Jason Becker - Equipment

Equipment

Becker's first guitar was a Franciscan acoustic. Prior to joining Cacophony in 1987, Becker worked his way through the Franciscan, a Takamine acoustic, a Fender Musicmaster, and finally, a black Fender Stratocaster with a DiMarzio Steve Morse humbucker in the bridge (seen in the Black Star video, circa 1986).

In the early days of Cacophony, Becker used, and was endorsed by, Hurricane Guitars. The first Cacophony album was recorded with a white Hurricane EX Series model (apparently a Limited Edition) with a maple neck/rosewood fretboard, 22 frets, and an HSS pickup setup. For Perpetual Burn he used another Hurricane EX Series model, this one in blue, with unknown model DiMarzio pickups, maple neck with maple fretboard and 24 frets.

For the 2nd Cacophony album, Becker switched over to Carvin gear, utilizing 2 DC Series models, one in a trans blue finish with flamed maple top, and another one in a solid burgundy finish (This is the guitar seen in the famous "Yo Yo" video from the 1989 Japan tour with Cacophony). Both have double cutaway bodies, Kahler locking tremolo systems, 6 in line machine heads and 2 Carvin humbucker pickups. He used these up until he was diagnosed with ALS in 1989.

During the sessions for A Little Ain't Enough, Becker used various Carvin, Ibanez, ESP and Valley Arts guitars, as well as a Les Paul on some tracks and a Gibson acoustic for select things. From 1989-1991, Becker used various guitars, most notably a Peavey custom model with the numbered fretboard markers. There are a few of these around. Also used were an Ibanez Custom Shop guitar (probably based on an RG), a custom from Performance Guitars, a couple of various unknown Strat style guitars and a black Hurricane EX Series with 3 single coil pickups.

As of very recently, Becker has allowed Paradise Guitars USA to release a Jason Becker signature guitar. It is similar in appearance to the numbered Peavey but with a different headstock shape.

Becker used various types of amplifiers in his music. Before joining Cacophony, he used a small Peavey practice amp (Most likely a Studio Pro or perhaps a Bandit) with the older style Peavey vertical silver stripes on the grille cloth. In the video where he plays a cover of "Black Star" he is seen using a Peavey Renown 400 SS.

For the first Cacophony album, Becker used an ADAMP1 preamp. Perpetual Burn was a borrowed '70s Marshall half stack and a BOSS Super Overdrive and Cacophony second album was a Carvin X100B stack.

For the David Lee Roth album A Little Ain't Enough, Becker used "eight different Marshall amps." He also used the SX300H head at some point during that era. After Cacophony Becker used various amps, including a "Fender M80", an unknown Marshall amp, an ADA Preamp and possibly the aforementioned Peavey combo.

Becker typically used Dean Markley and SIT strings