John Mayer's gear through the years

If you were asked which guitar player the most musicians have tried to emulated the tones and style of in the last 20 years, and you answered John Mayer, you'd probably be correct. Since his career exploded with his 2006 album Continuum, John Mayer has been one of the front runners in many tone chasers' lists. 

From silky-smooth cleans to articulate bluesy leads, Mayer's tone has everything that most players outside of the high-gain realm could ever need.

In this article we're going to take a whistlestop tour through some of the key pieces of gear that have been part of Mayer's ever-changing guitar rig over the years.

Guitars

Although John Mayer is a guitar player mostly commonly associated with the Fender Stratocaster, or other Start style variants, he has been seen using a range of other guitars over the years including Gibson SG's, Jackson Soloists, Charvel San Dimas, Gibson ES-335's and more. Here is a rundown of some of John's most iconic guitars.

Fender Stratocaster (1964)

One of the most iconic Mayer guitars is his sunburst Stratocaster from 1964. This guitar has a tortoiseshell pickguard and is one of his mainstays both live and in the studio. You can see it has been well loved from the wear and tear on it.

When many guitar players chase the Mayer tone, they are often targeting the sounds from this vintage Strat that you can hear all over his first few albums.

Fender Stratocaster "Black1"

Around the time of the Continuum album (released in 2006), Mayer commissioned the Fender Custom Shop to build him a black Strat which became known as "Black1". 

This guitar is arguably his best known guitar from his collection and features a heavy relic finish and unique sounding pickups that helped to define the sound of the Continuum era,

PRS Super Eagle

When John first joined Dead & Company in 2015, he needed a guitar that could emulate a lot of the tones of Grateful Dead guitarist, Jerry Garcia. He turned to PRS to help create his vision, which became the PRS Super Eagle.

This is a very high end semi-hollow guitar with custom electronics including 58/15 JM pickups and a special preamp booster built in for those classic Garcia sounds.

PRS Silver Sky

In a move that absolutely no one saw coming, in 2018 John Mayer parted ways with Fender and joined up with Paul Reed Smith to launch the PRS Silver Sky, a modern, refined take on the classic Strat design.

Spec'd up with his favoured 7.25" radius fingerboard and custom wound pickups, this was Mayer moving his classic tone to the modern day. And the Silver Sky is still his main live guitar. 

Martin OM-28 (OMJM)

When it comes to acoustic guitars, Mayer has been seen with a range of Martin acoustics over the years. He leans more towards the OM and OOO style body shapes, which are a little brighter and more percussive than some dreadnought shapes. Mayer's signature OMJM model is one he regularly appears with both live and in the studio.

Other notable mentions

Mayer has constantly had a large revolving door of guitars for both studio and stage use. For example, he has been seen playing a Gibson ES335, a Fender SRV Stratocaster, a Gibson L-5 and various other vintage Fenders and custom PRS models. 

Amplifiers

Much like his ever changing guitar collection, Mayer has also had a regularly revolving collection of amps at his disposal, interspersed with several mainstays that have accompanied him throughout his career:

Dumble Steel String Singer/ Overdrive Special

Two Rock Custom Reverb/John Mayer Signature

John Mayer's Dumble Steel String Singer and Signature Two-Rock amps at Crossorads Festival 2010. Credit: aaronHwarren/ Flickr

During the Continuum and Battle Studies era, John was a Two Rock artist. Two Rock amps are essentially Dumble clones for the most part and the aim of these amps was to replicate that legendary Dumble tone, without the high price points.

In the early stages of his career, John was using the Two Rock Custom Reverb Signature amp which became a big part of the sound on those two albums. Then in 2007 he worked alongside Two Rock to develop the John Mayer signature model which captured his ideal tones in a single, high headroom amp.

PRS J-MOD 100

Credit: PRS

In 2017, John also marked his arrival at Paul Reed Smith with the launch of his collaborative amp, the J-MOD 100. This amp is a 100w amp designed to deliver this Dumble style tones with a slightly more tighter, modern voice. This was his main amp for the early Dead and Company shows, as well as on his The Search for Everything tour. The amp occasionally get's some stage use but has been moved out of main rotation in favour of his real Dumble amps once more.

Soldano SLO-100

While the Soldano SLO-100 is very much not an amp you'd consider for the "Mayer thing", it was a very widely used amp during the Sob Rock era. We first saw this amp in John's rig in the Last Train Home video, where is was using it to capture some of those Eric Clapton Journeyman era tones. While this amp was only used when John was digging into more 80s style guitar tones, it was a large part of his tone during that era.

Other Notable Mentions

Over the last 20 years John has used many other amps for either a tour, or specific shows/album recording projects. Over this time we've seen things pop up in his rig including the Fender Vibro-King, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (used a lot in the early days), Fender Bandmaster (Used on the Battle Studies tour) and a range of other Dumble, Two Rock and PRS amps.

Pedals

Aside from the vintage Strats and Dumble Amps, the other thing John is known for is his love of pedals. He's almost always seen with a large pedalboard (sometimes even multiple boards on stage at once!) loaded with boutique, vintage and rare pedals, as well as some everyday favourites.

His pedal setup changes on an album by album and tour by tour basis, and sometimes he even switches certain things out between shows. There have been a few pedals that have been mainstays in the rig for many years or framed specific time periods of John's career.

Ibanez Tubescreamer (TS808, TS9, TS10)

Ibanez Tubescreamer TS808. Credit: bergamont/ Adobe Stock Photo

Mayer often always has a Tubescreamer variant on hand regardless of the rig in question. Over the years he's used the classic 808 and TS9 variants, but the Tubescreamer variation most associated with John would be the Ibanez TS10.

The TS10 has since become something of a collectors piece, with prices on the second hand market creeping up and up. 

The Tubescreamer is known for it's very distinctive mid-humped overdrive sound, which when paired with John's more scooped clean amps, creates that mid-forward, slightly nasal tone that he is known for.

Klon Centaur

In Toronto in 2022, a fan asked John Mayer to sign his Klon pedal. Mayer took it over to his pedalboard and copied the settings from his own pedal, marking them on the fan's Klon and signing it. Legend!

The Klon is probably the single pedal most closely associated with the Mayer tone, and John has almost single handedly assisted in the inflated prices of Klon pedals on the re-sale market.

In John's rig, the Klon isn't used as a straight up overdrive pedal. It is mostly used to stack with other drive pedals to add a kick to other drives in the chain. The Klon stacks well with pretty much any other drive, and while it is a fantastic overdrive in it's own right, Mayer's use of it as a boost helped popularise the pedal for this use case.

In the signal chain the Klon is usually found before one of John's TS variant pedals.

Marshall Bluesbreaker Mk1

For a period of time, the Marshall Bluesbreaker was a mainstay in the Mayer pedal line up. He has also been known to use other Bluesbreaker style pedals including the AnalogMan King of Tone.

The Bluesbreaker was used to give a more open, less mid-focused overdrive tone to contrast the sound of the Tubescreamer. The Bluesbreaker was used a lot during the Continuum and Battle Studies era to achieve an edge of breakup tone.

Keeley Katana Boost

Regarded by many as one of John's secret weapons, the Katana Boost is a totally transparent boost that delivers clean gain boost. This is the pedal that John used to elevate his iconic smooth overdrive tones for his lead breaks.

The Katana is so clean that it does not add any tonal variation of its own, it merely increases the output volume and hits the front of the amp slightly harder resulting in more volume and a touch more compression and push,

Way Huge Aqua Puss Delay

If you look at the history of the John Mayer signal chain, delay is not an effect type that has been particularly prominent over his career, except of course for the Way Huge Aqua Puss. John has been open about his love of Way Huge pedals and the Aqua Puss has been one of his go-to pedals for many years.

This pedal is mostly used as an ambience creation tool. He does not tend to run it as a delay unit, but more of a slapback delay/reverb style unit to add a little spatial bounce to his tone.

Other notable mentions

Any eagle-eyed Mayer fan will know that over the years he has been custodian of an endless number of different pedals and he enjoys switching up his rig from tour to tour. Over the years he has used so many other iconic effects for some very specific things, such as the classic Roger Linn AdrenaLinn III for the filtered intro to "I Don't Trust Myself (With Loving You)" or the T-Rex Replica Delay, his delay of choice before discovering the Aqua Puss.

Other notable mentions include the Strymon Flint, the Eventide H9, the Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron+, the Neunaber Illumine Reverb, the Fulltone FullDrive and the Real McCoy Custom RMC8 EQWahlyzer Wah/EQ pedal among others.

Get the John Mayer sound on a budget

John is considered to have one of THE most expensive tones in the business. His tone epitomises the sound of a £25,000 vintage Stratocaster plugged into a £250,000 Dumble amp, being boosted by a £5,000 Klon Centaur. 

But the good news is, you can get pretty close to his sound without needing to re-mortgage your home.

John's sound is built around a few key elements, regardless of budget. His tone can be distilled into three key elements: a single coil guitar, plugged into a very clean, high-headroom amp, with some mid-pushed overdrives in between.

With that in mind, you can get to work building your budget Mayer rig.

Guitar

If you want to shoot for the most currently authentic Mayer tones, you can get your hands on a PRS Silver Sky. The USA models retail around £2,000-£2,500 depending on where you look, but you can often find them for 40-50% less than this on the resale market. Failing that, PRS also offer the import SE model for well under £1,000.

If you want to aim for a more traditional Mayer vibe, anything from the Fender or Squier Stratocaster range will get you in the correct ball park. 

Amplifier

Any amp that has a high headroom clean channel will work great here. One budget friendly favourite of Mayer tone chasers is the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.

Something like a Blues Junior would suffice to a point but the lower wattage would not allow for the huge clean headroom needed for the perfect Mayer tone. 

Fender also have a new range of Tone Master solid state amps that would be a great match for a Mayer clean tone without breaking the bank.

Should you be wanting to spend a little more, you could explore some of the Dumble clones on the market, and even though some of the best offerings from brands like Two Rock and Amplified Nation will set you back the best part of 4 grand, you'll still be saving £246,000 on the price of a real Dumble!

Alternatively, opt for an 'in-the-box' option with the new Neural DSP John Mayer X plugin suite, which recently launched at €199.

Pedals

The core pedals you'd need for a Mayer style tone would be a Klon style drive, a TS style drive and a clean boost. 

For the TS style drive, you can take your pick from the huge range of TS pedals out there. If you want to check out something boutique and a bit more specialist you could explore brands like Formula B with their "That Screamer" pedal which is built around the coveted 4558 chip. This also allows you to use the internal switches to match the pedal to Mayer's preferred TS10.

[product=drunk-beaver-the-forest-song]
The Drunk Beaver The Forest Song is a modern reworking of the classic Tubescreamer, built using high end components and with additional options to increase the drive's versatility in all scenarios. Uniquely, The Forest Song operates at either 18V or 30V for unrivalled headroom - boosted internally from a standard 9V power supply. The LED display shows the precise voltage the pedal is operating at.
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[product=formula-b-that-screamer-overdrive-pro-4558]
That Screamer Overdrive Pro 4558 is based on the thorough studies of the circuitry of three vintage pedals: a TS808 from 1981, a TS9 from 1982, and a TS10 from 1986. The result is a masterclass in dynamics. Using two internal dip switches, select from TS808, TS9, TS10, or combined TS808 & TS10 modes. The drive circuit consists of the original JRC4558D (Japan Radio Company) op-amp, paired with Tantalum capacitors for the tone section and bipolar electrolytic capacitors in the buffer section. The very rare MA150 made-in-Japan diode takes care of clipping.
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Klon-style drives are everywhere and you can spend however much you feel you want to on this style of pedal, from the super affordable NUX Horseman, to something that looks the part like the Ceriatone Centura, through to something with very authentic parts like the Wampler Germanium Tumnus.

[product=fredric-effects-golden-eagle]
The Fredric Effects Golden Eagle is more than your typical recreation of the Klon Centaur - it features completely accurate electronics and is built to the highest specification in a superbly built chassis. Like the original, the Golden Eagle includes an internal charge pump which converts 9V to 18V for maximum headroom from your standard power supply.
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[product=lichtlaerm-audio-aquaria]
If you’ve ever wished for that legendary Klon tone but felt limited by its simplicity (and price...), the Aquaria is your answer. It offers the familiar harmonic bloom and dynamic response of the original but gives you surgical control to sculpt, blend and expand. The core voicing of the Klon – specced from an original unit – is enhanced with a Dynamics control which allows you to blend between the compression and saturation of germanium clipping and the more open, dynamic bite of silicon clipping.
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Finally, any clean boost pedal will work great here. Katana pedals have become very sought after and often fetch higher prices, but for the same level of simplicity and ease of use check out the TC Electronics Spark Mini for +20dB of totally clean boost.

[product=kink-guitar-pedals-pc-boost]
This diminutively sized boost pedal is based on the classic MXR Micro Amp. Stick it in front of other drive pedals to thicken and sweeten your sound, or at the end of the signal chain to boost the volume without affecting tone. This can push your Dumble hard!
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[product=stompnorth-midgie-booster-overdrive]
The Stompnorth Midgie Booster Overdrive is built around a MOSFET transistor, known for their amp-like feel and here offering +21dB of boost. Use it as a clean boost, or bring some silicon or germanium diode clipping into the equation for more of a multi-dimensional overdrive sound.
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