Kim Thayil (Soundgarden) guitar rig

Kim Thayil provided the guitar grunt for alt-rock-grunge icons Soundgarden. His guitar style sounds as if it were inspired as much by Black Sabbath as the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. His wah drenched lead on "Fourth of July" from the Superunknown album is one of my all time favourites.

Guitar wise, Thayil used a Guild S100 (or variation on the S100) throughout his time in Soundgarden. The Guild S100 can be heard on every Soundgarden release. In the early days in particular, Thayil used a '74 Guild S-1.

In a November 1996 interview with Guitar One, Thayil was asked why he preferred the Guild S100.

When I was eighteen I bought a Guild S100. It was affordable, light, and I liked the action on the neck. I've pretty much been using that for seventeen years. The stock pickups are really hot and the tuning keys that came with it were very easy to tune and keep in tune, which is good for beginning guitarists.

Other guitars Thayil has also reported to have used in the studio include a Gibson Les Paul Custom Lite, Gibson Firebird, Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, Fender Jaguar, Fender '59 Telecaster.

In the early days of Soundgarden Thayil actually used a Bass Ampeg amplifier with a 15" speaker.

On Badmotorfinger Thayil was reported as using a Peavey VTM-120, 65-watt Music Man HD130 and Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. His Peavey heads can be seen in the image below.

In a September 1990 interview with Guitar For The Practicing Musician Thayil was asked what sort of amplifiers he liked.

I like Fenders a lot because they get the low end, a really full tone out of it. But there are some Marshalls I've played that I like. For the record, I used a Music Man and sometimes Mesa-Boogie. I use this 4xl2 cabinet. I have two Guild S-l's and one Les Paul, and this Epiphone thing that I imagine will be sacrificed before the tour's over. We've got it as a backup, because we've broken a couple guitars and a bass.

For the Down on the Upside album, Thayil used a variety of amplifiers, however a Mesa Dual Recifier was used on a majority of the albums leads. Thayil expanded on this in a 1996 interview with Guitar Player magazine.

I used a lot of different amps. I used Mesa Dual Rectifiers for leads, but for rhythms we used a new line of Mesa 50-watt Mavericks, an old Fender Super, a Fender Princeton, Fender Twin Reverbs and Vibro-Kings, and an old Orange head. There were also a couple of preamp boxes we used for direct stuff, an Intellitronics LA-2 and a Summit.

In terms of his amplifier settings, Thayil stated that he turned the low end up, set the midrange to around 11 o'clock and the treble at around 2 o'clock.

I started doing that because during the first few years that we played together I was using an Ampeg bass amp with a 15" speaker, so I'd crank the high end all the way up, drop out the mids and keep the low end there for feedback and the big woof.

In a July 1996 interview with Guitar Player magazine, Thayil was asked about some of the effect used on "Applebite" from the Down on the Upside album. For the subtle pitch-modulation effect Thayil used a Jim Dunlop Rotovibe in the Rotovibe setting, as opposed to the chorus setting. The whistling guitar sound, almost akin to a Moog synth, is actually a Mu-Tron phase shifter.

Whilst Thayil used a Dunlop CryBaby for a majority of his time with Soundgarden, a Colorsound wah was also used a few time on the Down on the Upside album.

Thayil also used a couple of different Chorus pedals with Soundgarden, including an MXR Chorus. A Boss CE2 Chorus also seems to have been used at times, as can be seen in the image above. There are also two DOD FX-10 Bi-fet Preamps, and possibly a DOD flanger of some sort (although that is just a guess).

If you haven't heard any Soundgarden, you really owe it to yourself to give them a spin. Check out Superunknown or Down on the Upside for the 'hits'.