Rivers Cuomo's equipment: Difference between revisions

[[Rivers Cuomo|Rivers]] had a Charvel Stratocaster-style guitar, a "Model 2" that was plain white, but was repainted by Rivers in purple acrylic paint, including the headstock, which was originally black. According to a fan who is familiar with Charvel guitars, the Model 2 didn't have a pickguard, had a bolt-on neck, only had one humbucker, and had a Jackson made Floyd Rose copy for its bridge. This guitar was left over from Rivers's metal days and was only used reluctantly at this point. This guitar met its end during a Weezer practice sometime later, when it was smashed to pieces. The broken headstock visible inside the first album photograph of the garage is from that guitar. No pieces remain today as far as I know. For an amplifier, Rivers used a Randall 120 watt solid state head powering a matching 4x12 Randall cabinet. The speaker cabinet (pictured on the left side of the Blue Album garage picture) continues to be sold and resold, and has been spotted as recently as late 2000 in LA's "Recycler" Magazine.

So, almost immediately, the Charvel was replaced with a red Fender Stratocaster, which came from Jason Cropper. Karl claimed in the early 2000s that this was because Jason was assigned to acoustic guitar early on, however, in 2018, Rivers noted, "Our original guitar player Jason [Cropper] was a very hands-on guitar techy sorta guy. He played it and I liked it, so we traded. I had some kind scholarship from the community college where they give you work money to buy things, so I got a Telecaster, which I gave him in return for this Strat copy."

 

 

There were no effects pedals in use by the band at all at this time, save for a Jim Dunlop "Crybaby" Wah Wah. This later fell out of favor, only to be re-integrated into Rivers's set-up during the recording of ''[[Pinkerton]]''.  

 

For an amplifier, Rivers was using his other "hold-over" from his metal years, a Randall 120 watt non-tube head powering a Randall 4x12 cabinet that looked exactly like a Marshall when the "Randall" tag was removed. This setup was to remain for several months.

Unfortunately, the first variation of the Mesa Mk. 2 (and all subsequent Mesa amps) came with a change: the pre-amp gain came after the amplifier's tone control, resulting in a more "focused" sound. This replaced some of the rolled off, frothy sound that the Mk. 1 on The Blue Album has, with a brighter, more typical high-gain amp sound. It stings more to consider that the Mk. 1 was discontinued upon the Mk. 2's release; they were not sold concurrently.  

The next significant change in Rivers's setup came when the band was signed to Geffen in the summer of 1993. Under the guidance of Jason, a new non-Fender Stratocaster copy was ordered as parts from the [http://www.warmoth.com/ Warmoth catalog] (still in buisness), in an effort to reconstruct a guitar similar to Jason's red one (by this time Jason had returned to playing electric guitar in the band, and the red one was on its last legs). The parts and pickups were all custom selected, and the wiring was similar to the crazy red guitar's. This guitar was delayed in its arrival, so the band went to New York to record The Blue Album without it, and wouldn't see it till they were back in LA in October rehearsing. The red guitar made the trip to Electric Lady studios, but once Rivers got acquainted with Ric Ocasek's guitar collection, it was hardly needed.

The one thing Rivers did manage to select before they left for New York was a new speaker cabinet, a very unusual 1968 Marshall. This cabinet was from a now-rare series that mounted the usual four 12" speakers into a special cabinet that was designed to fit eight 10" speakers. These are known as "mock 8x10's". They were originally sold in sets with Plexi 50W Tremolo amps, manufactured from 1967 until the early 70's. The later years distinguished by cheaper materials, particularly particle board backing panels.

Apparently, Pete Townsend of the Who liked the new 8x10" "big tall super rock n' roll" style, but insisted on retaining the 4x12" speaker setup he loved inside. Based on his request, Marshall ended up doing this variation for the general public, too, but it only lasted from 1967-69. Most of these cabinets you see today (if you get a chance to see one) are the more common 8x10" inside.  

For the Memories shows, Rivers used the Gibson SG seen in the past, presumably because both The Blue Album and Pinkerton were recorded largely with Gibson guitars. His Surf Green and Daphne Blue Warmoth Stratocasters were used on the Everything Will be Alright In The End tour; the Surf Green guitar being the main one by this point.

For The White Album, producer Jake Sinclair noted on All Things Weezer that he was able to get ahold of a 1977 Mesa Mk. 1, "identical to the one used on The Blue Album in every way (including the handmade labels on the back). 99% of the guitars were tracked through it."