Guns N' Roses

Guns N' Roses exploded out of the Sunset Strip in 1987 with Appetite for Destruction, a debut album that would become the best-selling debut in American history at 30 million copies. The album's sound was built on Slash's now-legendary rig: a 1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard replica (built by luthier Kris Derrig) played through a rented Marshall JCM800 2203 head and a modified 1965 Marshall JTM45 at Rumbo Recorders and Take One Studios with producer Mike Clink. The JCM800 provided the saturated crunch on "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City," while the JTM45 added warmth and harmonic complexity to cleaner passages. Slash used no effects pedals on Appetite — the distortion came entirely from the amps, with the Les Paul's humbuckers driven hard into the Marshall's preamp. A Dunlop Cry Baby wah appeared on selected solos. The guitar was tuned a half step down (Eb standard), a practice Slash adopted both for vocal range and for the slightly looser, heavier feel it gave the riffs. Izzy Stradlin provided the rhythmic engine on a Gibson ES-175 and various Les Pauls, playing a tighter, more Rolling Stones–influenced rhythm style through a Mesa/Boogie or a Marshall Plexi. Duff McKagan's punk-influenced bass work used a Fender Jazz Bass through a Gallien-Krueger 800RB, while Steven Adler's swinging, shuffle-based drumming gave Appetite a groove that was far looser than anything else coming out of the hair metal scene. For Use Your Illusion I and II (1991), Slash expanded his rig significantly: the Marshall Silver Jubilee 2555 became his primary live and studio amp, and he began incorporating a Boss DD-3 delay, a Boss CE-5 chorus, and additional Les Pauls including a double-cutaway model. The Silver Jubilee's tighter gain structure and more articulate clean channel suited the more compositionally ambitious material on tracks like "November Rain" and "Estranged." By the tours of the early 1990s, Slash's live rig centered on the Silver Jubilee and a rotating cast of Les Pauls, with a relatively simple pedalboard — wah, delay, and a talk box being the only regular effects.