Premier Guitar | 1 decade ago

Article and photos: http://bit.ly/BlackKeysRR2014

Premier Guitar’s Chris Kies is on location in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the BMO Bradley Center to get a rig reprisal on Akron’s favorite guitarist.

In typical Auerbach fashion, the guitar boat is stocked with forgotten oddballs, mostly built in the Chicago area during the ’50s and ’60s. His newest “main” axe is an emerald green ’60s Custom Kraft semi-hollowbody that Johnson found on eBay a few months ago. Auerbach bought it immediately. This beauty is used onstage to cover parts of the band’s two newest albums—El Camino and Turn Blue. To get this booger rocking, Johnson had to reset the neck because of a horrible backbow—he also added a two-way truss rod to help with future repairs. Johnson then installed new frets, replaced the nut, and added a Rickenbacker-style bridge for better intonation and so it could be pushed a bit off the bridge pickup. Lastly, he outfitted the trem with a “MacGyver”-style solution—an old bent hat rack. Johnson says that the original Valco single-coils in the guitar sound great and Auerbach loves to solo with it in the neck position, with the treble rolled off, and cranking through the Shin-ei Companion fuzz.

Another new addition is a mid-’30s Dobro spider-bridge brass resonator that Auerbach uses on the acoustic intro to “Little Black Submarines” off of El Camino. The brass body gives the guitar a more subdued sound so Auerbach prefers to use this on the beginning of the song rather than a traditional acoustic guitar thanks to the under-saddle B-Band pickup that gives it a very recognizable sound with added panache from the reso. Once the brooding intro is over, he quickly switches to the Guild Thunderbird to finish the raucous ending to the song.

The 1964 Guild Thunderbird is still in the mix. The only thing that’s been worked on since the last shoot was Johnson giving the axe a refret job to make it a tad easier to play. Original updates to the guitar included rewinding the bridge pickup—done by Lindy Fralin—and replacing bunk switches. The Thunderbird is the only guitar that is strung up with SIT Strings .010–.046 because Auerbach generally plays this guitar on the more reserved songs and prefers a lighter setup. (The other guitars feature regular SIT .011–.050 strings.)

To finish learning about Auerbach's rig, visit: http://bit.ly/BlackKeysRR2014