Phil Taylor on Gilmour's Gear

[The Piper]

Phil Taylor has handled David Gilmour's armada of guitars, amps, and other gear for 28 years. Here he details the gear used by the legendary guitarist while recording David Gilmour in Concert.

"David's main acoustic is a Taylor 712C outfitted with a Fishman piezo system and an internally-mounted Sony ECM-66 microphone," says Taylor. "The piezo's signal is split and routed directly to the board and to a Pete Cornish pedalboard feeding a '50s Fender tweed Deluxe. The custom-made Cornish pedalboard is tube-buffered, and it houses an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a Chandler Tube Driver, two custom Pete Cornish overdrives, an MXR Dyna Comp, a custom-made graphic EQ, and a Boss CE-2 chorus, compressor, and DD-2 delay -- which has been modified with a tone control that darkens the sound of the repeats.

"For 'Comfortably Numb,' David used the same guitar he used on the original recording -- an Ovation strung with all unwound strings. His nylon string guitar was made by Jose Vilaplana, his electric is a late '50s Gretsch Duo-Jet, and his lap steel is a Gibson EH 150. David uses an AER acoustic amp and a Fender Passport P.A. to monitor his acoustic sound on stage, but the Passport only amplifies the signal from a Roland SDE-3000 delay used for looping on 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond.'

"For the bonus performances on the DVD, David's acoustic was a prototype Martin D-28 with a cutaway. The electronics are the same as those in his other acoustics, except for a custom Seymour Duncan soundhole pickup run through the Cornish pedalboard for electric guitar tones. He also used a different amp for those shows -- a '58 Fender tweed Twin.