Phil Collen Guitars & Gear: The Complete Guide to Def Leppard’s Jackson PC1 and Axe-Fx Rig
Phil Collen's documented rig: Jackson PC1 signatures, Felix Strat, DiMarzio pickups and the Axe-Fx rack, with sources and as-of dates.
Phil Collen of Def Leppard is one of the few rock guitarists whose touring rig has two halves that barely overlap. On one side sits a family of Jackson guitars, most of them built around a Floyd Rose tremolo and a sustainer driver in the neck position. On the other is a rack that has moved from Marshall preamps to Fractal Audio modelers and runs direct, with no microphones in the 2014 rig and no amplifier mentioned in the 2022 one. This guide sticks to what Premier Guitar’s rig rundowns, Jackson’s own pages, DiMarzio’s announcement of his pickup and Guitar.com’s account of the Hysteria sessions actually document, and it dates each claim, because Collen’s setup has changed between every rundown we could read.
How Phil Collen’s Rig Is Documented
Premier Guitar has filmed Collen’s rig at least three times: a short video summary in August 2011, a full rundown by John Bohlinger in August 2014, and another by Bohlinger published in July 2022 that covers Collen and Vivian Campbell. The 2011 page only tells us that he detailed his many Jackson PC1 guitars and demonstrated the Floyd Rose and the sustainer pickup, so the 2014 and 2022 pieces carry most of the detail here. Jackson’s own blog adds posts from 2017, 2019 and 2020, and Jackson’s product pages give the specifications of the signature models.
A few things we could not confirm from readable sources. Guitar World and MusicRadar both ran Collen features, but their article bodies did not load for us, so nothing in this guide leans on them. We found no documentation of a Vox amp in Collen’s rig, and no documented Kemper profiling unit; the modelers that appear in the rundowns are Fractal Audio’s. We also found no pedalboard in either rundown. If a Vox or Kemper turns up in a more recent source, it is not in what we could open.
Early Days and the Hysteria Sessions
The gear behind Def Leppard’s biggest records is documented in less detail than the modern rig, and one source does most of the work. Guitar.com’s June 2024 feature by Justin Beckner on the gear used on Hysteria says Collen’s main guitar for the album was a 1978 Japanese Fender Stratocaster that he calls “Felix”. The article says that at the time of recording it had two stock single-coil pickups and a DiMarzio Super Distortion humbucker in the bridge position. It adds that Collen also used a few Charvels and a Jackson with a “Cracklejack” finish, and that producer Mutt Lange brought in some Telecasters for certain parts. According to Collen, Steve Clark also played Felix on parts of the album.
On the amplifier side, the same article says Lange pushed the band to drop their Marshall amps for Rockman units developed by Tom Scholz of Boston, and it quotes engineer Mike Shipley’s 2004 forum post saying Scholz was asked to modify the sound. It also relays Collen’s 2012 comment to Guitar World that a small Gallien-Krueger amp was used on the “Love Bites” demo that ended up on the record and for the feedback at the start of “Animal”. For background on the Rockman itself, see our Tom Scholz guitars and gear guide. Our USA Soloist SL1 article covers the Soloist shape and Collen’s connection to it, and our Jackson Soloist SL1 article covers the model more broadly.
The Super Distortion in Felix’s bridge position fits a long pattern. DiMarzio’s own press release says Collen has used DiMarzio pickups exclusively for more than 40 years, and most of the Jackson guitars in the rundowns that list pickups carry DiMarzio humbuckers or single coils. Our explainer on high-output humbuckers covers where the Super Distortion sits among them.
The Rig
The sections below list the guitars, processing and effects in the rundowns. “As of” dates refer to the date of the source, not to today, and Collen’s touring setup has changed between each of them.
Guitars
The 2022 Premier Guitar rundown features mostly PC-1 and PC Supreme variants. The PC1 is Collen’s signature Jackson. Collen has told Jackson he considers the PC1 his favourite guitar, in a video the company’s blog described in April 2019.
Jackson’s product page, which we read on 16 October 2026, lists a caramelized mahogany body with a 1/8-inch quilt maple top, a bolt-on quartersawn caramelized flame maple neck with graphite reinforcement, a 25.5-inch scale and a 1.6875-inch nut. The fingerboard is caramelized flame maple with a 12-inch to 16-inch compound radius, 24 jumbo frets and no position inlays. Pickups are a DiMarzio Super 3 (DP152) in the bridge, a DiMarzio HS-2 (DP116) in the middle and a PC1 Sustainer Driver in the neck position. Hardware includes a Floyd Rose Original double-locking tremolo and Jackson die-cast tuners. The controls are volume, tone, an intensity control for the sustainer, a sustainer on/off switch, a fundamental/harmonic/blend switch and a five-way blade switch. Jackson lists this version as sold out at $5,249.99 as of the same date. The guitar’s stock strings are listed as .011-.052 nickel-plated steel, which is not what Collen uses on stage.
Jackson says the PC1-E carries on the legacy of Collen’s PC1 Dinky, with a mahogany body, a caramelized maple neck with graphite reinforcement and an ebony fingerboard, though the page’s highlights section says caramelized maple while its specification list says ebony. Pickups are a DiMarzio X2N (DP102BK) in the bridge, a DiMarzio Sugar Chakra (DP427BK) in the middle and the PC1 Sustainer Driver on an 18-volt system in the neck position. Other listed details are a Floyd Rose 1000 Series tremolo, a push-pull coil split on the volume control, gold hardware, a 25.5-inch scale and factory .009-.042 strings. As of 16 October 2026 the page shows $2,199.99 and marks the Worn Black version sold out.
In the 2022 rundown, Collen shows a limited-run PC-1 with a Jackson Pollock-style paint finish carried onto the headstock. It has a mahogany body, a quartersawn maple neck, a reverse headstock, a DiMarzio Super 3 in the bridge, the Sustainer Driver in the neck position and the sustainer controls in the control set. Another PC-1 in the same rundown has a satin natural finish over a quilted maple top, a DiMarzio HS-2 in the middle and a five-way blade switch.
The 2022 rundown lists “Bela” as a 1986 guitar with glow-in-the-dark paint and a Bela Lugosi as Dracula graphic, with DiMarzio Super 3 pickups, titanium saddles and block and a Floyd Rose. In a 2020 post on Jackson’s blog, Collen calls it one of his oldest Jacksons, from the early ’80s, that has been in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum a couple of times and was refretted by Jackson Master Builder Mike Shannon. The two sources disagree on the date, so we leave it open.
The Supreme is a different build from the PC1 family. In the 2022 rundown the black PC Supreme has a thick U-shaped neck, two DiMarzio humbuckers, a DiMarzio and Collen Sugar Chakra single-coil-sized pickup in the middle, a sustainer circuit and a kabuki-style mask inlay. “The Blue Axe” is a prototype Supreme with a more conventionally sized neck, blue titanium saddles, angled cutaways and the same Sugar Chakra and sustainer arrangement. Jackson’s 2020 blog post also names “Maya”, a PC1 Supreme with an archtop body that Collen had custom built, and “Michonne”, a jet black PC1 of which, Collen says in the post, only a few were made and he owns two.
The 2014 Premier Guitar rundown describes the X-Stroyer as based on Collen’s old Ibanez Destroyer with the body contours inverted. It had DiMarzio Super 3 pickups with a center pickup that the rundown calls a dummy, plus a Jackson Sustainer, a Floyd Rose with FU-Tone titanium saddles and block, and an extra volume knob removed because it got in the way of his picking. The 2022 rundown shows an X-Stroyer with DiMarzio X2N pickups, a sustainer, a Floyd Rose and a killswitch on the lower horn, which it describes as a Jackson model built in 2014. We cannot tell from the text whether those are two guitars or one guitar that was changed.
Felix is still in the 2014 rundown, where Premier Guitar says Jackson had recently refitted it with a Floyd Rose tremolo and DiMarzio Tone Zone S pickups, a long way from its sound on Hysteria. The article says Collen used it on nearly all of that album, which agrees with Guitar.com.
Also in the 2014 rundown is a stock PC-1 with custom graphics and FU-Tone titanium saddles and block.
The 2022 rundown describes a road-worn Acoustasonic Telecaster with titanium bridge pins, which the rundown says he plays for acoustic sounds and full rock tones. It is the one Fender in that rundown. For how a Telecaster differs from a Strat in general, see our Strat vs Tele vs Les Paul vs SG comparison.
Amps
The 2022 rundown mentions no amplifier. Collen’s sound comes from a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III, with a spare Axe-Fx in the rack. His four-channel Shure Axient wireless system feeds a Radial JX42 V2 switcher, and the digital output goes to front-of-house, with two Atomic CLR full-range powered monitors behind the video wall. For more on the unit, see our Axe-Fx III Mark II article. The rundown does not name the amp models in his patches.
The 2014 rundown shows a rack with two Marshall JMP-1 preamps and a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx II. One Axe-Fx II output went to front-of-house and monitor engineers, and the other to a Randall RRM 2-200 stereo power amp driving two EVH 4×12 cabinets that also served as his stage monitor. The rundown says no microphones were used. Wireless was two Shure UR4D+ receivers, and an RJM IS-84 input selector handled routing.
As above, Guitar.com says the band moved to modified Rockman units for the album, and it quotes Collen on a small Gallien-Krueger amp used on specific parts. These are studio facts from a 2024 retrospective, not a touring rig.
Effects
The Sustainer Driver is the neck-position pickup on the PC1 family. Jackson’s blog described it in 2019 as working like an EBow across all six strings, so chords can be sustained. According to the same post, Collen describes it as an extreme version of the EBow work the band did on Hysteria, noting that an EBow sustains one string at a time. On the PC1, the switches select fundamental, harmonic or a blend, and an intensity control sets the effect level.
Both rundowns list an RJM Mastermind GT/22 MIDI controller operated offstage by a tech, Scott Appleton in 2014 and John Zocco in 2022. The 2022 piece names programmed patches called STFU, Mocha and Cold Brew. It lists no stompboxes for Collen, and neither rundown shows a pedalboard.
The Pickups: DiMarzio, Start to Finish
DiMarzio sits at the centre of the whole rig. The Super 3, the HS-2, the X2N and the Super Distortion all appear in the sources above, and the two signature-adjacent designs are worth separating from the stock parts.
Sugar Chakra: DiMarzio announced the Sugar Chakra (DP427) in June 2019 in a press release carried by Premier Guitar. The release says it was developed with Collen, who wanted a single-coil-sized pickup with the weight and attack of a full-size humbucker while keeping clarity, and who road-tested it on the G3 tour with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci. DiMarzio describes it as thick and creamy with crunchy mids and a smooth top end. List price at launch was $119.99. The release gives no output or resistance figures.
The model number question: Jackson’s April 2019 blog post calls the middle-position pickup on a limited-edition PC1 a custom DiMarzio Fast Track 1, and names the bridge pickup “Sugar Chakra” with the number DP426. DiMarzio’s own announcement and Jackson’s PC1-E product page both give DP427 for the Sugar Chakra, so we treat DP427 as the model number and DP426 as a discrepancy in the blog.
Super 3 and HS-2: Jackson’s 2017 blog post describes a DiMarzio video in which Collen demonstrates the Super 3, the HS-2 and the Super Distortion S on a limited-edition PC1 called the Shred. The same pickups, as the DP152 and DP116, are the stock loadout on the USA Signature PC1.
Strings, Wireless and Small Details
The 2022 Premier Guitar rundown says Collen uses D’Addario .013-.054 sets, a heavier gauge than the factory strings on either production PC1, which ship with .011-.052 and .009-.042. No pick model or gauge is named in any source we read. Wireless has been Shure in both rundowns, UR4D+ receivers in 2014 and Axient in 2022. FU-Tone titanium saddles and blocks appear on the 2014 guitars, and titanium saddles and block appear again on several 2022 guitars, including “Bela”.
Frequently Asked Questions
What guitar does Phil Collen use?
The 2022 Premier Guitar rig rundown shows mostly Jackson PC-1 and PC Supreme variants, plus a Jackson X-Stroyer and a Fender Acoustasonic Telecaster. His signature models are the USA Signature PC1 and the Pro Series PC1-E.
What amp does Phil Collen use?
The 2022 rundown mentions no amplifier. His sound comes from a Fractal Audio Axe-Fx III, with a spare in the rack. In 2014 it was an Axe-Fx II with two Marshall JMP-1 preamps and a Randall power amp driving two EVH 4×12 cabinets.
What pickups are in the Phil Collen PC1?
Jackson lists a DiMarzio Super 3 (DP152) bridge, a DiMarzio HS-2 (DP116) middle and the PC1 Sustainer Driver in the neck on the USA Signature model. The Pro Series PC1-E uses a DiMarzio X2N bridge and a Sugar Chakra middle with the same sustainer driver.
What is Phil Collen’s Sustainer Driver?
It is a neck-position pickup that vibrates the strings, giving EBow-style sustain on all six strings at once, per Jackson’s April 2019 description. It has on/off and fundamental/harmonic/blend switches.
Does Phil Collen use Vox or Kemper?
Not in anything we could document. The readable rundowns show Marshall JMP-1 preamps and Fractal Audio modelers, and no Vox or Kemper appears.
What guitar did Phil Collen play on Hysteria?
According to Guitar.com’s 2024 feature, his main guitar was a 1978 Japanese Fender Stratocaster he calls Felix, alongside some Charvels and a Jackson, with Telecasters brought in by Mutt Lange for certain parts. For the band’s other guitarist, see our Vivian Campbell guitars and gear guide.