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Animals Live: Gilmour's Traveling Power Station By Richard Mahon
Gilmour's primary guitar for the 1977 tour was an early 70s Fender Stratocaster (black with a black pickguard with white knobs and pickups) with a 1966 Fender Stratocaster neck (rosewood fretboard.) Gilmour used this guitar from 1974 until the 1977 tour. It underwent many changes through the years--a DiMarzio pickup was placed in the bridge position. The ground was re-wired to improve the shielding from noise. The volume and tone knobs were connected directly to the output jack to cut down on bad connections. A switch was added to combine the sounds of the bridge pickup with the neck pickup. To help the guitar stay in tune, the six screws that hold the tremolo in place were tightened so there would be no space between the screws and the plate. Four tremolo springs were used in the back for live performances (only three tremolo springs were used in the studio.)
Roger Waters played a Fender Stratocaster (black, with a maple neck) for "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" while backing guitarist Snowy White played bass. The 1977 tour for Animals also brought new technology forward as Gilmour toured with a Pete Cornish pedal board for the first time. Three Cry-Baby Sweep Pedals sat on the left side of the board as a tone control, volume pedal and wah-wah. An earlier version of an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress Flanger can be seen next to an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff. The photograph also shows an extensive line up of foot switches - each used to control pedals and combinations of pedals. Other pedals included an MXR Phase 90, Orange Treble and Bass Booster, Arbiter Fuzz Face, Noise Gate, and an MXR Digital Delay. A Binson Echorec that Gilmour had used for many years sat at the top of his amp heads. Another set of three independent output switches was used to send the signal to any of his amps or any combination. The amplifier list included Hiwatt heads and WEM speaker cabinets.
Pete Cornish created additional pedal boards for second guitarist Snowy White (who used a Gibson Gold Top Les Paul with Hi-Watt and Fender Dual Showman amplifiers) and bassist Roger Waters. Richard Mahon is a staff writer for Spare Bricks |
In this column, I'll
be examining Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour's gear
and playing techniques from a musician's point of view.
Please feel free to e-mail me with questions and ideas
for future articles at 
A second guitar, a
Fender Telecaster, was used for "Dogs." The
guitar had a humbucking pickup installed in the neck
position and the guitar was always tuned down a whole
step (D-G-C-F-A-D from the sixth to the first string.)
This guitar was also used for the 1975 Wish You Were Here
tour when the song was titled "You've Gotta Be
Crazy." Gilmour used his Electric Mistress Flanger
with the guitar on a clean setting to play the opening of
"Dogs". The opening was played on an acoustic
guitar on the Animals album.