Trey Anastasio - Guitar Playing Style

Guitar Playing Style

Anastasio has employed the services of his friend, luthier and audio-technician Paul Languedoc (Phish's soundman from 1986–2004) throughout his career. The highly resonant hollow-body electric guitars built by Languedoc for Anastasio, his Ibanez Tube Screamers, and Ross Compressors are key to his signature tone. Trey has several custom Languedoc hollowbody electric guitars, which make use of set maple necks with 24-fret ebony fret boards and dual Seymour Duncan SH-1 '59 humbucker pickups.

Anastasio's electric guitar technique is largely conventional; he does not typically make use of tapping techniques and does not usually play slide guitar (an example of when he does is in the Oysterhead section of Les Claypool's 5 Gallons of Diesel) but is known to be competent at both techniques. He normally uses a 2.0mm Adamas graphite guitar pick, but does not always do so. Melodically, he often incorporates modes, notably the dorian, mixolydian, and locrian, as well as pentatonic scales. In addition to scales, Anastasio makes abundant use of arpeggios while improvising as well as in his compositional material. He often uses pre bends in order to end a jam.

Effects processors play a crucial role in achieving Anastasio's famous guitar tone. He uses effects such as two Ibanez TS-9 Tube Screamers (with Analogman's Silver Mod) in sequence, the famous Univibe clone, the Black Cat Vibe, a Ross compressor (he switched to Analogman's Bicompressor around 1998, dropped the compressor from his rig in 2002, and resumed use the Ross Compressor in 2008 when a group of fans who desired the return of Trey's "signature" Ross compressor sound pooled their resources to obtain a vintage Ross Compressor and sent it to Trey in an attempt to compel him to return the vintage effect pedal to his rig. Trey responded through friend and longtime collaborator Tom Marshall's website explaining that he had lost his original Ross Compressor and that he was so touched that people cared about his effects and guitar tone that he would add the gift to his rig in the original configuration where it has remained ever since.), a wah wah pedal (usually a Real McCoy Custom 3 by Geoffrey Teese), a Boomerang phrase sampler, tremolo, delay, reverb, pitch shifters, as well as a Leslie rotating speaker horn. He controls these devices singularly or in batch with a Custom Audio footpedal bank. His use of delay loops is a signature that reached its plateau from 1999-2004 and has been in decline since. His current use of delay loops is limited mostly to jam vehicles that originated during the height of its use.

In the early 1990s, Anastasio employed a custom 2X12 cab powered by either a 100w Mesa/Boogie Mark III head or, later, a Custom Audio Electronics 3-channel preamp and Groove Tubes power amp. In mid-1997, he switched to a pair of modified 1965 Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, one serving as a backup.

Anastasio currently plays an acoustic by Martin. In 2005, Martin released a Trey Anastasio signature model acoustic guitar. Trey's signature model is a Dreadnought body with a curved Venetian cutaway. The guitar also has an Italian alpine spruce top, mahogany sides and a three-piece back with "wings" of mahogany and a center wedge of flame-figured Hawaiian koa (similar to a D-35). The neck width is 1 11/16" at the nut. The guitar is finished with a flamed koa headplate and snowflake fingerboard inlays. Martin built only 141 of these guitars, which quickly sold out.