This was one of the first, if not the first, electric guitars that David owned. Unfortunately, little is known about it, aside from what can be concluded from the few photos that there are of it. It was a blonde model with a Bigsby tremolo, which could’ve come from the factory or been something that David installed on the guitar.

Hank Marvin had a Fender Stratocaster – that was what I wanted. I had a Hofner Club 60 – which is as close to Fender as I could afford.

David Gilmour

David received this Fender Telecaster guitar in March 1967 as a present from his parents for his 21st birthday. It was the guitar he had with him when he joined Pink Floyd, and the guitar he used with his early band, Bullitt.

I started out on a Telecaster before I joined Pink Floyd, and it was the first really good guitar I had. I’ve used Telecasters ever since, though I play Strats a bit more and that’s what I’m generally known for.

David Gilmour – Guitar Shop, December 1996

David’s Telecaster had a white finish, rosewood neck, and white pickguard. Unfortunately, we don’t know the year of manufacture. It did have a three-ply pickguard, which would mean that it was made after 1964, but aside from that, it’s all just speculation.

David received this Fender Stratocaster guitar from his new bandmates, upon officially joining Pink Floyd in early 1968. At that time, the only guitar he owned was a white Fender Telecaster, and the band felt David needed at least one more guitar to have as a backup if nothing else.

Most notably, David played the Stratocaster at the free Hyde Park concert on June 29, 1968, and on the first three concert tours he did with Pink Floyd.

Toward the end of the last tour, in 1970, the guitar went missing after someone stole the truck that the band hired to transfer all of their equipment while they were in New Orleans, Louisiana. The truck was eventually found, but two of David’s guitars, including this white Stratocaster, were already gone – so, that was the end of this guitar.

We were in New Orleans and there was a fantastic live club there. We were there and our truck which was a U-Haul rented truck was parked on the street and got stolen. The whole truck just disappeared – all our gear.

We called the local police and think the next night we were sat around in New Orleans at the great hotel looking out over the river the Mississippi with a fantastic roof terrace and enjoyed ourselves and the police then found the truck and brought it back to us. The only thing missing were four guitars which I think were two Strats and two bases.

The David Gilmour Podcast – The Black Strat (Episode 1)

David used this guitar very briefly in 1970, mainly as a backup for his white Stratocaster. According to the book Pink Floyd: The Black Strat, he purchased the guitar at Manny’s Music store in New York at the start of Pink Floyd’s 1970 US tour.

Based on the few instances of footage that we have of the guitar, it was a late 60s model with a rosewood fretboard and a large headstock.

Unfortunately, at the end of the tour, a truck that was carrying most of the band’s equipment, including both of David’s Stratocaster, was stolen. Even though it was later found, the two guitars were already taken from it, and they were never recovered.

David Gilmour bought this guitar in May 1970, at Manny’s Music shop in New York, after both of his Stratocasters were stolen a few weeks earlier. This is the guitar that can be considered the most important instrument in David’s collection, as he used it on many of his and Pink Floyds’s most famous hits including “Money”, “Comfortably Numb” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”.

I believe it was made in 1969, and I bought it at Manny’s on 48th Street in New York in 1970. It’s been on pretty much, well, most Pink Floyd recordings from then up until the 80s when I put it out to pasture for a while. But then I brought it back again, and it’s still the guitar I play more than any other.

The David Gilmour Podcast – The Black Strat (Episode 1)

Although most Pink Floyd fans know this guitar by its black-on-black look and understand that it’s now heavily customized, it started its life just as a standard 1969 Fender Stratocaster.

This is the second white Fender Stratocaster that David purchased in mid-1970 – his first one being the one that was stolen from the truck that was carrying the band’s equipment in late 1970. Most notably, David was seen using this guitar during the French television show Pop Deux, and at Fête De L’Humanité, Parc Des Vincennes, Paris, France in September 1970.

Sometime in the early 1970s, David removed the plastic pickup covers from the guitar, and a couple of months later, completely stripped the guitar of its paint. Apparently, the guitar was repainted by the previous owner, and not particularly well, so David thought that it would just look better without any paint.

Around the mid-1970s, he removed the original pickups from the guitar and installed a set of Dawson Stereophonic pickups – which remain in the guitar to this day.

According to the book The Black Strat: a History of David Gilmour’s Black Fender Stratocaster David got this guitar around mid-1970 from Steve Marriott of Small Faces/Humble Pie. In case you’re unfamiliar with Steve – he was friends with the band, and the owner of the Border Collie called Seamus, whose bark you can hear of the same name from Pink Floyd’s 1971 album Meddle.

For some reason, the guitar that he gave David was a parts caster, consisting of a 1959 body and a 1963 neck. David apparently used it only briefly, and then disassembled it, putting its neck on his Black Strat.

David acquired this guitar sometime in the early 70s, upon visiting Bill Lewis’ guitar shop and trying one of his guitars. Bill Lewis was a well-respected guitar luthier and a classical guitar player, who spent some time learning with Andres Segovia in Spain. At the time David met him, he was stationed in Vancouver, Canada. Looking at the Pink Floyd concert dates, this most likely happened in October 1970.

The guitar was completely hand-made by Lewis and featured a mahogany body, a 24-fret neck, and two custom-designed pickups.

According to the book The Black Strat by Phil Taylor, David used this guitar during “Meddle” and “Dark Side of the Moon” studio sessions. As far as specifics, Phil notes that Gilmour used it to record the solo on “Money”, but we also have footage on YouTube of David recording solo/fills on “Brain Damage” with the same guitar. Those guitar parts, however, for whatever reason, did not end up on the final version of the song (see Pink Floyd Studio Recording of Brain Damage).

This guitar was assembled by David (or someone hired by him) around 1972 after he requested a custom guitar body from Dick Knight that would be able to fit two standard Stratocaster necks. David’s intention at the time was to enable himself to play both normal guitar and slide on the same instrument, so both necks on the guitar were six-string, and one just had a higher action.

These necks were taken from David’s old guitars. The bottom maple neck was the original 1969 neck from his Black Strat, and the top neck with the rosewood fretboard was taken off an early 60s Stratocaster.

David used this double-neck guitar very briefly because it proved to be more of a nuisance than a solution to a problem. By July 1972 he went back to playing his Black Strat, but when he removed the necks from the double-neck, he intentionally swapped them between the guitars they originated from. So, the Black Strat was now fitted with a rosewood neck, while the early 60s Strat has the Black Strat’s 1969 maple neck.

This 1955 Fender Esquire originally belonged to Seymour Duncan, who modified it by adding a neck pickup. As far as one can tell from looking up online, Seymour never specified the exact model of the pickup that he used, so given that he actually makes pickups, this could’ve been something he custom-made.

In any case, he sold this guitar to David around 1975-76, and at point, it already had all the wear on its body. Inspired by the guitar’s look, David to decided to nickname it “The Workmate” – since it was obvious that this was someone’s work guitar for many years.

David first used the guitar on the album The Wall, to record the song “Run Like Hell”. Later on, he was photographed with it on the cover of his solo album About Face released in 1984.

David used this guitar to record the solo on “Dogs” from the album Animals from 1977.

In some of the early photos of the guitar from around the mid-70s, the Telecaster can be seen with a Gibson PAF humbucker in the neck position. It is unknown whether this was something David installed, or whether he purchased the guitar like this.

In any case, that pickup was changed to a Stratocaster single-coil pickup, and it was with this pickup that David used it on “Dogs”.

I think it was done using the neck pickup, which I changed to a Strat pickup, because the Tele neck pickups never seem to be quite up to the job. I did use a Tele on the new album, as well. It was the main guitar on “Take a Breath”.

David Gilmour Talks Guitars, Tone and Tunings | GP Flashback

David acquired this guitar sometime before he recorded his first solo album, and used it on a couple of songs there. The guitar however mostly remained in the studio, and David only began using it regularly during the 2006 On an Island Tour. He also used it 2002 at Royal Festival Hall to play the solo on “Comfortably Numb”.

I’ve got an old black Duo Jet I’ve had for a very long time. I actually used it on a couple of tracks on my first solo album in 1978. It’s quite hard to play, but it’s a real beauty, and it’s a beautiful-sounding instrument that fits perfectly for some things. I played it on “Where We Start.”

David Gilmour Talks Guitars, Tone and Tunings | GP Flashback

As far as the exact year of manufacture – David’s guitar has two toggle switches on the upper horn, a Bigsby tremolo, and Filltertron humbucking pickup, which would indicate that it was made no earlier than 1958.

David acquired this guitar in 1978 from his guitar tech Phil Taylor. The guitar is quite a unique one because it has serial number #0001, which would indicate that it was the first production Stratocaster ever made. However, according to David, and based on the research done by the auction house through which the guitar was recently sold, it is an early model, but not the first one.

I don’t think it’s the first one ever made. It’s a 1954 Fender Stratocaster, and they don’t get much better than this. I mean this is about as perfect as a guitar can be.

David Gilmour – The Story of the Guitar, BBC, October 2008

David Gilmour bought this guitar at a shop called Guitar Trader, in Red Bank, New Jersey in 1978. Most notably, he used it to record the solo on “Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)” from Pink Floyd’s 1979 album The Wall, and some parts of “Another Brick In The Wall (Part 3)”.

As far as live usage, David used this guitar regularly during The Wall tour in 1980/81. It was usually used on “Don’t Leave me Now” and “One of My Turns”.

David acquired this guitar in 1984, upon visiting the Fender warehouse in Enfield, Middlesex, and used it as his main guitar during the About Face tour from 31st March to 16th July 1984. He considered this guitar to be among the two best he picked that day, alongside a 62V Stratocaster finished in fiesta red.

You would think that these days with the sort of quality control they have that they’d be consistent, but they’re very inconsistent. I played through a lot of guitars and picked the best two. And the best two are great.

David Gilmour – International Musician, August 1984

David continued using this guitar on and off until the late 80s, when his red maple fretboard Strat became his main guitar, and the cream Strat was mainly carried on tour as a backup.

This is one of the guitars that David hand-picked while trying out a bunch of Fenders at their UK warehouse in Enfield, Middlesex. Compared to the other guitar, this guitar didn’t see much stage light and was primarily carried as a backup during the 1984 About Face tour (if you happen to come across any footage of David using the guitar, please post it in the comments). From that point on, it remained in the studio.

From the factory, the guitar came equipped with three Alnico 5 single-coil pickups with solid plastic covers and an internal dummy coil for hum cancellation – which David seems to have kept. It also came with a Freeflyte tremolo system, which David replaced at some point in the late 80s with a Kahler 2300 series locking tremolo. At the same time, he replaced the original neck with a Charvel-made 22-fret flame maple neck.

Everything I used on this tour was brand new. I used a Vintage Series Strat on stage. I didn’t want to take the old ones on the road. They get damaged and stolen too regularly. I tried out between thirty and forty guitars and picked a couple of good ones, as they do vary enormously. The red Strat is out of the box. The black one has the bottom string tuned down to D and uses a Kahler tremolo system.

David Gilmour – Guitar for the Practicing Musician, 1985

The guitar was sold in 2019 through Christie’s auction house for $112,500.

This is one of the guitars that David picked while visiting Fender’s UK warehouse in Enfield, Middlesex. Among those which he picked were also two 57V Strats in vintage white/cream and red, which he used as his main guitars on the About Face tour. This 62V was used less sparingly, but it could be seen on occasion in 1984.

By November 1984, David modified the guitar extensively in order to use it with a 1984 Roland GR-700 guitar synthesizer, adding a MIDI pickup, and a whole set of controls for it. This was all done quite professionally, with the body routed out in order to fit the new controls, and a brand-new pickguard to cover it all up.

David Gilmour acquired this guitar in early 1984 when he visited Fender’s warehouse in Enfield UK, with a goal to try out as many guitars as possible, and find a few best ones. According to David, at that time, he chose the best two to use on the About Face tour, but according to the information posted on the recent auction of this guitar, he took quite a lot more than that from the warehouse.

You would think that these days with the sort of quality control they have that they’d be consistent, but they’re very inconsistent. I played through a lot of guitars and picked the best two. And the best two are great!

David Gilmour – International Musician, August 1984

The two best ones that David referred to in the quote above didn’t include this Candy Apple Strat, because according to the recent auction – this Strat was acquired with the second batch of guitars. The first batch David picked up in January 1984, and among these were the cream 57V Strat, a fiesta red 62V Strat, and a black Elite Stratocaster modified with a Kahler tremolo – all of which he used on the tour.

David used this guitar to play the solo on the songs “High Hopes” and “Shine on You Crazy Diamond” at Robert Wyatt’s Meltdown concert in 2001. Interestingly the gutiar was not among those auctioned in 2019, so perhaps David liked this particular one and decided to keep it.

David purchased this guitar in 2006 to be used as a spare on the “On an Island” tour. Later on, he used the guitar during a recording session for Bryan Ferry’s 2010 solo album Olympia, as can be seen in the “The Making of Olympia” documentary (photo below).

This guitar was auctioned off in 2019 through Christie’s and it ended up selling for $250,000.

David was seen using this guitar very early on with Pink Floyd, circa 1969. Based on the footage there is of the guitar (mainly Royal Festival hall rehearsals), the guitar had a full body and fretboard binding, and a tear-shaped pickguard, which could indicate that this was a Levin LT 18 model.

At the beginning we used Levins, which were quite good guitars, a bit like Martins, made in Sweden or somewhere, then we moved onto Martin D-35s and things like that and now we tend to use Ovations mostly for recording and things.

David Gilmour, Guitar Heroes magazine, 1983

David purchased this guitar from a guy who was apparently just selling it on the street in front of Manny’s Music Shop in NY. This was in 1970, a year after David purchased his Black Strat.

I bought it in New York in ’70 off a guy in the street outside Manny’s in order to do “Grantchester Meadows” at the gigs we were performing that week. I can’t remember why I needed another guitar — I don’t know if one got lost — but we needed it for that, since it’s a quiet, acoustic-type of song with nothing in the way of drums or anything.

David Gilmour : Interview with Rolling Stone on Why He’s Selling 120 Guitars: ‘Everything Has Got to Go

David first used the guitar in the studio on the tracks “Wot’s… Uh The Deal”, “Childhood’s End” and “Free Four” from the album Obscured by Clouds released in 1972. From that point, it was used as sort of an “idea guitar” during the studio sessions for Dark Side of the Moon – a guitar that David and Roger would use to come up with songs. However, there were no acoustic tracks on the final release of that album, so the guitar was not present on any of the releases.

David was seen playing this guitar in 1970, around the time the band was working on the Atom Heart Mother album. Most notably he played it at the KQED TV show, filmed in San Fransisco USA, on April 28. 1970, on the song “Meadows”.

David purchased this guitar from a personal friend in the early 70s, and ever since then, it served as his main 12-string acoustic guitar for studio work.

I wrote that on a 12-string Martin. I bought it off a friend of mine in about ’72 or ’73, I guess. It’s also in the sale. I wrote “Wish You Were Here” one day in the control room of Number Three Studios at Abbey Road. That riff dragged itself out of that guitar, and it became “Wish You Were Here.” It didn’t go on the road either.

David Gilmour : Interview with Rolling Stone on Why He’s Selling 120 Guitars: ‘Everything Has Got to Go

As noted by David, it was on this guitar that he came up with the melody for the song “Wish You Were Here” from Pink Floyd’s 1975 album. He used the guitar to record all the 12-string parts of the song and a 1969 Martin D-35 to record the solos.

This is one of the few Ovation guitars that the band purchased in 1976 in preparation for the 1977 live tour. They found the Ovations to be sturdy and well made, and more importantly, they had built-in electronics and could therefore be easily used in a concert setting.

This guitar in particular was at first used by Roger Waters but was then re-strung by David in a very unique way, that was apparently inspired by Bruce Welch, a founding member of the Shadows.

I had some friends working in Abbey Road on an album with Bruce Welch producing them, and they had put down a couple of acoustic tracks that he said he wanted to double-track with a hi-strung to thicken the sound of the acoustics.

I decided to work on my own version of it, so I put these different gauge strings onto one of these Ovations.

LIVE AUCTION 16980 – THE DAVID GILMOUR GUITAR COLLECTION

David used this guitar most famously on “High Hopes” at the Royal Festival Hall, London in June 2001, as part of the Robert Wyatt-curated Meltdown festival. The guitar was also used on the original studio recording of the song.

The guitar was hand-made in 1979 by Jose Maria Vilaplana, who was one of the founders of Alahambra guitars. It features a cedar top, and Brazilian rosewood back and sides.

David got this guitar from Gibson in 1986 after trying another J-200 Celebrity model that belonged to a Dire Strato bassist John Illsley. David was recording something with Dire Straits at the AIR Studios in September 1986, he saw a J-200 Celebrity model laying around, tried it out, and fell in love. Shortly after, he contacted Gibson and asked whether they had any left. Luckily for David, they did.

I was in AIR Studios and that guitar was lying around. I tried it and liked it. I contacted Gibson and asked if they had any left, …they were looking in their storeroom and they found one that had somehow never reached its destination. And they let me have it

David Gilmour, Guitar World, May 2006

The Gibson J-200 Celebrity was produced in a limited run of just 90 instruments to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Gibson Company in 1985. It had rosewood back and sides as opposed to maple on traditional J-200s, an ebony fingerboard, a mahogany neck, a mustache bridge with vintage inlays, and vintage deluxe Allison tuners.

David got this guitar sometime in 1993, during the recording of the Division Bell album. He used the guitar on the subsequent tour to play the song “High Hopes” live, and he had another identical Chet Atkins that was there as a backup and was sometimes used by Tim Renwick.

Both of these guitars were sold in 2019 through auction, selling for $118,750 each.

Gibson Chet Atkins CE is a guitar that Gibson developed together with Chet Atkins in order to make a classical guitar a little easier to play in a live setting without feedback. The body is not actually hollow like it would be on a classic guitar, but instead, it’s a solid piece of mahogany with sound chambers carved out in order to make the guitar lighter. and easier to hold.

This was David’s second Gibson J-200 Celebrity acoustic guitar. He first encountered this guitar at the AIR Studios in 1986, where he was working with Dire Straits. The guitar at that time belonged to Dire Straits bassist John Illsley.

After playing the guitar, David ended up liking it and asked Gibson if they had any of the same model left. Fortunately for him, they did have one, and that’s the guitar that David ended up using on a lot of songs from The Division Bell album.

I was in AIR Studios and that guitar was lying around. I tried it and liked it. I contacted Gibson and asked if they had any left, …they were looking in their storeroom and they found one that had somehow never reached its destination. And they let me have it

David Gilmour, Guitar World, May 2006

This second J-200 only came into David’s possession after the album was wrapped up, around 1994 when John Illsley finally agreed to sell it to David. From that point on, David used this second J-200 as to play the song “Poles Apart” live, since he had it tuned to DADGAD.

David got this guitar sometime in 2001, in advance of his solo show at London’s Royal Festival Hall on 21st June 2001, as part of the Robert Wyatt-curated Meltdown festival. He used the guitar on almost all of the songs played during that concert, including “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and “Wish You Were Here”.

The guitar was sold in 2019 through Christie’s auction house for $100,000.

David used this guitar most famously at the Royal Festival Hall Concert in 2002 to play a cover of Syd Barrett’s song “Dominoes”.

According to the info posted on the recent auction of the guitar, the instrument was provided by Martin at Phil Taylor’s request. In 2001, David and Phil were looking for a guitar that would be a good fit for a series of concerts that David had planned in 2002, so Dick Boak from Martin suggested a couple of DC-28Es, which at that time were in the prototype stage. David purchased these in 2001 and equipped one of them with a Seymour Duncan pickup and Sony Electret microphone. The second guitar was also carried on tour, but only as a backup.

Interestingly, at the 2019 auction, the backup guitar (Serial number 776189) sold for $137,500, while the guitar that David actually played at those concerts sold for $68,750. But, given that this was a charity auction, perhaps people were not too concerned about the historical significance (or insignificance) of these guitars.

David used this guitar extensively during the On an Island tour in 2006, and the Rattle That Lock tour in 2015. He acquired the guitar just before he went on tour in 2006, from a shop called Guitar Experience in Hampton Wick, Middlesex.

This has been David’s main live and studio amp since the very early days of Pink Floyd. From around 1969 to 1973 he used two AP (All Purpose) DR103 heads, played through WEM Super Starfinder 200 cabinets with 4×12” Fane Crescendo speakers. 

Around 1974 David’s guitar tech Phil Taylor purchased a couple of more DR103 heads, and he continued using these all the way until the 2000s.

One of the first jobs I did in the band was to go out and buy him (Gilmour) some new Hiwatt amplifiers. I went down to Hi-Watt in Kingston (in 1974) and saw Dave Reeves and bought two 100 watt heads which are still in Dave’s rack today. He had WEM 4×12 cabinets with Fane Crescendo speakers in, identical to the ones he uses now…

Pink Floyd backline tech Phil Taylor, Guitarist Magazine, January 1995

From around the late/the early 90s, the Hiwatts were modified so the preamp stage could be bypassed. From that point on, David instead used an Alembic F2-B as a preamp. According to Gilmourish.com, this setup was used up until the early 2000s, when David went back to using the preamps on the Hiwatts.

David started using an Alembic F-2B preamp in the early 70s, at first as a preamp for his Yamaha RA-200 rotary speaker cabinets.

We bought a bunch of them back in the early Seventies for Roger Water’s bass system. One day we decided to use one to power Dave’s Yamaha RA-200 revolving speaker system, and discovered that the amp just generated a nice warm tone. It shouldn’t really be a surprise – it basically uses a Fender circuit.

Phil Taylor

Around the late 80s/early 90s David started using an Alembic F-2B preamp in place of the preamp stage of his Hiwatt amps. According to Gilmourish.com, this setup was used up until the early 2000s, when David went back to using the preamps on the Hiwatts.

We use an Alembic F2B, mid 70s bass guitar preamp based, I believe, around a Fender Showman circuit, which is very clean and with minimal controls: brightness, volume, middle, treble and bass.

It has been modified to reduce the bottom end and fitted with an extra valve. The way in which Dave uses his system is that he always gets a good, nice powerful clean sound ‚ a lot of his sounds are basically clean with a bit of delay ‚ and when he does his overdriven stuff, he introduces various pedals.

Phil Taylor

David started using this delay unit when he joined Pink Floyd. Syd Barret used the same unit up until that point, so it’s possible that David either inherited one of his or that he bought his own, since the goal obviously was to replicate whatever Syd was doing.

In any case, David continued using the unit for years to come and made it his own. He used the Echorec on a number of Pink Floyd’s signature songs, like “Shine on You Crazy Diamond”, “Echos”, and “Time”.

The Binson was an Italian made delay unit. It was strange because it didn’t utilize tape loops. Instead, it used a metal recording wheel. You could get some wonderful delay effects that aren’t attainable on anything that’s been made since. One of these Days evolved from some of my experiments with the Binson, as did Echoes

David Gilmour, Guitar World Magazine, February 1993

David used this pedal in the early days, usually with a Wah pedal, his Uni-Vibe, and his Binston Echorec 2 delay.

According to Gilmourish.com, he used the original germanium NKT 275 model up until 1971, when he switched to a newer silicon transistor unit, the BC108. Eventually, in 1976 he switched to using the Big Muff as his main fuzz/distortion pedal.

David used this pedal in the early 1970s. According to Gilmourish.com, the pedal was used in front of the silicon (BC108) Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face to “tame” the pedal when needed.

David started using this pedal in early 1972, According to Gilmourish.com, David used the pedal on Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, and Animals. More specifically, it can be heard on songs such as “Have a Cigar” and “Sheep”.

This pedal was used by David in the 70s. It’s hard to find any direct information from David regarding which songs he used this guitar specifically. so all the info there is on this comes from people trying to guess.

He almost certainly used it on “Breathe” and “Time” both from Pink Floyd’s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.

The Uni-Vibe pedal was developed in the mid-1960s by a Japanese audio engineer Fumio Mieda sometime in the mid-1960s, as an attempt to emulate the sound of a rotating Leslie speaker. The pedal was initially designed to work with organs, but a lot of guitar players became interested in using it, including Jimi Hendrix, and of course, David Gilmour.

David started using this pedal in 1974, and ever since then, it has been a key to his sound.

I introduced David to the Electro Harmonix Big Muff Pi in 1974. He liked it, and he has continued to use one ever since. David has tried many of the different incarnations and models over the years, but his original has often been preferred for most things

Phil Taylor, Guitar Player January 2009

He used the pedal on various studio recordings, but most notably on the solo on “Comfortably Numb”.

It think it’s just pretty much him. He is obviously using a couple of effects, like a Big Muff and a delay, but it really is just his fingers, his vibrato, his choice of notes and how he sets his effects. I find it extraordinary when people think they can copy his sound by duplicating his gear. In reality, no matter how well you duplicate the equipment, you will never be able to duplicate the personality.

Interview with Phil Taylor – Guitar World

These are the strings that David used on his electric guitar ever since the late 70s. In more recent years, GHS developed a custom signature set for David, which is also sold publically.. The set is available in the versions, the 10-48 set, which David uses on his Stratocasters, and the 10.5-50 set which he apparently uses on his Les Pauls.

He uses a customized set of GHS Boomers. The gauges are .010, .012, .016, .028, .038 and .048. For his acoustic guitars he uses Ernie Ball Earthwood light gauge strings.

Interview with Phil Taylor, Guitar World