Chords for The Mystery Of Billy Gibbons' Guitar Sound

I like ZZ Top but as a guitar player I especially like Billy Gibbons.
Recently I bought a Blu-ray of the documentary That Little Old Band From Texas, which I can really recommend.
But I also wanted one of their live shows on Blu-ray.
_ And that's when I got this.
Their live show on Montreux _ 2013.
_ _ And one thing struck me [E] right away. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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[E] _ _ In my humble opinion that guitar sound is awesome.
And let's be honest, I think Billy Gibbons always sounds awesome.
His sound has always been kind of Marshall-esque.
And it has been different from the 70s up to the 80s and then up to the 90s up until now.
But it always sounds a bit like a Marshall but it especially always sounds like Billy Gibbons.
But the question is what is he actually using here that makes that awesome sound?
_ Let's have a deeper look.
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[A] _ So _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ in the spot where they usually have their big amp setups they are using screens that ironically say basic amplifier.
So you don't actually see the amplifiers they're using.
You do have those two custom speaker cabinets, you know the old ones with the cushions on the side.
But I think they're maybe there for playback or just for show.
But they are not mic'd and I don't believe there's any sound coming from them.
What you can see is a magnetone on Billy's side at the side of the screen.
So I thought maybe that's the amp he's using.
But if you look a bit later in the performance you can see that's actually for a guest guitar player.
That is plugged into that amp.
So that's not Billy's [Gm] amp. _
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_ [Am] _ _ _ _ _ [Ab] Later in the show you see a camera angle of the side of the stage from Billy's left.
And there's what I believe to be another magnetone there.
But I cannot see if it's mic'd up or if that's the actual amp he's using at that moment.
_ So I went diving a little bit deeper into the Rick Rundown's premiere guitar has done with ZZ Top.
One two years before the show and the other one two years after that show.
To see if I could find out more what's making that [F] sound.
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_ [G] _ [Cm] So _ [Bb] _ _ _
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[Db] _ after checking both Rick Rundown's on YouTube there are a few things that are consistent in the video of 2011 and _ 2015.
The first one is that he uses an equalizer for all of his guitars.
And the equalization is actually [N] set to a G chord that he played on his Pearly Gates.
So every guitar he uses is equalized to sound the same as his Pearly Gates guitar. _
And that is in the effects loop of a Marshall GMP-1 rack unit.
So that's what he actually uses for his stage monetization.
And in 2011 that was also what was going through an isolated cab.
And in between there he had a Marshall Valve State power amp.
_ So that's the consistency he [Gb] has on both. _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ And we correct it with this.
_ We don't mic any on stage cabinets.
Right now we're using I think some [Ab] Magnetone _ 412s.
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[Ab] But we have two [Gb] Demeter _ Isobox loaded [Ab] with _ _ an _ Eminence Governor in one and a Man of War [Eb] in the other.
[Cm] And that's run off the power amps.
[N] _ The amp splitters. _ _ _
_ We have two _ Isoboxes. _
_ One of them _ _ is micing the Marshall through the Marshall _ _ JMP-1 through the Marshall Valve State.
_ _ _ One amp drives the Isobox which is miced.
The other amp drives the two stage cabinets.
_ And those are? _
Those are the Magnetones loaded with some custom made Eminence speakers. _
They do some weird_
We've been experimenting.
They do different baskets and different magnets for it.
At this point I don't know what they're doing.
I just plug them in and tell them whether we like them or not.
_ _ _ So the Marshall is one side.
It's a _ dual amp setup.
_ The Marshall on one side and the other side is the Magnetone.
Now the Magnetone goes straight to the [C] Isobox.
It doesn't go out.
Billy [G] doesn't hear that.
_ _ And it goes straight out front.
[E] But in the 2015 rig rundown he's also using one of his Magnetones and a Bigtone head.
Also going through an Isocap.
So this is where things get a bit more complicated.
Where is that sound actually coming from?
But to make it more interesting let's check a clip from the Blu-ray
and compare it to [F] a clip of the same show that was broadcast on German television.
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_ And although they sound very similar I think they're [Gb] a little bit different.
And I think the difference is [Ab] explained in this part of the second rig rundown from 2015.
_ [N] Now there is this one _ _ that's set to a clean, to a DI just [Bb] for recording purposes.
If they [N] record every night they want to re-amp later.
So that's what that is.
So they don't just record every show every night.
They record his guitars for re-amping.
And what that means is that they record kind of a clean signal of his guitar playing
[C] that they can re-amp in a studio later on through basically any amp he [E] wants to.
And that means we don't know which amp he is actually using
because the recording we're seeing on [Gm] Blu-ray could be any amp he wanted to use in the studio.
_ [C] _ [Gm] I'm not [Cm] a [D] _ TV dance [Gm] ham.
I'm a looking for a console. _ _ _ _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ [Dbm] And that is basically the mystery and also the coolness of Billy Gibbons and [G] his guitar sounds.
We never know what makes exactly that sound he gets.
And it always sounds a bit different but it always sounds like Billy Gibbons.
And there are a lot of myths like with the [E] peso and other stuff he's using.
He has been using weird shit on stage believing that is making a sound.
He has been using [Fm] great amplifiers which I don't believe can sound that good.
But he always sounds good and he always sounds like himself.
And I think a lot of that is in his fingers and in whatever he's using.
But no matter what he's using we can just enjoy his tone
because no one will ever sound like Billy Gibbons. _ _ _ _ _
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