MAGICAL GEAR TOUR

The Beatles revolutionised popular music. Here are the main guitars and amps they used to do it...

- Jonny Scaramanga

When The Beatles were defining the sound of guitar music, the rules hadn’t been written. Today, bands will choose a Vox amp or Gretsch guitar because it’s the sound of The Beatles, but the Fab Four didn’t have those preconceptions. McCartney got his violin bass because he could afford it, and the band’s gigging amps were whatever was loud enough.

Because there were no rules, there was no fear of experimentation. They tried solid state amps and plugging guitars straight into the desk, both of which guitar purists now would call a recipe for ‘bad’ tone. Perhaps the lesson is that gear matters less than imagination. Maybe it’s not that this gear sounds objectively great, but that it reminds us of the great music the Beatles made with it.

The instruments and amps on this list are sure to transport you straight to Beatle nostalgia, but the young mop tops were more interested in innovation. They didn’t insist on using the ‘best’ gear, either. Some of these models were budget items, and others had sonic limitations the Beatles chose to emphasise.

Point is, you could make great music on these classics, or you could pick your own instruments to turn into classics.

Rickenbacker 325 Solid top

Lennon had been using his 1958 325 since the Beatles’ earliest days, and by 1964 it was seriously roadworn.