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How do you craft the tones for the various musical phases of Cooper’s career?
The majority of the stuff we’re playing is the ’70s era—about 85 percent of the set—and I’m sure they were playing cranked Marshalls back then. So the gain isn’t too saturated, and I actually think it’s more powerful to have guitars playing with less gain—not clean, but not buzzy, either. I set channel one on the Diamond head for a clean tone—something that sounds great on “Welcome to My Nightmare” with my ’74 Strat set to the neck position. Then, there’s my main tone on channel two—which is a very powerful, old-school rock sound. I use that channel about 90 percent of the time for rhythm and lead—I don’t use any kind of solo boost. For a little more hair—like on Alice’s 1989 hit, “Poison”—I will go for a more modern, saturated tone using the B section gain on channel two.
Are you constantly playing with the controls on your guitar to change tonal colors?
No. My tone knobs are basically disconnected, and whenever I’m playing live, the guitar’s volume is usually full up. For solos or certain sections, I’ll go to the rhythm pickup to get that tone, but I’ll typically stay on the bridge pickup.
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Guitars: Two Les Paul Standards (tobacco burst and standard burst, both with Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro humbuckers in the neck and bridge), Gibson Firebird (white with blood splatters—also loaded with Seymour Duncans), ’74 Fender Stratocaster (fretboard is scalloped; pickups are Seymour Duncan Vintage Staggered), Gibson Les Paul SG Custom, Crafter GLXE-3000S. All guitars are tuned to Eb.
Amps: Two Diamond Amplification Spec Op 100-watt heads (one primary, one backup amp) into six Diamond Amplification Spec Op 4x12 cabs (three loaded with the stock setup of two
Vintage 30s and two Celestion G12H Anniversarys, and three loaded with four Vintage 30s.
Effects: The pedalboard includes a Voodoo Lab Pedal Power II, a Morley Bad Horsie wah, a Voodoo Lab Analog Chorus, a DigiTech digital delay, an Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, a MXR Phase 90, and a Dunlop DC Brick. Connected to the amp’s effects loop are an MXR Super Comp, a DigiTech Synth Wah, and an ISP Decimator.
Strings & Things: Dean Markley Jimi Hendrix strings (.011-0.52), In Tune custom extra-heavy picks, Shure UC LX wireless.
