How to get Jack White’s – The White Stripes guitar tone with a smartphone
We all are familiar with the cult songs that he wrote such as “Seven Nation Army” and “Blue Orchid” in which he’s got oddly satisfying guitar sounds.
He describes his playing and his tone quest as fighting. He believes that one must struggle with the instrument to be more expressive. And he once said,
If you want it easy, buy a brand new Gibson Les Paul or a brand new Fender Stratocaster
In the documentary “It might get loud” where Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin and Edge from U2 play the guitar with Jack White.
Apparently, he loves rare equipment. We traced down his Guitar Rig, pedalboard, amps and replicated it using a smartphone.
If you’re interested, read on
Let’s start with his signature electric guitar.
He’s using an old Airliner Electric Guitar. It’s got 2 low output single-coil pickups even though they look like humbuckers. It’s a body made out of plastic. The neck is maple and the fretboard is rosewood. He says that it’s not an easy guitar to play.
It has independent volume and tone controls for each pickup, a 3-way switch and a master volume knob. Since it’s plastic, you can see him flexing the body of his guitar to create interesting sounds sometimes.
He is running this through a couple of vintage amps.
1964 Silvertone
There’s not much information about its cab, but it’s apparently 6×10″.
And his second amp is Fender 68 Custom Deluxe Reverb. Thankfully it is not that rare amplifier. In fact, it is one of the most popular amps out there.
He’s using a lot of effects with few pedals on his pedalboard.
He’s using a Big Muff Fuzz Pedal into an Electro Harmonix POG (octave, pitch, synth pedal) on that song.
Since this equipment is very rare and expensive, it’s not very practical to collect every item to play along with The White Stripes songs.
So we wanted to recreate his sound with our guitar app “Deplike – Guitar amps & effects“
Here’s what you need to do;
1. We start by downloading it for free if we haven’t already. The best part is, it is cheap and accurate.
2. Launch Deplike
3. Add Deplike Deluxe (stock amp) from the amplifiers list that is based on the same Fender Deluxe amp and the cab that Jack White uses. It’s a great clean base amplifier for pedalboards.
4. Set the knobs to get a nicer rounder clean sound.
5. It’s time to add the effects to the pedalboard.
6. Add “Dr. Muff” fuzz pedal which is based on Big Muff. Set the knobs 60%, 60%, 60%.
7. We will simulate the EHX POG pedal with 2 pitch shifter pedals.
8. Add a classic Pitch Shifter which is based on Digitech Whammy Pedal. Set it +12 semi-notes with 100% mix.
9. Add an Octaver Pedal, and set the knobs, 50%, 50%, 0%.
10. If it’s too noisy then add a Noise Gate pedal to the very beginning of the board. Set the knob to a moderate level.
That’s it. You’re on. It may need some tweaking depending on your connection type.
Now connect* your electric guitar to your Android phone (Samsung, LG, Xiaomi, etc…) or Apple iPhone and enjoy the Jack White Tone 🎸
*It is possible to connect electric guitars to smartphones using connectors like iRig or for better quality USB audio cards like Behringer Guitar Link.
