Malcolm Young Guitars & Gear: The Gretsch Jet Firebird, Marshall Super Bass and the AC/DC Rhythm Rig

Malcolm Young built AC/DC’s sound out of very little equipment. Reports of his rig over the years describe one main guitar, one main amp design, heavy strings and a right hand that did most of the work. That economy is the reason his setup is worth writing down carefully, and also the reason it attracts so many confident claims that do not hold up. Where a detail rests on a single page or a fan-compiled list, we say so below.

This guide covers Malcolm’s own instruments: the stripped-down 1963 Gretsch Jet Firebird known as “The Beast”, the Marshall amplifiers behind it, and how he played. His brother’s guitars and the lead side of the band are covered in our Angus Young feature.

The Rig

Guitars

Amps

Effects

None are documented. Pepper Keenan, who has played through Malcolm’s rig, said on the Garza Podcast (as reported by Guitar.com in August 2026) that “He has no pedals.” Guitar.com also reports that, unlike Angus, Malcolm did not use an SVDS (Schaffer-Vega Diversity System) wireless unit, in the studio or live, and Thomann’s blog likewise describes his setup as having no wireless transmitter. None of our sources puts anything between the guitar and the Marshall.

How the Beast Was Modified

Several sources agree on the outline. The guitar was a red Jet Firebird with Gretsch’s Filter’Tron humbuckers. Before Malcolm owned it, a third pickup, a Gibson humbucker, had been fitted between them. Premier Guitar’s 2017 tribute shows the guitar in a 1976 video as cherry red with a custom-inserted middle humbucker, and the same article captions a 1982 photograph of what it calls a “gutted Gretsch, sanded down to the wood with only the bridge pickup in place”.

The finer detail comes from the GroundGuitar page and a second secondary source, The Story of your Instruments. Both are secondary sources, and they agree with each other closely enough that they may share a source, so we present their dates as approximate:

• Around 1976-77, the middle and neck pickups were removed, leaving a single Filter’Tron at the bridge, and the empty routs were covered with pickguard material.
• Around 1977, the red finish was stripped to bare wood.
• According to The Story of your Instruments alone, the Burns tailpiece was replaced with a Schaller Bad Ass bridge and later restored, with the return of the Burns dated to around 2000, after the 1995 Ballbreaker tour; it calls that date probable.
• A second 1963 Jet Firebird went on the road as a spare, with the same modifications, according to the same source.

The result is a guitar that does very little. One pickup and very little else. In our view the stripping away is a large part of why the instrument has such a clear identity: there is no switch position to hide in.

A note on the model name. Nearly every source we opened calls the guitar a Jet Firebird. Thomann’s blog calls it a Duo Jet instead. Our own Gretsch G6128T Duo Jet guide treats the Jet Firebird as a separate model that shares the Duo Jet’s body. We follow the majority and the Gretsch blog and call it a Jet Firebird.

The Marshall Sound

Malcolm’s amps were Marshalls, and the sources describe their use as loud and clean-edged rather than heavily saturated. A Guitar Player lesson by Jude Gold (March 2021) says players commonly assume he used heavy distortion and regular barre chords, and then goes on to describe a row of Marshalls driven loud enough to give his chords sharp edges. We could read only part of that page, so we rely on those points alone.

Keenan’s interview supports the same picture from the other side of the stage. He told podcast host Chris Garza that the rig used Marshalls with what he called improper bias that made them microphonic, and that the sound was volume rather than overdrive. That is a player’s impression of Malcolm’s rig, not a technical measurement, but it matches the rest.

For readers who know the Plexi family, the Super Bass shares a virtually identical circuit with the Super Lead, as our Marshall 1959 Super Lead Plexi guide explains, and that guide lists Malcolm and Angus among 100-watt Plexi users.

Strings, Picks and Hand

Strings: Several sources agree the strings were very heavy. Guitar Player’s Jude Gold gives a range of roughly .012 to .058 in Gibson strings with a wound third string. Thomann’s blog gives 12-56 in standard tuning. GroundGuitar lists the set as the Gibson 900M L-5 12-56 and spells out the gauges, but admits its own list is inconsistent about which strings are wound. The sources do not fully agree, so the safest summary is: a 12 on the top, something in the mid-50s on the bottom, and a wound third.

Picks: GroundGuitar lists a Fender extra-heavy pick, 1.3 mm, usually celluloid, and says he may have used others of similar thickness. That is the only pick claim we found, and it is not an interview quote, so we hold it loosely.

Technique: Premier Guitar’s obituary credits his in-the-pocket right-hand downstroke, plus hammer-ons and chord sustains. Gold’s lesson describes forceful strumming of open chords, and quotes Angus Young saying Malcolm certainly does not tickle the strings. Scott Ian, interviewed on Gretsch’s blog in November 2018, described the economy and percussiveness of Malcolm’s playing and said it can look as though he is not doing much while digging in hard.

Read together, the rig and the hand are the same idea. Heavy strings, an amp with headroom and a player who moves them with the whole forearm give a sound where each chord stops and starts cleanly. If you want to hear that tone from a rig that is not his, our Scott Ian guide covers a rhythm guitarist who names Malcolm as his main influence.

Tone Recipe: Malcolm-Style Rhythm

The Signature Guitar

Gretsch released a Malcolm Young signature, the G6131-MY, built around the stripped Beast. Premier Guitar’s June 2018 report of Gretsch’s press release lists simulated screw holes in “DIY” pickup routes, chrome switch plugs, a Space-Control bridge with ebony base, a 1960s-style tailpiece, a thin-skin satin chambered mahogany body and a high-output TV Jones Power’Tron pickup, with availability in November 2018. The sources disagree on dates: Wikipedia says the model was released in 2008 and reissued in 2017, while a 2017 Premier Guitar caption says Gretsch introduced the Custom Shop Malcolm Young Salute Jet earlier that year, which may be a different product from the G6131-MY. We cannot reconcile these dates, and we do not state a release year. We have not opened a current price from Gretsch or a dealer, so we do not quote one.

If you want a Gretsch Jet without the signature price, our Gretsch G5230T Electromatic Jet guide covers the budget Electromatic Jet, notes that Malcolm’s stripped-down 1963 Jet Firebird is a completely different model, and says the G5230T was added to the Electromatic line in 2021. It has two humbuckers, so it is a Jet to modify, not a copy of the Beast.

What We Could Not Confirm

Three popular claims stay open. The first is the story that the Beast was the only guitar on every AC/DC record; Malcolm’s own quote says High Voltage was the exception, and his memory of that session was uncertain. The second is the Super Bass as the only amp: later sources point to a JTM45/100 and Wizard amps, but those claims are weakly sourced. The third is exact string and pick specifications, where the sources differ.

Frequently Asked Questions