Rig tour: Kip Moore
Country-rocker shares his guitar and gear choices
Country music is slowly taking over the UK, and Georgia singer-songwriter Kip Moore is certainly feeling the benefit, following up a sold-out May tour with a run of headline shows in September.
In advance of the gigs, Kip let us in on the gear that’s currently accompanying him onstage, including a particularly tasty Gibson and some top-notch pedalboard picks...
Gibson J-50
“For this particular tour, I’ve been using the Gibson J-50 with D’Addario strings, and I’ve been using a Hummingbird.
“I’ve been using the LR Baggs Anthem pickups, which have just been dynamite. So, so clear and clean, and the Anthem pickup helped a lot with this guitar.
“It always sounded great without being plugged in, and then I would battle with it being plugged in sometimes. Once I got the Anthem pickups in there, it changed my world.”
Pedalboard
“I use the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2+ - that just gives you a lot more of a clean signal. You don’t have to rely on what the venue’s gonna give you; the power in it’s just a lot better for that.
“I use the LR Baggs Para DI Acoustic because it’s my sound guy. It’s a tank - when you travel as much as we do, the least little knock around and other DIs go out, and this one has been pretty much indestructible. The sound quality’s been pretty great.
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“I use the Strymon BlueSky to get all my twinkly effects. I’ll come out, start the show by myself, and I can do certain things with the guitar to make it feel like there are almost two or three people on stage, because of this Strymon pedal.
“The MXR [Custom Shop Micro Amp+] boost has been the cleanest boost, and it’s been the most consistent boost pedal. Wherever I go, I’m not dealing with feedback issues like I have dealt with with a lot of other boost pedals.
“Then I use the TC PolyTune 2 electronic for my tuner. It’s been the best to me when a band is really getting loud - sometimes you’ll get distorted signals from other tuners, and this one seems to always be spot-on for me.”
Kip Moore tours the UK in September:
- 2 September - London, Roundhouse
- 4 September - Glasgow, O2 Academy
- 5 September - Belfast, Ulster Hall
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Mike is Editor-in-Chief of GuitarWorld.com, in addition to being an offset fiend and recovering pedal addict. He has a master's degree in journalism, and has spent the past decade writing and editing for guitar publications including MusicRadar, Total Guitar and Guitarist, as well as a decade-and-a-half performing in bands of variable genre (and quality). In his free time, you'll find him making progressive instrumental rock under the nom de plume Maebe.
“There’s warmth and there’s grit, it’s really quite incredible… and I actually recorded with this amp. I love it”: Orianthi and Orange Amps join forces for the White Crush 20RT – a 20W solid-state combo with onboard tuner
“I made this pedal because I wanted it in my own rig, but I'm betting you'll love its range and usability too”: Wampler Pedals unveils Catacombs, a programmable pedal packing 11 delay/reverb sounds to “redefine your relationship with time-based effects”