Syd Barrett's Guitars, Amps & Gear List

Syd bought this guitar in early 1965, allegedly agreeing to pay for it in installments. He would use this guitar as his main until late 1967 when he purchased a white Fender Telecaster with a rosewood neck.

This guitar was originally white, but in late 1966 Syd wrapped it in silver melinex plastic film and glued a few circular polished metal discs on the body. He was most likely inspired to do this by Mike Leonard, a landlord of the house where members of Pink Floyd lived in 1965.

Mike is an architect who experimented with light effects in the 60s, and he was the man orchestrating light effects during early Pink Floyd shows. He was one the first people to build color light show devices, or essentially projectors to be used to improvise light effects during the band’s live performances. Syd himself would use the mirror surface of his guitar to reflect those lights back on the audience and create ever more dazzling effects.

Syd bought this guitar sometime in 1965 and used it in the early days of Pink Floyd as his spare guitar. The most notable appearance of the guitar is perhaps during the UFO Nightclub gig in 1966.

Danelectro was actually one of the more affordable guitars back in the 60s but still managed to draw attention from popular guitarists such as Jimmy Page, Jimmy Hendrix, and obviously – Syd Barrett. The body featured a masonite top and bottom, and a frame made of poplar wood holding everything together.

The neck was also built using masonite on the models made after 1956, with rosewood being used on the fingerboard itself. The guitar featured a unique set of single-coil pickups, designed by the owner and founder of Danelectro, Nathan Daniel.

Syd traded this guitar in mid-1968 for the Fender Esquire that he used with Pink Floyd, and following his departure from the band and the eventual withdrawal from the music scene, this turned out the be the last electric guitar he would ever use professionally.

This guitar is somewhat of a mystery, considering that Julian Palacios, who wrote the book “Syd Barrett & Pink Floyd: Dark Globe” listed the guitar as a 1962 Telecaster Custom. A problem arises from the fact that Fender didn’t produce maple neck Telecasters until the late sixties, so the guitar couldn’t have been made before 1968. Going from that, it’s also safe to think that Syd got this guitar almost brand new when he exchanged it for the white Esquire.

Syd used this guitar on both of his solo albums as it was the only electric guitar he had at the time. It is likely that he sold the guitar in the late 70s when he was living alone in London, slowly spending all of his remaining cash and eventually returning to Cambridge to live with his mother.

Syd bought this guitar presumably sometime after joining the band Tea Set (soon to be renamed Pink Floyd on Syd’s incentive). He was seen playing this particular guitar in a photo taken at a Tea Set gig sometime in late 1964/early 1965, at the time when Chris Dennis was still a part of the band.

The guitar appears to be a Framus Sorella – similar to the one Paul McCartney played almost a decade earlier. The instrument was made in Germany, presumably sometime in the early to mid-60s, and it featured an archtop design and a dark red finish with black edges.

What’s especially interesting about this guitar is that is seems to have featured a custom-fitted pickup. If you look at the photo above, you’ll notice that the control knobs are kind of just hanging from behind the bridge mounted on a small piece of metal, and the wires are hanging loose on the side.

This was Syd’s first electric guitar which he bought for £25 sometime in the early 60s – probably around 1961. This guitar came about a year after Syd bought his first acoustic guitar, which was a Hofner, and about the same time he formed his first band called Geoff Mott and The Mottoes.

Since there are no photos of Syd playing this guitar, everything that follows is based on pure speculation, and on the guess that the guitar was made sometime between 1959 and 1961.

Syd’s Hofner Futurama was at that time the closest you were able to come to a Fender Stratocaster on a small budget. The guitar was made in Czechoslovakia and imported to the UK starting in 1959 and was often advertised as “the most advanced guitar on the market” – an easy claim to make considering the low amount of competitors on the UK market at the time.

This guitar first appeared sometime in late 1967, probably intended as a backup and eventual replacement for Syd’s Esquire. But by the time the guitar started seeing any usage time, Syd was already going through personal problems and was less and less present at the band’s live gigs, so this guitar never really had the time to become notable.

Syd’s Telecaster was likely made sometime in the early to mid-60s and featured a white body finish and rosewood fretboard. The guitar is essentially a more versatile version of the Esquire which was Syd’s previous guitar, as it features additional pickup in the neck position.

Although the bridge pickup is the same as on the Esquire, the wiring and the toggle switch serve a different purpose on each guitar. The switch on the Esquire modified the tone of the pickup by making it bassier in the forward position while enabling the use of the tone control knob in the middle position. With the switch in the rear position, these tone controls were bypassed entirely for a “hotter” lead tone.

Syd was seen with this guitar at the Games For May show played at Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 12th May 1967. The guitar was an early to mid-60s Stratocaster with a white finish and a rosewood fretboard.

Not much else is known about this particular guitar but if we’re to guess, it most likely belonged to the band – as Syd only picked it up that one time. David Gilmour was seen playing a very similar Stratocaster about a year later with Pink Floyd, but his guitar seems to feature a large headstock compared to the small pre-CBS one on Syd’s, so they are two completely different instruments.

Syd was seen playing this guitar with the band Those Without sometime in early 1965. At that time he was already a member of Tea Set (aka early Pink Floyd), but he was known for playing with different people and never really being a strict member of one until Pink Floyd started getting serious.

It’s not perfectly clear whether this was his first guitar when he joined Pink Floyd as he switched from playing bass, or the first one to come was the Framus Sorella mentioned below. Not that it’s particularly important really, since both guitars were used very briefly anyways.

Although the only photo of Syd playing this guitar is black and white, Syd’s Committee seems to have been finished in a dark sunburst. It is also apparent that the guitar featured two “toaster” pickups, which were fitted on models made post-1960, so that gives us somewhat of an idea of when Syd’s guitar was made (read more on this at VintageHofner.com – a really excellent source of information on Hofner guitars).