To get Zakk Wylde's guitar tone do this simple trick

That's the exact sound i wanted when i was 14. I could never get it. All i needed was a Marshall and a bunch of pedals. I was so close😂

I saw Pride & Glory live on tour (Thank God, best record of all time), and I saw his pedalboard with my own eyes. Rotovibe, chrome 535 Crybaby wah, SD-1 Super Overdrive, CE-5 Chorus. That was all. Straight into his JCM 800s. Those old amps did not have effects loops unless perhaps they were modded. But live and recording are two different animals as we all know.

Zakk NEVER uses the effects loop. His chorus pedal is in front of the amp, and is actually what splits his signal into his left and right channels - this is a huge part of his live sound. In the studio, however, the Symphonic chorus was of course applied to his dirty sound in post with the rest of the effects. So roughly, live sound = chorus in front, studio sound = chorus in, but the chorus in front won't sound totally right unless you're in stereo, and the chorus in the loop won't sound totally right because it's being colored by the power amp and cabinet.

Holy balls. There it is. I've wanted that sound for decades. I've tried solid state clones but they just didn't have that Zakk sound. Thank you for this.

The trick: "be reincarnated as Zakk Wylde in your next life"

I’ve been chasing that sound for years, thank you so much. It’s like Christmas all over again.

Zakk never used an effects loop.And to this day he doesn't have an effects loop.

EV EVM12L speakers are a must also. One thing to note is original 2203s didn’t have an efx loop like the reissues. So he either had them modified or used a line out box into a wet/dry/wet setup or just wet/dry.

This took me years to figure out. Wish I had this video 20 years ago! ❤❤❤

Hey another thing maybe worth noting… back when Zakk started out, the Chorus Ensemble was made only analog. A few years later they changed it over to a digital version and you can’t find many of the analog ones now. I’ve owned both and A/Bd them and there is definitely a tonal difference. The analog one is deep and rich while the digital one is pretty stale sounding. If you have his signature Chorus it’s modeled off the analog one so you’ll be close enough, but if you’re buying Boss make sure to get the pink labeled analog Chorus Ensemble from back in the day.

My personal favorite Zakk tone is "No Rest For The Wicked". MASSIVE!!

Uhh one problem the original jcm800 didn't have an effects loop . I actually had Zakk sign my Marshall JCM800 4010 combo, apparently that's what he recorded No Rest for the Wicked on was the combo , not even the head lol. Biggest thing that improved the sound on that combo was when I installed an Eminence DV-77 Mick Thompson speaker. In the studio they also pan the stereo chorus to fatten up the sound too. Very different. I actually run a Radial JD7 Injector rack unit that feed 4amps simultaneously with a stereo chorus and it sounds huge, freaking loud, but huge and plenty of headroom.

time based effects into the effects loop? Wow you're a genius!

No more tears is the holy grail of guitar tone.

The man found the holy grail! 🥲 Thank you, been looking for this for 13 years..

Nice 🤘😁🤘 Zakk's tone on the "No more tears" album is my absolute favorite !

Before I moved out of the US, I had one of those Yamaha SPX90 rack units. When I learned Zakk used it, I plugged it up to get the No More Tears sound, and it was freaking epic. I had so much fun.

Finally its figured out for us.Thanks bro

I've been playing full stereo for decades now - I just cannot live without it, and I will agree with many posts on here that stereo is the key to Zakks tone. If you don;t have two amps, the using the effects loop is a great improvement over trying to use time based pedals in front of the amp, but often chorus and phaser type effects tend to get a bit overwhelming (EVH always used his phaser in front of the amp and it is surprisingly musical there). The beauty of using a stereo chorus in front of two amps is that you get the full stereo seperation but the preamps give proper coloration to each channel, so it takes the edge off the chorusing effect and sounds more natural - and you have additional control over each tone stack.

the phaser would sound better in the front instead of the effects loop. everything else you said is spot on.