Arctic Monkeys – Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino

Alex Turner uses a Fender Vintage Reissue '65 Twin Reverb 2x12-inch 85-watt Tube Guitar Amplifier at different recording sessions and live with Arctic Monkeys. Early on, Alex played this amp during the bands second tour of their “Favourite Worst Nightmare” album. Years later the Fender can be seen amplifying his keyboard during the “Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino” tour. The Twin Reverb connects a Sennheiser e906 Dynamic microphone that he also uses on his guitar amp, which is typically his Selmer Zodiac Twin 30 or later on a larger Magnatone.

The '65 Twin Reverb is a meticulous reissue of a true American classic. The iconic 85 watt, all-tube combo amp serves up definitive clean tone. The amp is also devastatingly loud at 85 watts, it speaks with authority at any volume sounding beautifully chimey, glassy, and full throated. Sonically, the Fender Twin Reverb is based on their classic 1965 Blackface circuitry, and it delivers the legendary sound.

Pictured, Alex can be seen using the Twin Reverb during a live show during Arctic Monkeys 6th studio album’s live tour. Turner has used the amp before to amplify his guitars, but on this tour he switched back to a single amp for his guitar tones, the first time since the bands first record. The Fender amps his main keyboard during the tour, about half way though at around the bands Manchester/Sheffield shows, Alex switched to a Dynacord Rex to amp his keys.

Alex Turner plays a Magnatone Custom 280 that replaced his long used Selmer Zodiac Twin 30 for live performances during Arctic Monkeys 6th tour of their “Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino” tour. Turner switched his amps on the bands UK tour of their 6th album in 2018 around the time of their Manchester and Sheffield shows. Alex uses this Magnatone for guitar, replacing his Selmer Zodiac that he has been using since the bands “Favourite Worst Nightmare” tour. Alex also uses a Dynacord Rex, this amp replaced his Fender Twin Reverb that he used to amplify his Wurlitzer 200.

Magnatone's top of the line amplifier of the late 1950's was the true stereo output amplifier called the 280. The 280 comes with two input channels each with "volume", "treble", and "bass" controls in a Baxandall tone stack arrangement. The inputs are mixed through the Stereo F.M.Vibrato. Turner’s tone during the “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino” era is vastly different compared to previous years. Alex switched back to a single amplifier, formerly his Selmer and now this Magnatone. During the “AM” tour, alex used a Magnatone 480 with his Selmer for vibrato and reverb tones. This amp is the best of both worlds for what Alex seems to get out of his amps.

Pictured during the bands show in 2018 at Austin City Limits, the Magnatone 280 can be seen behind the keyboard next to Alex’s Gretsch Reverb Unit and Roland Space Echo.

Alex Turner used this vintage Dynacord Rex during Arctic Monkey’s Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino tour, replacing his Fender Twin Reverb to amplify his Wurlitizer 200A around halfway though the TBHC tour, some point near the Sheffield/Manchester shows. The Dynacord can be seen behind bassist Nick O’Malley next to Alex’s Gretsch amplifier and his Rolland Space Echo.

This Dynacord Rex amp was built in Germany. The Rex amp, produced between 1963 and 1968, was at that time the most luxurious combo that Dynacord produced. It’s a 35-40W RMS combo with a dual EL-34 power stage and a rather unusual speaker configuration consisting of a duet of a 10” and an 8” Isophon speaker.

This amp has a powerful clean sound with ample headroom, especially when played in the Phono setting that offers more gain, mids and low end. The tremolo effect sounds great and has a quite strong amplitude and cut. Because of an unusual design in the preamp the onset of overdrive at high volume is all but subtle. As soon as there’s no headroom left a sound similar to a ‘60s fuzz appears while the total volume drops slightly. This oddity can be overcome by using a pedal for drive tones. The Rex would serve great as an effect pedal platform.

Alex Turner used this tape machine when recording the Arctic Monkeys new album Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino

Alex Turner can be seen using a Roland Space Echo RE-201 during this performance at Austin City Limits in 2018 as well as throughout their tour of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. Located under the Gretsch amplifier behind Alex. Before Turner added the Space echo into his setup, he used a Boss DM-1 Delay Machine for his delay signal and reverb from his Selmer or Magnatone amps. While likely still using reverb from those amps, he gets his delay from this Rolland. The Space Echo can first be seen used by Alex during the recording of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino in Arctic Monkey’s film titled “Warp Speed Chic” seen in his set up during recording. Jamie Cook has been using a Space Echo since their Suck It and See era, noted by producer James Ford that Cook got his delay signals from the Rolland. Jamie has been seen using it during all mentioned tours, including AM.

Alex Turner uses his Steinway Vertegrand in his Los Angeles home’s extra bedroom he converted into a home studio, dubbed “Lunar Surface.” Turner stated in various interviews that this instrument that he received from Arctic Monkeys Manager, Ian McAndrew, for his 30th birthday and was the main inspiration for the bands 6th studio album, “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino.”

A quote from an interview with Rolling Stone gives more context to Turner’s use of the Piano, “ Turner started writing the new album in 2016, up the hill in his home studio, sitting at a Steinway Vertegrand piano that his manager bought him as a birthday present. Turner, who’s long admired the stylistic shape-shiftings of John Lennon and David Bowie, wanted to do something that sounded nothing like the last Monkeys record – the platinum-certified AM, full of snaking guitar riffs and heavy grooves. Having never written on a piano before, he thought the Vertegrand might shake loose a new sound, and he was right: “The places my fingers would naturally fall on the piano” lent themselves, he says, to chords, progressions and “jazz turns” that “suggested to me this idea of a lounge-y character, which never would have occurred to me had I been playing a guitar. They reminded me of things my father used to play on the piano.” Other influences, he said, included Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson, Dion’s Born to Be With You and the jazzy score that François de Roubaix composed for Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 post-gangster classic Le Samourai.”

There are many articles about how the bands 6th album came about, “Alex Turner never took to the piano as a kid. After a couple years of lessons, all he could really play was a jazzy vamp he’d improvise, more for comic relief than anything else. He certainly never embraced the instrument the way he later did the guitar - an immediate fixation when he got his first one as a teenager. But that all changed in early 2016, when a friend gave Turner a beautiful Steinway Vertegrand for his 30th birthday. “I arrived back off holiday and it was sitting there,” he says, gesturing toward the piano. “I just love that thing and I’d come and sit at it and while away me days in here. The addition of the piano to this room was definitely a huge part of the making of this album, because that suddenly became the centre of it.”

Continued, “You can hear what he means right from the outset: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Arctic Monkeys’ sixth studio album, opens with “Star Treatment,” an elegantly seductive musical monologue you just couldn’t put across the same way with a guitar. Listen and you can picture Turner sitting there - on a Hollywood hilltop, in a shockingly small room, all things considered, at the Steinway, Mexican beer and a guilty half-pack of smokes poised nearby, as the words begin to tumble out: “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes, now look at the mess you made me make / Hitchhiking with a monogrammed suitcase, miles away from any half-useful imaginary highway.”

The Model K or "Vertegrand" is an upright piano introduced in 1903 by Steinway & Sons. It is the oldest essentially unchanged upright piano design currently in mass production. Although production was interrupted from about 1939 until its reappearance in 1982, the structural design has remained essentially the same for well over a century.

Pictured is Alex playing his Vertegrand in 2016 in his Los Angeles home. The studio has been described, “The core ideas for Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino took root in LA in the early months of 2017, as Turner began recording demos in his modest home studio - which had been drummer Matt Helders’ bedroom when the lads first moved to LA in 2012, but has transformed into a kind of creative nerve centre. On one side of the room, there’s the Steinway, a drum set, a couple of vintage organs, a few guitars. On the other, a workspace littered with cardboard cutouts and Exacto blades - the result of countless hours Turner spent designing and constructing the elaborate architectural model you see on the cover of the album. “I don’t know what happened there,” the singer admits. “I got a bit obsessed.” He’s even started crafting a model of the stage design for Arctic Monkeys’ upcoming tour.”

https://strangedaysindeed9.tumblr.com/post/173095506060/arctic-monkeys-tranquility-base-hotel-casino

(Arctic Monkeys Start Over) https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/arctic-monkeys-start-over-628863/

Used for monitoring during the vocal tracking of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, as is visible in the documentary "Warp Speed Chic" at 5:50.

This guitar makes its appearance in the first single of the new album of arctic monkeys, it is the first new guitar that Jamie uses in the age of "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino"

Jamie Cook uses a Roland Space Echo RE-201 during the recording of “Suck It and See” onward for live shows and recording of albums other albums. The Space Echo can be seen in “Warp Speed Chic,” the recording of the bands 6th album, “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino” and their 5th album, “AM.”

In an interview with James Ford about the recording of “Suck It and See,” Ford gives insight on why and how Jamie’s set up incorporates the Rolland. “Cook's guitar setup revolves around a '60s Simms Watts rig and custom‑built Rosewell Bluesman, though for the Sound City sessions, he also borrowed engineer James Brown's Audio Kitchen Big Chopper amp. For more ambient sounds, he'd plug into various toys, including a WEM Copicat or Roland Space Echo, Electro‑Harmonix Holiest Grail reverb pedal and Fulltone Deja Vibe stereo phase/chorus.” These extra “Toys” expanded Cook’s sound in various different ways not seen on Arctic Monkey’s previous albums.

Ford continues, "Cookie does either the spacey, watery, roomy sounds,” says Ford, "which were vibrato and reverb and a bit of echo. Or he does the kind of heavy, single‑note type of stuff. We used the Audio Kitchen for his heavier stuff — it had a Vox AC30 sort of vibe, but with a bit more presence and clarity. His live take would be close‑miked, and then we'd bring the amp into the room and maybe double it with a distant mic, Jimi Hendrix‑style, from the other side of the room.”

In the interview shows a picture of Jamie’s set up of the Space Echo along with a WEM Copicat. Pictured is Jamie’s set up during the “Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino” tour in 2018 & 2019. The Space Echo is seen behind Jamie, on top of his Hiwatt Stage/Studio 2x12 Combo amplifier.

(Sound on Sound, James Ford: Producing Arctic Monkeys) https://www.soundonsound.com/people/james-ford-producing-arctic-monkeys

Jamie Cook uses a vintage Selmer Futurama Bassist Major during the recording of the bands second album, “Favourite Worst Nightmare,” as seen in the “Teddy Picker” music video which shows footage of the band recording this song as well as the set up for the rest of the recording sessions. The amp can be seen at 00:22 seconds into the video, next to Jamie’s Hiwatt stack.

Around the time of Arctic Monkeys second album, the band acquired multiple vintage Selmer amplifiers. Alex started to play a Zodiac Twin 30, which became his main amp for each album following, and a Solid State 30, Jamie played through this Futurama series amp.

The amp can also be seen in the bands music video for their song “Four Out of Five” off of their 6th album titled “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino.” The amp has not been seen used live by the band, as Jamie uses his Hiwatt Studio/Stage 2x12 and his BadCat during the bands second tour.

Jamie Cook plays a Vox AC15 during the recording and live performances for “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino” in 2018 & 2019 along with his Hiwatt Studio/Stage 2x12 Combo. Previous Jamie and lead singer/lead guitarist Alex Turner had both been seen playing Vox AC30s at different points such as their first tour and Alex played one during their live performances occasionally during the “Suck It and See” era.

The AC15 Jamie plays is new for his set up, being seen during their film, “Warp Speed Chic” which is a video of the recording of their 6th album and at all live performances of that said tour.

Jamie Cook played a Vox AC30 during live performances with Arctic Monkeys at different points though out their careers. In the live performances following the release of the bands first album, “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m not,” both lead guitarist/lead singer Alex Turner and Jamie began experimenting with their amps. They are both seen using Hiwatt Studio/Stage 2x12 Combos and these Vox AC30s.

After their initial experimentations, Alex used the AC30 while Jamie seemed to stick with other amps until the band released their 6th album, “Tranquility Base Hotel And Casino,” where Jamie implemented an AC15 into the recording and live sessions.

Pictured, an early show of the band with both Jamie and Alex playing AC30s at one of their shows on their first tour. These Vox amps replaced Alex’s Orange and Jamie’s Hiwatt for this show, but they didn’t seem to stick with them as their primary sound as Alex moved toward more vintage amps such as Selmers and Magnatones and Jamie went with more clean and powerful Hiwatt style amps.

Cook can be seen playing a Farfisa VIP 345 at 7:50 of this video.

Nick O'Malley plays the Burns Nu-Sonic Bass in the Arctic Monkeys' "Four Out of Five" video, from their "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" album.

Nick O'Malley uses this bass guitar for the "Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino" Album.

O'Malley can be seen playing a Harmony H27 at 4:30 of this video.

O'Malley can be seen playing this guitar at 10:11 of "Warp Speed Chic," Arctic Monkey's short film documenting the recording of their 2018 album Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino.

This user-uploaded photo captures Tom Rowley’s pedalboard during Arctic Monkeys' tour for their sixth album, Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino (2018-2019). Notably, it includes the Wattson Super Fuzz FY-6, which was originally used by lead singer Alex Turner for both studio recordings and live performances. Turner prominently featured this pedal with his other band, The Last Shadow Puppets, on their album Everything You’ve Come To Expect. It appears that Rowley used the Wattson Super Fuzz during the tour, particularly on the track "Four Out Of Five" and other songs.

In this music video by the Arctic Monkeys you can clearly see Matt Helders playing red vox telstar drum kit at 4:20. Also you can see exactly this kit at 2:13 in the same video