry archetype. After Witness, and years of touring, including supporting the likes of Jack White and Neil Young, Booker withdrew.
He was searching for a sound. “I was just trying to find the things that I liked,” he explains. L.A. was a good place for his hunt. He went cratedigging at Stellaremnant for electronic records, and at Artform Studio in Highland Park for obscure jazz releases. It took a long time to put together the music he was chasing. “For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do,” says Booker. “I just wasn’t interested in it anymore. I hadn’t heard really that much guitar stuff that had really spoke to me.”
“For a while, I left guitar, and was just trying to figure out what I was going to do. I just wasn’t interested in it anymore.”
LOWER is Booker’s most sensitive and challenging record yet.
Among the few exceptions were Tortoise’s Jeff Parker and Dave Harrington from Darkside, players who moved Booker to focus more on creating ambient and abstract textures instead of riffs. Other sources of inspiration came from Nicolas Jaar, Loveliescrushing, Kevin Shields, Sophie, and JPEGMAFIA. When it came to make LOWER (which released on Booker’s own Fire Next Time Records, another nod to Baldwin), he took the influences that he picked up and put them onto guitar—more atmosphere, less “noodly stuff”: “This album, I was working a lot more with images, trying to get images that could get to the emotion that I was trying to get to.”
The result is a scraping, aching, exploratory album that demonstrates that Booker’s creative analysis of the world is sharper and more potent than ever. Opener “Black Opps” is a throbbing, metallic, garage-electronic thrill, running back decades of state surveillance, murder, and sabotage against Black community organizing. “LWA in the Trailer Park” is brighter by a slim margin, but just as simultaneously discordant and groovy. The looped fingerpicking of “Pompeii Statues” sets a grounding for Booker to narrate scenes of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. Even the acoustic strums of “Heavy on the Mind” are warped and stretched into something deeply affecting; ditto the sunny, garbage-smeared ’60s pop of “Show and Tell.” But LOWER is also breathtakingly beautiful and moving. “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar” and “Hope for the Night Time” intermingle moments of joy and lightness amid desperation and loneliness.
Booker worked with L.A.-based hip-hop and electronic producer Kenny Segal, trading stems endlessly over email to build the record. While he was surrounded by vintage guitars and amps to create Witness, Booker didn’t use a single amplifier in the process of making LOWER: He recorded all his guitars direct through an interface to his DAW. “It’s just me plugging my old Epiphone Olympic into the computer and then using software plugins to manipulate the sounds,” says Booker. For him, working digitally and “in the box” is the new frontier of guitar music, no different than how Hendrix and Clapton used never-heard-before fuzz pedals to blow people’s minds. “When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time,” he adds.
“When I look at guitar players who are my favorites, a lot of [their playing] is related to the technology at the time.”
Benjamin Booker's Gear
Booker didn’t use any amps on LOWER. He recorded his old Epiphone Olympic direct into his DAW.
Photo by Trenity Thomas
Guitars
- 1960s Epiphone Olympic
Effects
- Soundtoys Little AlterBoy
- Soundtoys Decapitator
- Soundtoys Devil-Loc Deluxe
- Soundtoys Little Plate
“I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary. I wanted a little bit of ugliness.”
Inspired by a black metal documentary in which an artist asks for the cheapest mic possible, Booker used only basic plugins by Soundtoys, like the Decapitator, Little AlterBoy, and Little Plate, but the Devil-Loc Deluxe was the key for he and Segal to unlock the distorted, “three-dimensional world” they were seeking. “Because I was listening to more electronic music where there’s more of a focus on mixing than I would say in rock music, I think that I felt more inspired to go in and be surgical about it,” says Booker.
Part of that precision meant capturing the chaos of our world in all its terror and splendor. When he was younger, Booker spent a lot of time going to the Library of Congress and listening to archival interviews. On LOWER, he carries out his own archival sound research. “I like the idea of being able to put things like that in the music, for people to just hear it,” says Booker. “Even if they don’t know what it is, they’re catching a glimpse of life that happened at that time.”
On “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar,” there are birds chirping that he captured while living in Australia. Closer “Hope for the Night Time” features sounds from Los Angeles’ Grand Central Market. “Same Kind of Lonely” features audio of Booker’s baby laughing just after a clip from a school shooting. “I guess I have a problem with anything being too sugary,” says Booker. “I wanted a little bit of ugliness. We all have our regular lives that are just kind of interrupted constantly by insane acts of violence.”
That dichotomy is often difficult to compute, but Booker has made peace with it. “You hear people talking about, ‘I don’t want to have kids because the world is falling apart,’” he says. “But I mean, I feel like it’s always falling apart and building itself back up. Nothing lasts forever, even bad times.”
YouTube It
To go along with the record, Booker produced a string of music videos influenced by the work of director Paul Schrader and his fascination with “a troubled character on the edge, reaching for transcendence.” That vision is present in the video for lead single “LWA in the Trailer Park.”
