Marcus King Guitars & Gear: The Complete Guide to “Big Red” and the MK Ultra Rig

Marcus King keeps it simple about what matters: “Big Red is the truest guitar I’ve got. Just that guitar straight through a Fender amplifier with a little reverb. I mean, if you can’t say it like that, it may not be worth saying. For the most part, I’m just trying to go for a feeling or an emotion. And I’ve never been a real tone chaser, I’ve just been a big believer in achieving what’s honest. I’ll pick up just about anything, and if it feels true to me, I’ll keep it on the table.” That is the philosophy. Big Red. Fender amp. Reverb. Feeling. Honesty. Everything else follows from that.

Big Red is a 1962 Gibson ES-345 that passed from Marcus King’s grandfather to his father Marvin King — a blues guitarist who started Marcus on the guitar at three years old — and then to Marcus himself. It is, simultaneously, the most personal and the most consequential piece of gear Marcus King owns. The ES-345 is a semi-hollow thinline with a Varitone circuit, stereo wiring, and two humbuckers — Gibson’s premium version of the ES-335, with the specific tonal character of a late-vintage instrument played hard for sixty years. When Gibson came to Marcus about building a signature guitar, the 1962 ES-345 was the obvious starting point. There was no other starting point. It was his grandfather’s guitar, it was his father’s guitar, and it is his guitar. The guitar is the family.

Marcus King was born on March 13, 1995, in Greenville, South Carolina — or more precisely, in the musical lineage of Greenville, where his blues guitarist father and country guitarist grandfather had been playing before him. He picked up the guitar at three, performed on stage at eight, made his first studio recording at eleven, and by his early twenties was being compared to Duane Allman and described by Warren Haynes as “the first player I’ve heard since Derek Trucks to play with the maturity of a musician well beyond his age.” His debut solo album El Dorado (2020), produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, earned him a Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album. He is, at the time of this writing, one of the most complete young guitarists in American roots music — and one of the most honest about what drives him.

Background: Greenville Bloodlines, Warren Haynes, Dan Auerbach, and the Road to Big Red

The King family musical lineage is as direct as any in American roots music. His grandfather was a country guitarist with a specific love of Gibson guitars — the 1962 ES-345 that he played and eventually passed down was not a random acquisition but the deliberate choice of a musician who understood what a great guitar meant. His father Marvin King played blues guitar, giving Marcus a childhood steeped in the two traditions that would define his adult music: country’s melodic directness and blues’ emotional depth, both accessed through the same family of Gibson guitars that had been circulating through Greenville for decades before Marcus was born.

He attended the Fine Arts Centre of Greenville, South Carolina for two years — a specialized arts education that gave him theoretical musicality and harmonic sophistication beyond what most self-taught blues guitarists develop. “It’s here he disciplined his ear and defined his theoretical musicality,” as Strings Direct describes. The jazz courses he took there — the harmonic vocabulary, the chord-scale relationships, the ear training — are audible in his playing: his improvisations are not just blues-based lick-stringing but harmonically informed compositions that reference multiple tonal centers and use jazz-influenced passing tones in ways that distinguish him from players who learned only from blues records.

Warren Haynes — the Allman Brothers guitarist and Gov’t Mule leader who is himself one of the most respected blues-rock guitarists alive — was “a significant role model and collaborator for King in the early days of his development,” as the Strings Direct profile notes. Haynes’s assessment — “the first player I’ve heard since Derek Trucks to play with the maturity of a musician well beyond his age” — is not polite praise but the specific evaluation of a musician who has spent decades surrounded by virtuosic players and recognizes genuine precocity when he encounters it. The Allman Brothers connection is not incidental: King’s slide work, his Duane Allman admiration, and the semi-hollow ES-345 that is his primary instrument all place him in direct relationship with the Allman tradition.

The Dan Auerbach production partnership for El Dorado (2020) and Young Blood (2022) brought King into a specific recording environment — Easy Eye Sound in Nashville, the Auerbach aesthetic of vintage gear and throwback recording philosophy — that pushed his natural instincts toward even greater retro-organic authenticity. Auerbach brought in Bobby Wood and Gene Chrisman — the Memphis-based rhythm section — for El Dorado; he gave King a 1962 Telecaster to use on “Turn It Up” (“and I’ve never gotten a good slide tone with single-coils,” King noted, an instructive admission). The sessions produced a sound that was simultaneously vintage and immediate — the sound of real musicians playing real vintage gear in a real room.

His personal struggles — which he has addressed publicly, including a period of serious mental health difficulty around 2022 — inform his music and his guitar philosophy. The “Young Blood” era and subsequent Mood Swings album (2024) reflect an artist who is working through personal darkness with the specific honesty he describes as his core approach: “I’m just trying to go for a feeling or an emotion.” The guitar as emotional truth-telling, not as technical display.

The Rig: Marcus King’s Guitars, Amps, and Effects

Guitars

1962 Gibson ES-345 “Big Red” (Primary Guitar, Family Heirloom, Career Centerpiece): The 1962 Gibson ES-345 that Marcus King calls “Big Red” is the most important instrument in his career — his grandfather’s guitar, his father’s guitar, and his guitar. The ES-345 is the premium version of the ES-335 semi-hollow thinline: a laminated maple body with a solid maple center block (for feedback resistance and sustain), dual humbucking pickups, gold hardware, and the Varitone rotary tone circuit that switches between six different capacitor values for tonal variety. The 1962 vintage places it in the pre-CBS period of American guitar manufacturing, when both Gibson and Fender were producing instruments of the highest commercial-production quality available.

The specific tonal character of a 1962 ES-345 — played for sixty years, broken in over decades of professional use — is not replicable in a new guitar regardless of specification. The wood has dried, the top has changed, the humbuckers have aged, and the result is an instrument with a specific warmth and resonance that a new guitar cannot have. When King says “Big Red is the truest guitar I’ve got,” he is saying something about the relationship between instrument and player that goes beyond specification: a guitar that has been passed through a family’s hands across three generations carries a physical history that shapes its tonal character in ways that cannot be quantified.

He was nervous enough about taking the original 1962 on the road that he eventually asked Gibson for a replacement model. Gibson sent one; then gave him a full endorsement. Gibson subsequently developed the Marcus King Signature ES-345 — first as a Custom Shop model, then as a production model — based on the 1962 heirloom. “This guitar has the ability to pull new ideas out of me every night and an incredible versatility that makes the possibilities nearly endless,” King has said of the relationship. The signature model maintains the essential ES-345 design elements: laminated maple/poplar/maple body, solid maple center block, gold hardware, mahogany neck with Indian rosewood fretboard and split parallelogram acrylic inlays, 22 medium jumbo frets, rounded neck profile averaging .875″ at first fret and .975″ at the 12th.

Gibson Les Paul Goldtop (Secondary Electric, Duane Allman Inspiration): After King had a chance to use Duane Allman’s personal Les Paul Goldtop, he decided to get one of his own. The Les Paul Goldtop — the original 1952–1957 Gibson design with P-90 single-coil pickups and a gold metallic finish — is the guitar most associated with Allman’s Fillmore East recordings, where the specific combination of P-90 output and the Gibson’s mahogany resonance produced the sustained, singing tone that defined his slide and lead playing. King plays the ES-345 ninety-five percent of the time, but the Les Paul’s presence in his collection reflects the specific Allman reverence that runs through his playing at every level.

Dan Auerbach’s 1962 Fender Telecaster (El Dorado Recording, On Loan): For the El Dorado sessions, Auerbach gave King access to his personal 1962 Fender Telecaster. King used it on the slide solo to “Turn It Up,” noting: “I’ve never gotten a good slide tone with single-coils” — an admission that gives a precise indication of why the ES-345 is his primary instrument. The Telecaster’s bridge pickup brightness, which suits many players, was less suited to King’s specific slide approach than the warmth of the humbucking ES-345. The 1962 Telecaster is the same vintage as Big Red, from the same era of American guitar manufacturing — Auerbach’s choice to bring that specific instrument to the session was deliberate.

Various Acoustic Guitars (Touring and Recording): King’s Premier Guitar rig rundown documentation references a “beautiful big-bodied acoustic” alongside his electric instruments. The specific make and model of his primary acoustic is not as comprehensively documented as his electric rig, but his acoustic playing — which appears on recording and in performance — reflects the same heritage-conscious approach to instrument choice as his electric playing.

Amps

Orange MK Ultra Signature Amp (Primary Touring Head, 50-Watt, 6L6 Tubes): Marcus King’s signature amplifier with Orange Amplification is the MK Ultra — a 50-watt head with 6L6 power tubes, designed in collaboration with King to deliver the specific clean-to-breakup character his semi-hollow ES-345 requires. “I’ve also got an Orange head that I’m using. It’s a 50 watt head with 6L6 tubes in it. And I believe I’ve got a 2×12″ cabinet out there with it,” as he described the early prototype. The MK Ultra’s name carries an oblique cultural reference that has not been fully explained by King or Orange. The 6L6 power tubes — American-voiced, producing the warm, clean character associated with Fender circuits — are an unusual choice for an Orange amp, which typically uses EL34 European-voiced tubes for a brighter, more compressed character. The 6L6 choice moves the MK Ultra’s voicing closer to the American clean-to-breakup tradition that King’s Southern roots music requires.

Orange Rockerverb 50 MKII (Earlier Primary Amp): Before the MK Ultra signature, King’s primary stage amplifier was an Orange Rockerverb 50 MKII — the British-voiced 50-watt head with two channels (clean and dirty), EL34 power tubes, and built-in spring reverb. The Rockerverb 50’s reputation for warm clean tones and natural EL34 breakup at performance volumes made it well suited to the blues-rock territory King inhabits. His use of an Orange amplifier reflects an aesthetic preference for British-voiced warmth alongside the American Fender clean he values in the Super Reverb.

1965 Fender Super Reverb (Grandfather’s Amp, “A Favorite of His Grandfather”): King’s most emotionally significant amplifier is a 1965 Fender Super Reverb — “a favorite of his grandfather,” as the American Songwriter documentation notes. The Fender Super Reverb is a 45-watt blackface combo with four 10-inch Jensens, one of the most celebrated clean-to-breakup amplifiers in the history of American music — the amp that defined the blackface Fender clean tone of the mid-1960s, with enough headroom for clear fingerstyle passages and enough natural compression at moderate volume for the specific pushed-clean quality that blues guitarists need. King uses a Tube Screamer with this amp specifically, running “the volume on this tube screamer at about 7 o’clock and put the drive up here at about 2 o’clock just to give it a little bit of edge” — not for overdrive but as a mild push to maintain edge without losing the clean character of the Super Reverb.

Effects

Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer (Core Overdrive, “Power Attenuator” Role): King’s primary pedal is the Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer — the most widely used overdrive pedal in blues and roots music history. His specific use of it is instructive: “I cut out the pedalboard a long time ago, and the Tube Screamer stuck around as a power attenuator. So I keep the volume on this tube screamer at about 7 o’clock and put the drive up here at about 2 o’clock just to give it a little bit of edge, you know?” He is not using the TS9 for conventional overdrive but as a mild mid-push that maintains his amp’s edge at modest volume settings — a classic blues-guitarist use of the Tube Screamer that goes back to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s foundational application of the pedal.

Analog Man Beano Boost (Treble Booster, Clapton Connection): The Analog Man Beano Boost is a replica of the Dallas Rangemaster treble booster that Eric Clapton used on the Blues Breakers “Beano” album (1966) — the recording that established Clapton’s tone as the foundational British blues guitar sound. King’s use of the Beano Boost connects his signal chain directly to that lineage: the mid-pushed, compressed, slightly bright character that a treble booster adds to a driven amp is the specific character of the Clapton “Beano” album tone, and King’s admiration for that tradition is transparent in his use of the specific pedal designed to replicate it.

Dunlop Wah (Dynamic Filter): A standard Dunlop wah pedal appears in King’s documented signal chain — the classic vocal-quality envelope filter that has been part of blues-rock guitar since Clapton, Hendrix, and Cream established it in the late 1960s. King’s use of wah is expressive rather than systematic, deployed for specific passages rather than as a constant tonal color.

Electro-Harmonix Mini Déjà Vibe (Rotary/Vibe Effect): “I honestly don’t know what it is about this pedal… I have just always really liked the sound of it,” King says of the EH Mini Déjà Vibe — a compact univibe effect that creates the rotating speaker-style pitch modulation associated with psychedelic and classic rock guitar. The Déjà Vibe’s specific tonal contribution — a slightly woozy, slowly cycling pitch modulation beneath sustained notes — adds textural depth to his lead playing without the complexity of a full effects chain.

Fender Mirror Image Delay (Echo Effect): A Fender Mirror Image Delay provides the slapback and longer echo effects in his chain. Slapback delay — a single short echo at 80–120 milliseconds — is the characteristic echo of vintage Southern rock, Americana, and classic country and rockabilly guitar. For a guitarist whose music is rooted in the traditions of the American South, slapback delay is as much a genre marker as a tonal choice.

Super-Fuzz (Feedback Control): An Auerbach-gifted Super Fuzz pedal appears on King’s documented gear list for specific applications: “I use it very sparingly because it really does its job and gates the hell out of everything. It’s kinda like my self-destruct button, when I want s*** to really go off the wall and start controlling feedback, though I’ll usually use it on ‘Welcome Around Here.'” The Super Fuzz’s sustain and feedback-inducing character — deployed sparingly rather than as a regular tonal option — represents the most extreme end of King’s tonal range, the point where controlled chaos replaces the honest simplicity of Big Red through a Fender with reverb.

Elixir Strings (Endorsed After Four-Year Negotiation): King uses Elixir Strings, an endorsement that he describes as having taken four years to finalize. “They’re pretty particular with who they endorse,” he noted — an observation that reflects Elixir’s reputation for selectivity in their artist relationships. Elixir’s Nanoweb and Polyweb coated strings maintain a fresh, bright character longer than uncoated strings, suiting King’s touring schedule where string changes between shows are impractical.

Playing Style & Tone Philosophy

Marcus King’s playing is the most complete synthesis of the Southern American guitar traditions available in a musician his age: blues, country, soul, and jazz all filtered through the specific emotional directness that his family lineage and his personal experience demand. The jazz theory he absorbed at the Fine Arts Centre sits beneath the blues-derived emotion of his playing like a structural skeleton — visible in the chord-tone targeting of his solos and the harmonic sophistication of his compositions, but never visible as academic display. He is not playing jazz; he is playing blues guitar informed by jazz harmonic awareness, which produces a melodic intelligence that blues-only players cannot access.

His slide playing is the most discussed dimension of his technique — the Duane Allman comparison is based on genuine similarity rather than mere flattery. His slide tone, his vibrato, his ability to sustain notes while remaining in tune, and his specific sense of when to use slide and when to leave it in his pocket all reflect deep absorption of the Allman tradition alongside his own natural facility. His use of the Tube Screamer as a power attenuator rather than an overdrive device reflects this understanding: the specific pushed-clean quality of the Super Reverb with mild TS9 push is the specific tone in which his slide singing works most naturally.

“The guitar should be a co-writer,” King has said — a statement that encapsulates his compositional relationship to the instrument. He does not impose compositions on the guitar; he allows the guitar’s specific character (what Big Red suggests, what a particular tuning enables, what a specific amp setting invites) to contribute to the compositional process. This attitude produces music that sounds natural and inevitable rather than constructed — the feeling that the song had to be this way, that no other harmonic choice or rhythmic pattern would have been as honest.

How to Sound Like Marcus King

Guitar: The Gibson ES-345 or ES-335 is the authentic starting point — semi-hollow thinline with dual humbuckers, in the Gibson heritage line that runs from the late 1950s through the present. The signature Marcus King ES-345 is available from Gibson. For accessible alternatives: the Epiphone ES-335 Pro or ES-345 provide the semi-hollow architecture at a significantly lower price point. The ES-345’s Varitone circuit provides the tonal variety King accesses across his playing contexts.

Amp: A Fender blackface-era combo — Super Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, or Twin Reverb — for the clean foundation, or the Orange MK Ultra signature for his specific British-voiced American-tubed sound. The blackface Fender’s clean headroom and spring reverb are the core of his tonal identity.

Amp Settings (Fender Blackface / Clean Tube Amp):

Key effects: Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer set with low volume (7 o’clock) and moderate drive (2 o’clock) as a mild push rather than an overdrive. Analog Man Beano Boost for the treble-boost character of the Clapton Beano tradition. Dunlop wah for expressive passages. EH Mini Déjà Vibe for rotary texture. Fender Mirror Image Delay for slapback. Keep it simple — King’s approach is not pedalboard complexity but honest tone with selective additions.

Influence & Legacy

Marcus King’s position in the hierarchy of American roots guitar is still being established — he is young enough that the full arc of his career lies ahead of him — but the foundation is already extraordinary. Warren Haynes’s comparison to Derek Trucks (Series 1 in this guide) is the most significant peer assessment available: Trucks is arguably the finest slide guitarist alive, and Haynes’s observation that King plays “with the maturity of a musician well beyond his age” is not an analogy but a direct placement in the tradition’s current premier tier.

The family lineage — grandfather’s country guitar, father’s blues guitar, grandson’s roots music synthesis — connects him to the American heritage guitar tradition as directly as any young musician alive. The 1962 ES-345 that passed from grandfather to father to Marcus is not metaphor but documented reality: the guitar is the lineage. The Duane Allman admiration, the Warren Haynes mentorship, the Derek Trucks comparison all place him in the Allman Brothers tradition that has been the most consistent Southern American guitar lineage for fifty years. Warren Haynes (Series 1) and Dickey Betts (Series 1) are the direct predecessors in that lineage; King is their most likely successor.

His collaborations with Dan Auerbach place him in relationship with the Black Keys tradition of blues-rock minimalism and retro production philosophy. The Auerbach influence is audible in the El Dorado and Young Blood production aesthetic — the commitment to real instruments, vintage gear, and the specific sound of musicians in a room together. This production philosophy, combined with King’s natural orientation toward Big Red and a Fender with reverb, produces music that sounds simultaneously contemporary and timeless.

Internal Links:

• Derek Trucks, to whom Warren Haynes compared King’s maturity as a guitarist (Series 1)
• Warren Haynes, King’s early mentor and role model (Series 1)
• Samantha Fish, King’s contemporary in the new generation of blues guitar at #133
• Duane Allman, whose Les Paul Goldtop inspired King to add one to his collection (Series 1)

Frequently Asked Questions: Marcus King Guitars & Gear

What guitar does Marcus King play?
Marcus King’s primary guitar is a 1962 Gibson ES-345 nicknamed “Big Red” — a family heirloom that passed from his grandfather to his father Marvin King (a blues guitarist) and then to Marcus. The ES-345 is a semi-hollow thinline with dual humbuckers, Varitone rotary tone circuit, and gold hardware. When Big Red became too precious to tour with regularly, Gibson sent him a replacement ES-345 and subsequently gave him a full endorsement, developing the Gibson Marcus King Signature ES-345 based on the 1962 original. He also plays a Gibson Les Paul Goldtop, inspired by Duane Allman’s use of the same model.

What amplifier does Marcus King use?
King’s primary touring amplifier is the Orange MK Ultra — his signature amp with Orange Amplification, a 50-watt head with 6L6 power tubes (unusual for Orange, which typically uses EL34 tubes) and a 2×12 cabinet. His earlier primary amp was the Orange Rockerverb 50 MKII. His most emotionally significant amplifier is a 1965 Fender Super Reverb — his grandfather’s amp — which he uses with an Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer set at low volume and moderate drive as a mild push rather than an overdrive effect.

What is the story of “Big Red”?
“Big Red” is Marcus King’s 1962 Gibson ES-345 — a guitar that his grandfather acquired and played as his primary instrument, then passed to Marcus’s father Marvin King when Marvin took up blues guitar professionally, and then eventually to Marcus as he established his own career. The guitar is the physical embodiment of the King family’s musical lineage. When Marcus grew nervous about touring with the original, he asked Gibson for a replacement; they subsequently built his signature model based on the 1962 original. “Big Red is the truest guitar I’ve got,” King has said.

What effects does Marcus King use?
King’s core effects include: Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer (used as a mild push rather than overdrive — volume at 7 o’clock, drive at 2 o’clock); Analog Man Beano Boost (treble booster replicating the Dallas Rangemaster that Clapton used on the Beano album); Dunlop Wah; Electro-Harmonix Mini Déjà Vibe (rotary/vibe effect); Fender Mirror Image Delay (slapback); and an Auerbach-gifted Super Fuzz (used sparingly for feedback and extreme passages). He famously cut his pedalboard down to minimal essentials, with the TS9 as the last survivor.

Who influenced Marcus King’s guitar playing?
King’s influences run through his family first — his blues guitarist father Marvin King started him on guitar at three years old, and his country guitarist grandfather’s 1962 ES-345 became his primary instrument. His cited influences include Duane Allman (especially for slide guitar and the Les Paul Goldtop approach), Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes (who was also a personal mentor), and Eric Clapton (via the Analog Man Beano Boost’s specific reference to Clapton’s Blues Breakers tone). His jazz theory education at the Fine Arts Centre of Greenville added harmonic sophistication beyond the blues tradition he inherited.

What is the Orange MK Ultra amp?
The Orange MK Ultra is Marcus King’s signature amplifier, co-developed with Orange Amplification. It is a 50-watt head unusual among Orange’s line for using 6L6 power tubes rather than the EL34 tubes standard in Orange’s British-voiced designs. The 6L6 choice gives the MK Ultra a warmer, more American-voiced character than typical Orange amplifiers, suiting King’s Southern roots music approach. It produces clean tones that break up naturally at performance volumes, with the specific mid-forward character that makes a semi-hollow ES-345 sing. The name carries an oblique reference that King has not fully explained.

How did Dan Auerbach influence Marcus King’s approach?
Dan Auerbach produced King’s El Dorado (2020) and Young Blood (2022) albums at his Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville. Auerbach’s production philosophy — vintage gear, real rooms, specific session players from American music history (Bobby Wood and Gene Chrisman from the Memphis soul scene) — pushed King toward even greater retro-organic authenticity. Auerbach gave King access to his 1962 Telecaster for the El Dorado sessions and gifted him a Super Fuzz pedal. The Auerbach connection also introduced King to the American Songwriting community and positioned El Dorado for the Grammy nomination for Best Americana Album.