Dimebag's gear & sound....
When I started playing guitar getting Dime's sound was a goal and a serious challenge for me. For starters, I was a young pup, I was jobless (not a dime to my name), I didnt have rich parents to buy me all the gear I dreamed of so I had to do with the gear I had. At the time this was the gear I used: a Fender M-80 Chorus amp and a DOD 7 band EQ with an old Vantage guitar. That guitar sucked, but the rest of that set up killed. Solid state amp (just like Dimebag's Randall amps). I was kicking out such a brutal sound with that 2x12 combo it was unreal. To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, think Overkill's - Years Of Decay album and that was the brutal tone I had. I remember aclose friend of mine who I had just met at the time came by my house for the 1st and he kinda laughed when he saw the small setup I had. Well, when i kicked into a few riff's and he heard the sound I had coming out of this little 2x12, his jaw hit the floor. So that M-80 was a very powerfull little combo. What's my point here? If you have something decent, work with it! Don't go out and buy a shit load of gear for nothing or just for the sake of "having" it, make sure it's what YOU really need. Use what you have to it's fullest... try a different distortion box, add an eq to the it all. At one point or another you'll hit a wall where your gear just wont cut it anymore & thats when you start investing in a proper amp & cab (or combo), guitar etc... So, If your going for a certain players sound getting some of the same gear will help you out a little but you must remember that a players sound comes from many different things.... His guitar (wood type, pick ups etc...), amp, cabs, speakers, effects etc... all this stuff will play a major role in that players sound. And the main thing, the player himself....
And for what it's worth, if your shopping for a new amp, bring your axe. That guitars the one that will be playing through that amp, not a nice Jackson at $1800 that you grabbed off the wall!! And the same thing goes for an axe, try testing it out on the same or similar kind of amp you own.
Dime could have played through a 5watt pignose amp and we could still pick him off in a line up of guitar players. Why? very simple, Dime had a unique style when he played.... his style, the feeling he put behind every note came from the heart. I don't care how fast someone can play, if it's all calculated, learned scales by heart, and robotic to me that's bullshit. Someone like Yngwie Malmsteen is a hell of a fast player but I find most of his music is lacking feeling and emotions, not all his stuff but most of it. Other players like Dime that come to mind is Zakk Wylde, you can pick this guy off anywhere. So, owning your idols exact gear peice by piece all the way down to the guitar cable he uses will obviously bring you somewhat closer to his sound & tone but you'll never be able to sound just like them... That's like your DNA man..... it's unique.
Now, back to the meaning of this page! Through out the years I've collected a lot of info on Dime's gear, like I said above I was in a few Pantera tribute bands so I needed that tone. I spent a lot of time reading up on all his interviews, using & checking out pics of him next to his rigs, getting friends from all over the place to send me as much or all the info they could find on Dime's rig and because of that I was able to come up with up a list that has Dime's gear of each one of his albums. To my knowledge and hard work I think this list is very accurate, I'd say its 90% accurate, but if you have any info that's different to mine please contact me and let me know, keeping this list up to date is important for me so that all young Pantera/DamagePlan fans out there have something to work with if they want to achive his sound or just want to know what he used.
At the moment, I haven't had time to do the RTS & DamagePlan gear Dime used but I'm sure it's similar to what he had in the last few Pantera albums.
