This is the first in an occasional series on I Heart Guitar about the glory of distortion: How different players achieve it, what they like about it, how they control it, and how it changed their lives. I posed these questions to the ever-affable Paul Gilbert earlier in the year, just before he came out to Australia for a clinic tour:

PETER: What is your philosophy on distortion?

GILBERT: I love fuzzy guitar sounds. It makes things more exciting, but you have to develop a lot of extra techniques to control it and keep it from getting ugly and noisy.

PETER:Where does your distortion come from primarily?

GILBERT: The best distortion comes from cranking up a tube amp. But I sometimes use a pedal to add a little more gain.

PETER: What can you recall about the first time you played guitar through distortion?

GILBERT: My first amp was a Fender Vibro Champ. It had 6 watts. The lady at the music store told me that if I turned the volume past 4 it would BREAK. At 4, the tiniest bit of distortion started to happen. So I carefully turned it to 4 1/2. It didn’t break. I slowly went higher and higher. And after a week I was on 10 every day. By today’s standards, this was still pretty clean, but it was really exciting for an 11 year old kid trying to play “Johnny B. Goode.”
My first fuzz pedal was an Electro Harmonix “Hot Tubes”. I ran a “Screaming Tree” treble booster into it and it sounded great. I had no concept of how to control feedback, so after every song, my guitar would just HOWL. My uncle finally introduced me to the guitar’s volume pot. Now, turning my volume pot down after I play is a habit. I can’t stop it if I try!

PETER: And finally could we please have a brief rundown of your main gear, as it relates to generating distortion?

GILBERT:
GUITAR: New Ibanez PGM301, vintage Ibanez guitars
PICKUPS: DiMarzio Tone Zone, DiMarzio PAF Classic
AMP: Marshall Vintage Modern. Also, I often run my Marshall through a THD Hot Plate in my home studio. That way I can crank up the power tubes all the way, but keep the volume under control.
PEDALS: Ibanez Tube Screamer, Fulltone OCD, Xotic Effects AC Booster, Fulltone Soul Bender. (Not all at once!)

Ibanez PGM301 Paul Gilbert Signature Electric Guitar White
Marshall Vintage Modern 2266 Tube Combo Amp Standard
DiMarzio Tone Zone Guitar Pickup Black Regular

Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer Effects Pedal Standard

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