Warren Haynes must be a contender for the hardest working guitarist in jam-dom. The North Carolina native has spent over three decades relentlessly touring and crafting a significant body of recorded work.
Enlisted by Dickey Betts in 1989 to join the Allman Brothers Band, Haynes spent 25 years with the ‘Brothers’ and was indeed the longest serving guitarist in the seminal band.
Haynes, alongside Matt Abts and the late Allen Woody, founded Gov’t Mule in 1994. The band’s latest release Revolution Come…Revolution Go (2017) continues the band’s amalgamation of rock, blues, soul and jazz.
Haynes has also managed to maintain a solo career, as well as notch up studio and live credits working with The Grateful Dead alumni, Dave Matthews Band, Garth Brooks, Peter Frampton amongst many others.
Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, and Cream-era Eric Clapton are all cited by Haynes as formative influences.
Haynes is best known for wrangling muscular tones from a Les Paul plugged into a 100 watt head – and we will certainly explore those aspects of his rig – however, a slew of other guitars and amps have added nuance to his tonal approach.
As for Haynes’ guitar approach to Revolution Come…Revolution Go, the guitarist states,”I probably play a Les Paul more than any other guitar, but it’s only on a few tracks this time around.”
Warren’s Electric Guitars
Haynes has a sizable guitar collection and will often take up to 14 guitars on a tour, including several Les Pauls.
Haynes’ Gibson Custom Shop signature model was launched in 2007. It featured classic Les Paul Standard features such as a mahogany body with a maple cap, mahogany neck with a rosewood fingerboard and ‘58 profile neck carve. The ‘58 neck is a little meatier than it’s famous ‘59 counterpart. Newer appointments include strap locks, a Tone Pros bridge and Burstbucker pickups. It’s plain maple cap is a striking visual appointment. Note the mini switch nestled amongst the volume and tone pots. It switches in a circuit that retains treble when the volume is rolled back.
Haynes’ Signature model up close
Haynes discussing his Gibson Signature Les Paul
A ‘58 reissue Les Paul with a beautiful flame maple and lemon drop finish is dubbed ‘Wandering Child’ for its use in the song of the same name.
Haynes is also fan of Gibson semi-hollow bodies. His prize 335 is a cherry 1961 dubbed ‘Big Red’, which is strictly a studio instrument. In 2014, Gibson produced a limited run of custom shop recreations of ‘Big Red’.
On the road, a pair of 335 reissues are employed including a blonde ‘59 model. Check out Haynes’ incredible phrasing on this guitar during a live version of “Man in Motion”. Also note the soulful use of a stock Dunlop Cry Baby wah.
Haynes’ has described Firebirds as the most ‘Fenderish’ of Gibson guitars and employs them when looking for a little less heft than an LP or 335. He has played both reverse and non reverse models featuring mini-humbuckers or P90s.
Check out this blue non reverse Firebird with punchy mini humbuckers featured during Gov’t Mule’s performance on Conan O’Brien’s show in September this year. Note Haynes’ liberal use of a throaty wah, a pair of 100 watt heads and – perhaps Haynes’ most radical gear move in some time – a Fiesta Red Fender Telecaster on standby.
The Telecaster was actually the main guitar on three tracks from Revolution Come…Revolution Go including the blistering “Stone Cold Rage”.
Non reverse firebird on Conan O’Brien.
A new acquisition for Haynes was a 1958 Gretsch hollowbody, featuring a solitary neck Filtertron. This guitar was used on “Sarah, Surrender” alongside a Fender Strat.
A duo of rare Gibson 12 string electrics – a Les Paul and Firebird – have been deployed for some years, the former capoed and used for slide on the Mule live favorite “Railroad Boy”.
A Gibson SG tuned down a step rounded out the electrics used on Revolution Come…Revolution Go.
Warren’s Acoustic Guitars
Haynes teamed up with Washburn in 2013 to produce the Warren Haynes Signature Solo Deluxe acoustic. This model was based on Washburn’s 1937 Solo Deluxe acoustic, a stylish flat top that combined aspects of a dreadnought and grand auditorium body profile. Rosewood back and sides supported a solid sitka spruce top, with mahogany neck and ebony fretboard fitted.
Haynes enjoys a variety of different body styles in his acoustic collection from the jumbo sized Gibson J200 to the slim 000 of a Martin Eric Clapton Signature.
Warren’s Amplifiers
Haynes has been a long time proponent of a multi-amp setup for both live shows and recording.
Whilst in Dickey Betts band – and at the time using Paul Reed Smith guitars – Haynes was an early adopter of PRS amps. His main PRS amp has been a Super Dallas prototype, reverse engineered from a Marshall ‘68 plexi head, once owned by Eric Johnson. The 50 watt head features an EL34 power tube section for Marshall-esque grind and funky paisley tolex.
A Soldano SLO 100 is a favorite of Haynes ‘big heads’. Haynes’ particular model has been “drastically modded” by Mike Soldano himself. Pedal guru, Brian Wampler, was so enamored by Haynes’ Soldano tone that he developed the SLOstortion pedal.
Diaz Amplification was owned by Peter McMahon from 2000, who rebranded the endeavor as Homestead Amps in 2014. Haynes has since retired his CD100 and replaced it with a Homestead HS100. It is essentially the same design, although utilizing a 6550 power section. It retains the mid boost of the Diaz, whilst also featuring a half-power option, dropping its output to 50 watts.
All of Haynes heads usually run through a Marshall 4 x 12 quad box, although he has also been known to use PRS enclosures, too.
Haynes’ secret weapon in the studio has been to incorporate a smaller amp – alongside the high wattage amps – for extra incision and articulation. A Fender Blues Jnr was originally drafted for this purpose. Currently Haynes uses an Alessandro recording amp.
Warren Haynes’ Effects
Most of Haynes’ signature tone is drawn from his amps and guitar. He is a master of ‘playing the amp’ and is constantly adjusting his attack on the guitar – and its controls – to deliver nuanced tone and dynamics. That said, Haynes also runs an effects rig, judiciously used.
Two systems are currently in use: an ‘A’ rig and smaller ‘B’ rig for fly dates. In each, a Bob Bradshaw CAE switching system is the centerpiece of Haynes’ effects, taking care of both effects loops and and amp switching duties.
The aforementioned Cry Baby wah – or Haynes’ signature model G Labs Wowee Wah is probably the most utilized of Haynes’ effects. Although usually more than happy with amp overdrive, Haynes will occasionally kick in a Zendrive (rig ‘B’) or original Klon Centaur (rig ‘A’) for extra push into the front end of the amp. Whilst original Klons are as rare as hen’s teeth – and driven to crazy prices in the used market – the Klon KTR is a great alternative for those looking for some magic at a reasonable price.
Common to both effects rigs is a Boss OC2, Hughes and Kettner Rotoshpere and Emma Discombobulator.
The ‘A’ rig also incorporates some rack gear in addition to the aforementioned pedals.
On the rack side a Korg tuner, Chandler Digital Delay and CAE Super Trem are featured in addition to the CAE audio routing gear.
Strings and Things
Haynes is a long time user of GHS Burnished Nickel Rockers in 10-46 and 11-50 gauges. His picks of choice are Dunlop .88 Tortex and D’Andrea 347’s. Planet Waves cables transport Haynes’ audio signal. Like his hero, Duane Allman, Haynes used a Coricidin Slide for many years. However, Haynes currently uses an open ended Dunlop 215.
Matt Wakeling is a guitarist and music educator from Sydney, Australia. Matt produces the Guitar Speak Podcast, an interview style podcast that has included guests such as Dweezil Zappa, Andy Timmons, Brian Wampler, Scott Henderson, Gretchen Menn, Brett Garsed and many more world class guitarists.
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Warren Haynes, lead singer and guitarist of Gov’t Mule, is one of the hardest working musicians in the business. Warren’s late guitar tech, Brian Farmer, took some time a few years back to rundown all the different gear that Warren uses to get that signature Gov’t Mule sound. This is a transcript of Premier Guitar’s Warren Haynes Rig Rundown.
Rebecca Dirks: I’m here with Brian Farmer, Warren’s tech. And we’re going to start looking at the Amps who’s got a really pretty sweet setup here. Let’s start with the Paul Reed Smith.
Brian Farmer: Well, depending on what songs we use is depending on what amps we’re going to use. And we also have a Soldano and the Power Reed Smith. This is a super Dallas. This is the prototype. It’s actually a reverse engineered Paul Reed Smith head. It’s based on the Marshall Plexi. They have ‘68 Plexi that belong to Eric Johnson. So depending on what songs Warren is going to play, we’ll go either this Amp or this Amp. I do have an Amp switcher from time to time; we’ll switch back and forth with.
PRS DG30 Amp Head – See More Details and Pricing on Amazon
We use the PRS for some stuff going through a Marshall, 4×12 with Vintage 30, it’s a 4 Amp cabinet. It’s great amp. And underneath it I’ve got his main Soldano. We use it a lot with the Allman Brothers, use it all the time here as well. And that Soldano going with this as well. Once again, 4 Amp Cabinet.
Over here we walk into this Diaz, this is a CD 100. Cesar Diaz has been gone. He died a few years ago. He built this one back in ’93 or ’94. This is in every single thing Warren does. This Amp always goes. That’s into a Marshall 4×12. This has got these very strange 65 Watt Celestion speakers in it. And no, they’re not modern lead 70’s. These are 65 Watts Celestion speakers because this Amp has got four 6550 power tubes in it and 200 Watt output transformers in series. So basically, you got about 135 to 140 Watt amp going into here and we run it hot and heavy as you can see. And this one goes to 12. So I don’t want to talk about 11, let’s talk about 12.
Rebecca Dirks: What are you making the cabs with?
Brian Farmer: We us Shure KSM32’s on the tops. And on the bottoms, right now it’s changed over– I know you’ll ask me about that. Sennheiser’s I believe– I’d have to ask the other guys. Normally, we put SM56’s down there. We’re outdoors so Ed wants to put some different things on it.
Rebecca Dirks: Cool. And I want to check out the– a couple of effects we’ve got in here.
Brian Farmer: Those are custom audio switcher. Of course, we love using the Korg, the DTR-1 tuners, Chandler SDE-2, Digital Delay which sounds very analogue and on top of this there is– now that is getting caught on me. There’s a Texas Ranger up top here. He likes to run the Firebirds. This will boost the Firebirds up so that they’re running about the same level a little bit more than a Les Paul.
And then below it the Klon Centaur, and EMMA Discombobulator, which is like an envelop filter, an envelop follower, a Boss OC-2. You can’t really see it but behind there is a Hughes and Kettner Rotosphere, OK? And below that, we use the Super Trem which you know that’s a two-speed Tremolo unit it’s made by Custom Audio Electronics. And then we’ve got all you know, going to each Amp, that’s the channel switcher for the Soldano. I’ve got the wah-wah coming in and out of here. I’ve got this in to the drummer. I’ve got a send to the bass player, your organ that’s the input.
Below, that’s the Custom Audio Amp switcher. And then down here is what I like to call the mother board if you want to call it. So that’s your custom audio switcher, the spin breaker for the Rotosphere, that’s the standard Cry Baby Wah Wah pedal. That’s what he loves. And we run 20 foot of cable out and 20 foot back to get rid of some high end.
And then this silver box here, that’s the mid range boost for the Diaz. That’s a standard you know volume pedal, Ernie Ball volume pedal. And that’s the bass cut for the Diaz head. And then he likes to have tuner down front. We really like the Planet Waves pedal tunes. He does all switching himself, all his effects on and off himself, I do very little– sometimes I’ll change settings on effects are on Amplifiers just you know we can have little hand signals and neither one of us know what they mean but we kind of pretend we know.
Rebecca Dirks: So effects wise and Amps, how does this differ from the Allman Brothers rig?
Brian Farmer: Will the Allman Brothers, occasionally there’s like three songs we use a wah-wah and I never put a wa-wa pedal amp for the Allmans unless those songs were in the set. The only other effect to use this is I’ve got a Boss DD-2, an old Boss Delay Pedal with tap function. We’ll use that for sometimes like Melissa stuff like that. Mainly it’s an amp switcher and a guitar Les Paul. If he wants a different sound, he’ll either go to the DS and then back to the PRS, you know just flip it back and forth very few effects so that here, you’ll there’s a lot of effects and he kicks them in and out. And it’s never the same night after night.
Rebecca Dirks: I’ve noticed you guys have some Category 5 Amps over here, what are these used for?
Brian Farmer: These are cross-stage amps. This is for your organ or bass player. He wants to hear– no matter what Warren is playing whether it’s the DS, the PRS or the Soldona, there’s a scene [0:05:18.1] [Phonetic] from the switcher over here so he can hear the effects and hear Warren playing. And it’s Category 5 Andrew, it’s like a zipped up and hot rotted super twin, I would say, Twin Reverb really, it’s a lot better in my opinion. Not what he can hear what he wants to hear as far as what Warren is doing.
Then also we have a Tempest, it’s Category 5 twin-type amplifier on Matt Abts, the drummer. So they can both control the tone and both control the level they get and it’s not coming through a monitor and by– they get the sound of a real guitar amp.
Rebecca Dirks: All right. So let’s take a look at the guitars Warren is using then.
Brian Farmer: OK, normally what we– we carry these two vaults. There are seven guitars in each vault so we use a minimum of 14 a show. And for me to keep up with all of that, I have a tendency of labeling them. So like this is the Les Paul that’s based on the Warren Haynes model. It’s a Les Paul with P-90’s. So I put here. And from either side, this is Warren’s number one or number two. It just got so weird for me so I just started going, this is Chester and this is Lester. Chester is the one we used the most. It is a Warren Haynes model. You’ll notice up with a Chet Atkins [0:06:27.5] [Indiscernible] cover on it. That’s why I call it Chester.
So this is Les Paul inspired by Warren Haynes, pretty much the number one guitar we’re using right now. The one with P-90s, the Les Paul P-90 is basically is based on this guitar. It just has P-90’s in it. So what I’ve got is basically the two main guitars, Chester and Lester, use the Firebirds and E flat. We have the tendency of calling this one Moe Lester. Warren doesn’t name these, I did. So, Moe Lester and Paul E Lester.
This is the first Non-reverse Firebird he got. He got it five years ago, six years ago now I supposed. We used to use our Reverse Firebirds and he tends to like these. I haven’t named this one yet, I’m still working on a name for that one. That’s the dark blue. This one is Colling, I call it Paul E Lester or Polyester. It’s got three P-90’s. These are 11 to 50 on the strings. This is 10 to 46 just like the Les Paul’s are. All three of them are tuned to E flat.
But the only SG we use all the time. And this one’s an open C tuning. That’s why I call it the crazy tuning if you’ll see that. Yes, it is dirty. And it’s a Gordy Johnson model SG with P-94’s in it and he uses that for brighter days, he uses it for like flash and it’s in you and it’s in C C G C G C. And that’s a 14 to a 58.
And then the other Les Paul is crazy [0:08:00.6] [Indiscernible] tuning like to have, that’s an 11 to 58 sat as I step down D A F and then C G C at the bottom strings. That’s the Wandering Child guitar, it’s a 58 less. That’s actually probably the most beautiful Les Paul I think he owns. And now it’s got a beautiful tap on it. And it’s 11 to 58 as well. So lemon drop is the color and it’s E C G C G C. And he plays this one on Wandering Child. So that’s a really nice guitar. It’s a 58 reissue.
His oldest Les Paul that we have on the road is the Drop D, it’s just a standard Drop D guitar but it’s a beautiful one as well. His preamp switches on all those. And this is a Nickel Rocker set. The other one is Rob Burnished Nickels. And this is 10 to 54 and it’s standard with a bottom string tuned down to D.
Well then a pair of 335 which his main guitar for recording is a 1961 335, sorry 1961 335, little we call that one a “Big Red.” I would never put a name on Big Red because it’s vintage and worth some money. Big Red stays at home. We take it to the studio all the time. We use it with the dad. It’s what we call the New York guitar.
So this is the copy of that guitar, I call it “Little Red”. Also, we have this blonde guitar. Blondie, this is the main guitar we used on the road and it’s a just a gorgeous back, gorgeous top. Burst Bucker pick up is a two, a one and a two which is a great little guitar, big fat negative ‘59 Reissue, you see the back on it and it’s just a wonderfully gorgeous guitar.
Use this lot with the Allman brothers as well. And then of course we have the 12-string which now has a broke string on it that I have to mess with. But, this is one of two Les Paul 12- strings. There are only two of these in the world. And this got a coil tops with that’s not a pre amp. So the tops are just single coils and Warren plays it in a Drop D tuning so it’s 10 to 46. One of the two in the world. And that’s the end of my world I think. And there’s…
Rebecca Dirks: All right.
Brian Farmer: This is where I live. It is a mess and we love it that way.
Rebecca Dirks: Cool. And are there any preferred strings that Warren uses?
Brian Farmer: Definitely. And you know we’re big GHS guys. Most of the guitars are stung with Burnished Nickels. I used 10s and 11s. For most of Danny Lewis’s are 10 to 48 so I like using these boomers, the Dave Guilmore series, you know. We have all kinds of GHS what we love. For the low tune stuff, I use those. And then there’s a 12-string sets are boomers as well. So where we love GHS strings, GHS products, planet waves, cables, it’s all good.
