RIGGED: REVOCATION’S DAVE DAVIDSON (GUITAR)

Welcome back to Rigged, in which your favorite metal musicians take you on a step-by-step rundown of their entire live rig. Revocation are currently touring North American with Forbidden, White Wizzard and Havok — brought to you by MetalSucks (dates here) — so we asked both Revocation axemen Dave Davidson and Dan Gargiulo to take us on a tour of their gear setups. In case you missed it here’s Forbidden guitarist Steve Smyth’s rig. Next week we’ll feature the newest member of the Revocation clan Dan Gargiulo, but in the meantime here’s the MS crack panel #1 ranked Modern Metal Guitarist Dave Davidson:

Hello, fellow guitar nerds and gear snobs! Dave from Revocation here, giving you a quick rundown on my live rig.

I use Jackson WR1 Warriors with Dimarzio pick ups (D Activators in the bridge and a Super 2 in the neck position on my white one, and a Liquifire in the neck position on my red one). To me the Jackson Warrior is one of the most badass looking guitars on the market and as an added bonus they also play great and sound killer! I just got my new custom a few weeks ago and I haven’t been able to put it down since.

Both guitars are strung with D’Addario strings with a light top and heavy bottom, .10-.52. I had been using .10-.46 but I find that for me the heavier gauge on the bottom has a much better resistance, so when I’m tremolo picking the string stays nice and tight.

I currently only use two pedals live: a Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner in between my guitar and my amp and a Boss DD-3 Digital Delay that I run through the effects loop. I leave the DD-3 pedal on for the whole set and keep it behind my amp and out of the way. When I’m soloing I just use my amp’s foot switch to kick into the effects loop and then switch back out when I go back to playing rhythm.

I’m now using an EVH 5150 III head live and I gotta say, this amp rules! It’s got a really sparkling clean channel, the rhythm channel is super crunchy and the lead channel fucking rips! I actually use the lead channel for both leads and rhythm riffs because I like how aggressive it sounds. When I use the rhythm channel it’s more to accentuate breaks, or on riffs that are a little more staccato to give it a tighter punch.

I’ve been playing through a Marshall 1960 slant cab for years now. Goddamn, those things are built to last and they have a great punchy sound and cut really well in the live setting.

Well, that’s my rig. Come check out how it sounds live on our upcoming tour with Forbidden, White Wizzard and Havok!

-Dave Davidson / Revocation