Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen Reveals His Guitar Rig

Troy Van Leeuwen of Queens of the Stone Age recently got together with Premier Guitar backstage at a concert to go over the details of his live guitar rig. 

At the heart of Van Leeuwen’s rig are two hand-wired Vox AC30s. One of them is pushing a Marshall 4x12 cabinet. His amps are covered in Bronco Red Tolex, as are all of the band’s amps on this tour. Van Leeuwen also stated that the AC30s have proven to be very reliable for him, with only one instance in the past six years of one of his AC30s breaking down.

The QOTSA guitarist uses a veritable mountain of effects, including the Fractal Axe FX 2. He uses the Fractal for reverbs and tap-tempo delays and it also provides him with a Univibe-type tremolo. The Fractal is also useful for routing his signal between the two amps. The AC30 pushing the Marshall cabinet runs primarily without effects, with the second AC30 handling the bulk of his processed sound.

His wealth of effects pedals are split between a floor board and two drawers inside a rack unit. On the floor board is a Voodoo Lab Ground Control Pro midi controller. That shares space with a fourth-generation Whammy pedal, a Morley wah, a Dunlop volume pedal, a Korg tuner and two Way Huge stomp boxes (the Supa-Puss and the Pork Loin).

His rack unit houses even more stomp boxes, among which are two more Way Huge pedals, a Fuzzrocious Demon and an MXR Q Zone. Through all of this he plays three main guitars. He has an Echopark T-style, his own signature Jazzmaster and a Burns 12-string.

Catch Van Leeuwen using this impressive rig with Queens of the Stone Age on tour. The band is currently traveling the U.S. until mid-October, when they head down south to Mexico, then across the pond to Europe in November. For tour dates and band news, visit the QOTSA website.