List of the Beatles' instruments

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Not listed are instruments played by the Beatles’ session players such as cello, violin, saxophone, trumpet, French horn or the 41-piece orchestra heard on "A Day in the Life".

Guitars

Both

Upgrading from a 1959 Höfner Club 40 guitar, purchased from Hessy's Music Shop in Liverpool, Lennon primarily used a Rickenbacker 325 Capri from 1960 until 1964. He purchased the guitar in Hamburg in its original natural finish and used the guitar extensively throughout the Cavern Club performances.^[1] In early 1963 he sent the guitar off to be refinished in its more popular black finish. This is the way the guitar appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show performance in February 1964. Shortly thereafter, he upgraded to a brand new Rickenbacker 325, a much-improved version of his 325 Capri. Rickenbacker specially made a 325/12. During the Christmas shows of 1964, Lennon dropped the new Rickenbacker 325 which made a huge crack in the neck and headstock. British instrument distributor Rose Morris sent a replacement Rickenbacker 325 with a sound hole and in a red fire glo finish. The guitar is called a Rickenbacker 325 1996. Lennon used the guitar for the shows until the other 325 was repaired. In 1968 during the recording of The Beatles, drummer Ringo Starr left the group during tensions and when he returned, Lennon gave the Rickenbacker 325 1996 to Starr. He has had it ever since. During the Help! sessions, Lennon and Harrison acquired matching 1961 Fender Stratocasters. Lennon's was used on "Nowhere Man" and sparingly on the Sgt. Pepper album. George Harrison after finally receiving his belowed Fender Stratocaster in December 1964 almost exclusively recorded his electric guitar stuff on a Fender Stratocaster. George Harrison is considered the biggest fan of the Fender Stratocaster of all musicians.

George Harrison wanted a Fender Stratocaster as his first electric guitar in 1956, but because of a US embargo there was not one Fender Stratocaster available in the city of Liverpool, so a very disappointed Harrison, who had been sitting in school painting Fender Stratocasters for hours everyday as a 12-13 year old boy, had to settle for Czech Stratocaster copy called Futurama. Harrison is famous for having said "If I'd had it my way my first guitar would have been a Stratocaster". After the Futurama he got hold of a Gretsch The Duo Jet as Stratocasters did not exist in England at that time. The Duo Jet was refurbished many years later and featured on the cover and album

, given to him by Fender, though the Telecaster George Harrison referens to as "The worst guitar I have ever played" in a Rolling Stone magazine interview was never used in any Beatle song. The roof top songs George rerecorded for the album Let it be with his Fender Stratocaster Rocky.

Lennon and Harrison both purchased Epiphone Casinos in the spring of 1966.^[2] Paul McCartney acquired his Casino in 1964. They were used extensively in the recording of the Revolver album and continued to be used throughout their remaining years along with other instruments. Lennon extensively used his Casino as can be witnessed in the film of their final concert at Candlestick Park in 1966, as well as in the Let it Be film when playing in their studio in London. Lennon's Casino was double-tracked to get sufficient distortion to satisfy Lennon in the intro to Revolution. Although they purchased the guitars with sunburst finishes, both Harrison and Lennon later stripped the finishes off the guitars, claiming it allowed the guitars to "breathe" better. Lennon's stripped-down Casino can be seen in video footage of the famous rooftop concert. Lennon used a Casino almost exclusively from 1966 until the group's break-up and he is even seen with it during the sessions for his Imagine album.

Paul McCartney's electric guitar parts (solos on "

Yesterday"), he favoured a 1964 Epiphone Texan FT-79.^[5] In 1968, he started using a D-28 from C. F. Martin & Company

.

Basses

McCartney custom-ordered a left-handed

Wings.^[10][11]

Keyboards

All four Beatles contributed keyboard parts to their catalogue, supplemented by George Martin, Mal Evans, Chris Thomas, Nicky Hopkins and Billy Preston.

• Hohner Pianet N and CH models
• Steinway Vertegrand upright piano
• Baldwin Combo harpsichord
• Baldwin Satin Ebony Grand
• Bechstein D-280 concert grand piano
• Blüthner Grand Piano
• Challen Piano
• Schiedmayer Celeste
• Mannborg Harmonium
• Moog synthesizer III
• Fender Rhodes Suitcase (‘68)
• Selmer Concert Clavioline
• Hammond RT-3 organ with Leslie Model 122 cabinet
• Hammond C-3 organ
• Hammond L-100
• Lowrey DSO Heritage Deluxe organ
• Mellotron MK II^[12]
• Vox Continental organs used on "I'm Down" and others
• Unidentified harpsichord(s?) used on "All You Need Is Love", "Fixing a Hole", "Piggies"
• Unidentified clavichord used on "For No One"

Microphones

Although microphone usage varied somewhat according to the requirements of each song, the group's recordings at Abbey Road most often employed

AKG D19 or STC

4038) and one for the bass drum (such as an AKG D20). Later, more microphones were used on the drums.

The

AKG C28 is visible in the Let It Be film. Available studio documentation and interviews with their former recording engineers indicate that this microphone was not used for recording in the studio.^[13]

With the group's encouragement, recording engineer Geoff Emerick experimented with microphone placement and equalization.^[14] Many of his techniques were unusual for the time but have since become commonplace, such as "close miking" (physically placing the microphone very close to a sound source) of acoustic instruments or deliberately overloading the signal to produce distortion. For example, he obtained the biting string sound that characterises "Eleanor Rigby" by miking the instruments extremely closely—Emerick has related that the string players would instinctively back away from the microphones at the start of each take, and he would go back into the studio and move the microphones closer again.^{[15][page needed]} The recording of George Harrison's acoustic guitar in "Here Comes the Sun" was another incidence of close miking.

Drums

Ringo Starr bought a set of

• 1964
  Miami Beach, Florida, on 14 February 1964)^[18]
• 1964
  pick-up to the bridge side of the sound hole^[20]
  )
• 1961
  Help! album)^[21]
• 1965 Framus Hootenanny^[17] 5/024 acoustic 12 string guitar^[22]
• 1965 Epiphone Casino^[2]

McCartney

• 1963 Höfner 500/1 Violin Bass^[17] (purchased by McCartney in October 1963)^[23]
• 1962
  left-handed)^[24]
• 1964 Epiphone Texan FT-79^[17] acoustic guitar (also modified for playing left-handed)^[24]
• 1965
  Benedict Canyon, Hollywood
  , during the week beginning 23 August 1965.
• 1965 Tone Bender fuzz-box^[25]

Harrison

• 1957
  Gretsch Duo Jet
• 1958 Futurama Resonet Grazioso
• 1962 Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and 1963
  Gretsch Country Gentleman
• 1962–63 Gretsch Tennessean Chet Atkins electric guitar (purchased the previous year)
• 1962 Gibson J-160E^[17] sunburst finish acoustic-electric guitar (purchased on hire purchase from Rushworths, Liverpool in June 1962. Brian Epstein settled the bill a year later^[26] (As with Lennon's J-160E, this guitar was modified for the Rubber Soul sessions by moving the pick-up to the bridge side of the sound hole).^[20]
• 1965
  electric 12-string guitar (custom built and presented to Harrison on 21 August 1965 at a press conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota, by radio station WDGY in association with local music store B-Sharp Music^[27]
  )
• 1961 Fender Stratocaster[17] in Sonic Blue finish (purchased by Mal Evans at the same time as Lennon's)^[21]
• Sitar (a cheap model purchased by Harrison from India Craft in London in 1965)^[28]
• 1964 Ramirez Classical Guitar
• 1965 Epiphone Casino sanded to a natural finish in 1968. John and George both sanded off the finish being told it would sound better. Quote, "In early '68, the Beatles headed to Rishikesh, India, to study transcendental meditation with the Maharishi and friends, including Donovan Leitch. There, Donovan convinced the trio to sand the finish off their instruments, telling them how a guitar sounds better without a heavy finish. After returning to London, during sessions for the self-titled White Album, Lennon and Harrison sanded their Casinos. Lennon primarily played his newly stripped Casino for the sessions. Harrison said that once they'd removed the finish, they became much better guitars. 'I think that works on a lot of guitars', he explained. 'If you take the paint and varnish off and get the bare wood, it seems to sort of breathe'."^[2]

Starr

• kick drum (presented to Starr by Ludwig in New York City on 13 August 1965)^[29]

• Three 1964
  Vox at The Futurist Theatre, Scarborough on 9 August 1964)^[30]
• 1962 Vox AC-15 Twin amplifier^[31]
• Two 1963
  Vox AC-30 amplifiers^[17]
• Two 1965 Vox AC-100 guitar amplifiers[25]
• 1965 Vox AC-100 bass amplifier^[25]
• 1963–4 Fender Bassman amplifier^[31][32]

Keyboards^[31]

• 1965 Vox Continental Portable Organ
• 1964
  Pianet
  C
• grand piano
• Challen
  upright piano
• organ, with Leslie 145 rotating speaker cabinet
  and Leslie 147 power amp
• Harmonium
• Rooftop Concert

Miscellaneous

George Harrison owned many Indian instruments, including tambouras, a swarmandel (or Indian harp) and at least three sitars. All the Beatles kept pianos, guitars and other instruments at their homes to work on songs and demos. Most of these pieces never made their way into the studio with the well-known exception of Harrison's Moog synthesizer. Lennon's home Mellotron was never brought into the studio, though a Mellotron was rented for use during the Sgt. Pepper sessions and an Abbey Road Studios-owned Mellotron was used for the White Album. Both Harrison and Lennon were given Coral electric sitars. Other instruments were recorder, harmonica, banjo, trumpet, saxophone, glockenspiel, vibraphone, accordion,^[33][34] comb and paper, and assorted percussion (congas, bongos, Arabian loose-skin bongo, African drum, timpani, anvil, package case, maracas, tambourine, zill, güiro).

Pop culture references

The "Beatle" style instruments have been used many times in pop culture. In

The Beatles as a five-piece, 1960–1961

+ Chas Newby (December 1960 only), deputising for Sutcliffe ++ Tommy Moore (January–June 1960), Norman Chapman (July 1960), Pete Best (August 1960)

The Beatles as a four-piece live and in the studio, 1961–1966

+ Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best in August 1962

See also

• List of Gibson players
• John Lennon's musical instruments
• Outline of the Beatles
• The Beatles timeline

Notes

References