Jack White (musician) - Musical Equipment and Sound

Musical Equipment and Sound

The guitars White uses live are two 1965 JB Hutto Montgomery Airlines (one which he received from a fan), a three pickup Airline Town & Country (used on tour with the Raconteurs and in the "Steady As She Goes" music video), a Harmony Rocket, a 1970s-era Crestwood Astral II, 1950s-era Kay Hollowbody (given to him by his brother in return for a favor), a Gretsch White Penguin (as seen in the music video for Icky Thump), and a custom Gretsch Rancher Falcon acoustic guitar. When playing with the Raconteurs, White usually plays two custom Gretsch-styled copies of the Duo Jet double-cutaway guitar, which were made in collaboration with his Seattle luthier, Randy Parsons. His main guitar is dubbed the Triple Jet, which is made of copper and features a Gretsch logo from 1912. For their first tour, Jack also played Gretsch Anniversary Jr. with a Bigsby vibrato tailpiece and three Filtertron pickups. He also uses a Gretsch Rancher acoustic guitar and he now uses a custom Gretsch Anniversary Jr. with two cutaways, a built-in retractable microphone, and a theremin next to the Bigsby. Jack has dubbed this one the "Triple Green Machine". Also, he plays occasionally with his Gretsch Rancher, a Gibson J-160E. Also, he plays a Gretsch Duo Jet in Cadillac Green. Recently, he has featured his latest Gretsch, a custom white Billy Gibbons/Bo Diddley signature Gretsch Jupiter Thunderbird in the music video for "Another Way to Die", this guitar is also used on his concerts with The Dead Weather, but he also uses a black left-handed one since Sea of Cowards came out. He has also been known to play Fender Telecasters, featuring one in the music video for Loretta Lynn's "Portland, Oregon". Jack White has also played in live shows, mainly with The Dead Weather, a Daddy Mojo Stove Pipe Cigar Box Guitar.

White uses numerous effects to create his live sound, most notably a DigiTech Whammy WH-4 to create the rapid modulations in pitch he uses in his solos. In concert with an MXR Micro Amp and custom Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Distortion/Sustainer, White can produce a very distinctive sound. In 2005, for the single "Blue Orchid," White employed a new Electro-Harmonix creation, the Polyphonic Octave Generator (POG). Similar to (but more versatile than) the Whammy IV, the POG lets the user mix in several octave effects into one along with the dry signal. He also has three Z.Vex Tremolo Probes, that are hand painted black. All of the pedals that he uses live have been professionally painted red to match his red/black/white color scheme (with the exception of his Whammy and the other pedals that are already red). He plugs this setup into a 1970s Fender Twin Reverb and two 100-Watt Sears Silvertone 6x10 combo amplifiers. He also has a Sonic Machine Factory 15 Watt amp in red that can be seen in Under Great White Northern Lights. He uses this as a travel amp for secret or small shows, and also as the amp for his various keyboards when playing for a larger audience. With the Raconteurs, he has many more unusual pedals. And also, for the Raconteurs' 2008 tour, he had all of his pedals copper plated by Analog Man.

White also produces a "fake" bass tone by playing the Kay Hollowbody and JB Hutto Montgomery Airline guitars through a Whammy IV set to one octave down for a very thick, low, rumbling sound, which he uses most notably on the songs "Seven Nation Army" and "The Hardest Button to Button" during live performances.

On occasion, White also plays other instruments, such as a Black Gibson F-4 mandolin ("Little Ghost"), piano (on most tracks from Get Behind Me Satan, and various others), and an electric piano on such tracks as "The Air Near My Fingers" and "I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman". White also plays percussion instruments such as the marimba (as on "The Nurse"), drums and tambourine. For the White Stripes' 2007 tour, he played a custom-finish Hammond A-100 organ with a Leslie 3300 speaker, which was subsequently loaned to Bob Dylan, and currently resides at Third Man Studios. On Broken Boy Soldiers, he is credited as playing the album's synths and organ; however, bandmate Brendan Benson also received credit for these instruments and it is unclear who played on which song.

With the Dead Weather, Jack plays a custom Ludwig Classic Maple kit in Black Oyster Pearl. The sizes consist of the following: 16x26 kick, 5x16 snare (primary) 12x14 marching snare (secondary), 7x16 rack tom 14x16 floor tom, two 16x16 floor toms, Paiste 2002 24"crash, 24"ride and two 16" crashes as hi-hats. For the 2009 Full Flash Blank tour, Jack used a drum head with the Three Brides of Dracula on the front, but in 2010, Jack employs a new drum head, upon the release of Sea of Cowards, which has an image of The Third Man himself: Harry Lime attempting to escape certain capture in the sewers of Vienna. During the American leg of the 2010 tour, Jack switched his drum head again featuring a picture of himself in the guise he wore on the cover of Sea of Cowards. This drum head is called Sam Kay by some fans, referring to the insert inside of the 12" LP.

In 2010, Jack White added an acoustic guitar to his collection named Veronica Lake. It is a custom white Gretsch Rancher with a gold double pickguard and a picture of Veronica Lake on the back. He is currently playing it with his band The Dead Weather. It is the newest addition to "Jack's Girlfriends" which already include Claudette Colbert that he plays In the Raconteurs, and Rita Hayworth that he plays in the White Stripes.

According to Joe Chiccarelli, engineer for Icky Thump, White is not very technical when it comes to capturing his sound on record: "Usually he wouldn't talk in terms of compression or EQ or any of those things, it was always about what can we do to give something more aggression or hit you in the face more. Jack's brilliance is his understanding of great emotional performances, and of what it takes to make something come alive through the speakers and have an impact."