Trey Anastasio Amp Settings & Gear - Phish Guitar Tone! (2024)

Trey Anastasio is one of the most beloved and revered guitar players on the jam scene.

His loyal fanbase first fell in love with Anastasio’s ethereal, powerful tone when Phish made their debut in the early 1980s. Driven by expert musicianship and an explorative, innovative approach to live performance, Phish continues to command a loyal following to this day.

Anastasio is as well known for his solo work as for his work with Phish and, in this article, I’ll take you on a deep dive of the gear you need to capture the magic of his sound.

Trey Anastasio Guitars

Trey Anastasio’s guitar tone famously sounds like an evenly balanced blend of a Fender Stratocaster and a Gibson 335. It has plenty of warmth and depth balanced out by snappy, gritty articulation.

The core of this sound, historically, has been Anastasio’s loyal use of custom-made Languedoc guitars. These guitars were built by long-time Phish sound technician Paul Languedoc.

These hollow-bodied guitars featured a 24-fret maple neck adorned with an ebony fretboard on a highly resonant hollow maple body. This body is fitted with two powerful Seymour Duncan humbuckers.

Unless you get yourself a Languedoc guitar, it’s going to be hard to capture the precise tone of these instruments.

Because most of us don’t have a full-time guitar tech/luthier to design a custom instrument for us, I’ve identified a few ideal alternatives and the basic tweaks to get them over the line.

The first and most important thing is the tonewood of the guitar. Although Anastasio has been known to use Stratocasters, the classic Phish tone carries the warm, resonant sound of a hollow guitar body. For Phish fans, it’s easier to achieve his tone using a hollow body instrument.

Many Phish fans opine that the Languedoc custom guitars are heavily inspired by the vintage Fender Starcaster. For this reason, my first recommendation would be the Squier Starcaster. This all-maple guitar, unusually for a Fender, features twin humbuckers, just like Anastasio’s Languedocs.

The other guitar that I would recommend for this sound is the Epiphone 335, another maple hollow-body. Unlike the Starcaster, the 335 has a mahogany neck, which does darken the tone by comparison to Trey Anastasio’s own guitar sound.

Neither of these guitars will match the precise tone and feel of the 24-fret ebony fretboard on Anastasio’s own custom guitars. However, the snappy response and tangible resonance of these hollow body guitars are a key feature of Anastasio’s tone and playing style.

I would highly recommend one major upgrade to your choice of guitar, whether you choose the Epiphone or the Squier. Trey Anastasio fits his guitars with Seymour Duncan SH-1 ‘59 humbuckers.

These pickups were based on the legendary PAF (Patent Applied For) pickup found in the golden years of Gibson’s production during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. They’re an affordable pickup upgrade that can, with minimal effort, replace the stock humbuckers in your Starcaster or 335.

Armed with your Seymour Duncan-equipped hollow body, we can move on to Trey Anastasio’s favorite amps.

Trey Anastasio Amps

Like all guitar players consistently chasing great tone, Trey Anastasio has used a wide variety of amplifiers over his career.

Anastasio has been known to use Fender, Marshall, Bognor, and boutique Komet amplifiers over the years.

However, for most of his career Trey Anastasio was a loyal player of Mesa-Boogie amplification.

Given that the original Mesa design was a hot rodded Fender amp, I would recommend either the Mesa Mark Five, or the Fender Bassreaker, which offers an even volume taper and very responsive EQ controls.

The key thing with any of these amplifiers is that most of his tone comes from his use of a hollow-body guitar with high-quality humbuckers coupled with his innovative use of guitar pedals to color and shape his guitar tone.

The most important thing with the amplifier is that it provides a solid foundation for the bulk of Anastasio’s tone which comes from his use of pedals.

Trey Anastasio Amp Settings

These settings are designed to give a solid tonal foundation for Anastasio’s extensive use of effects pedals, primarily drive and compression.

Volume: 7

Tube amps always sound better at high volume. Trey Anastasio’s tone is not overly crispy or crunchy, so set your volume to seven and adjust from there.

Bass: 4-5

You don’t need a terribly large amount of low end for this sound, because the natural boominess of your hollow-body guitar will lend your tone enough warmth as it is.

Mids: 7

You need plenty of mid-range articulation for this sound, particularly to help balance out the naturally scooped sound of your Tube Screamer.

Treble: 4-5

This sound is not heavy on frosting or icy, brittle treble.

Trey Anastasio Pedals

The first and arguably most important component of Trey Anastasio’s signal chain is his innovative use of twin Ibanez Tube Screamers. Anastasio has been known to use both the TS-808 and TS9 models, so I would recommend getting both.

They Anastasio labels one of his drives “less” and the other “more.” The one marked “less,” as you would expect, has a lower gain setting, while the one marked more offers the full power of the Ibanez Tube Screamer.

The other key component of this sound is Trey Anastasio’s favorite compressor, the vintage Ross compressor. This is such an integral part of the Anastasio tone that when he lost his original Ross compressor, Phish fans banded together their resources and bought him a new one.

There is a modern copy of the Ross compressor available on the market today. However, some fans feel that the modern iteration of the Ross lacks the power amp-like compression and squash of the original.

The Ross compressor was based on MXR’s script logo Dyna Comp, so I would recommend either of these pedals.

The other major feature of Trey Anastasio is his innovative use of the Digitech Whammy. Anastasio uses the whammy like a vibrato bar, and for this you need the Whammy equipped with a foot pedal.

Trey Anastasio Tube Screamer Settings

How Trey Anastasio uses his dual Tube Screamers is absolutely key to his tone.

For the first Tube Screamer in his signal chain, which is set as a signal boost with very low gain, Anastasio uses the below settings:

• Drive knob to 9:00
• Tone knob to 1:00
• Level knob to 5:00, wide open.

His second Tube Screamer, which is used to provide powerful saturation, has:

• Drive knob set to 5:00, full bore distortion
• Tone knob at 1:00
• Level knob at 5:00, at the same volume as the first in the signal chain.

This helps prevent any unwanted jumps in volume as Anastasio switches on the second gain stage midway through a solo.

Final Word

Chasing down Trey Anastasio’s legendary guitar tone is a task far easier said than done. However, with the right gear and the right attitude, you can definitely get into the ballpark of Trey Anastasio’s effervescent tone.

The key features of this sound are a hollow maple guitar, Seymour Duncan 59 humbuckers, an amp that responds well to pedals, Tube Screamers, a compressor, and subtle use of the whammy. From there, you can jam away to your favorite live Phish album to your heart’s content.