Jack White

Jack White made cheap, broken guitars sound like a philosophical statement. His primary instruments — a red 1964 JB Hutto Montgomery Ward Airline, a fiberglass Valco-made hollowbody that cost almost nothing — were chosen precisely because they were difficult to play and unpredictable in behavior. He runs them through a Fender Twin Reverb or a Silvertone 1485 six-speaker combo, stacks a DigiTech Whammy with a Big Muff and an Electro-Harmonix POG, and treats the limitations of cheap gear as creative constraints rather than problems to solve. His Third Man Records studio in Nashville is built around analog equipment and direct-to-acetate recording. White's gear philosophy is fundamentally oppositional: the worse the instrument, the harder you have to fight it, and the fight is the sound.