Prince & Prince – Purple Rain

According to this interview with Rogers from Tape Op magazine, when she first started working with Prince, "the first thing I was asked to do was pull the old console out of his home studio, install his new API, and fix his tape machine, which, at that time, was the Ampex MM-1200."

Plus, as per Duane Tudahl's Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio sessions 1983 and 1984 book, "Little Red Corvette" was the first song Prince recorded on the Ampex MM1200 24-track on May 20, 1982.

Prince's Ampex MM1200 was used for the Warehouse sessions in August 1983, which produced "Let's Go Crazy" and "Computer Blue".

Prince used a Roland TR-606 on the song Velvet Kitty Kat from the Purple Rain Deluxe edition.

An article released talks about what different gear Prince used during the recording of the Purple Rain album it is mentioned that he used a few 1176s and Susan Rogers during an interview said that she used a 1176 compressor on the Linn snare for the song If I Was Your Girlfriend.

The LM-1 was elite gear. Only 525 machines were ever made, and inventor Roger Linn managed to flog them by dragging around a little cardboard-box prototype to showbiz parties. Notching up pre-orders with Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Wonder, the Drum Computer became a bourgeois must-have object, and was quickly put to use in hit records from the Human League, Gary Numan, and, most notably, Prince.

An absolutely huge guitar amp with a crazy 180 watts of headroom, Prince owned three Mesa Mark IIC+ heads around the recording of Purple Rain, and the amp was seen in his touring rig up until the 1999 Tour. Apparently, one of the heads somehow ended up in a music shop in Minneapolis, where it was purchased by an unsuspecting fan who later discovered it was Prince's backup head - not bad for a cheeky second-hand purchase.

Inside the club, the stage was set as it would be for a live show — vocal microphones were Shure dynamic 57s, which were also used on Prince and Wendy Melvoin’s guitar amps.

In a interview Lisa Coleman said that Oberheim was a big part of Prince’s sound. She later saids Prince was incredibly bold in the way he would just use a preset and then brighten the fuck out of it! He would turn the filter way up so the sound would cut through the mix. I still have the OB-SX from those days. It’s one of the most simple Oberheims - there are just a few knobs on it, but that was the most quintessential keyboard from that era. There’s the organ sound from When You Were Mine or The Beautiful Ones. If you play that organ sound with a delay pedal, there you go! And the horn punches? Play [preset] C1. That’s the sound!”

In the official music video for "Manic Monday," Prince is seen adjusting his pedalboard, notably using the Boss DM-2 Delay. This pedal also makes a brief appearance in the "Purple Rain" movie when Prince is playing his Boss Flanger BF-2.

In this photo, one can see Prince with a Hohner Madcat, as well as in this video, playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", with Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SFNW5F8K9Y&fbclid=IwAR1LKwxF-t1s8z3wBT7WFhQSlGSzmdPPZs4CQsIj7kK7sFER2l8L-pPNLwE

The Guitar.com article “The story of Prince’s original Cloud Guitar, as told by the man who built it” identifies Prince’s Cloud Guitar as using a Schaller 457 bridge.

Used with Prince and the Revolution, as featured in this August 28, 2019 article from the official Bog Moog Foundation website..

We are excited to announce our most regal Memorymoog raffle of them all, featuring a coveted, fully restored vintage Memorymoog Plus synthesizer, formerly owned, played, and signed by Dr. Fink of The Revolution. The Memorymoog Plus was part of The Revolution’s touring rig on the Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day, and Parade tours.

The raffle begins on August 28, 2019 at 7am ET, and ends on September 23, 2019 at 11:59pm ET, or when all 4,500 tickets sell out, whichever comes first. Tickets are $25 each or five for $100, or 12 for $200, or 35 for $500. Please read the rules and regulations before entering.

Funding raised from the raffle will be used to expand the Foundation’s hallmark educational project, Dr. Bob’s SoundSchool, currently inspiring over 3,000 elementary school students per year through the science of sound. The raffle will also support the Foundation’s newest project, the Moogseum, an immersive, experiential facility that brings Bob Moog’s legacy and the science of sound and synthesis alive for people of all ages. The newly opened Moogseum is located in downtown Asheville, NC.

“When the Memorymoog Plus was released with MIDI capability, a sequencer, and the capability to hold 100 patches in its memory bank, I knew I had to have one in our touring rig.” commented Matt Fink, keyboardist for The Revolution. “I have so many fond memories of using this Memorymoog on tour, and of the tours themselves. I’ve loved Moog synthesizers since I bought my first Minimoog at the ages of 18 in 1976. It’s gratifying to see this Memorymoog get new life through this raffle benefiting the excellent projects of the Bob Moog Foundation.”

The featured Memorymoog Plus was built at Moog Music’s Buffalo, NY factory, and has been fully restored by lauded synthesizer technician Wes Taggart. It is in excellent technical condition. It’s physical condition is generally excellent, but the Memorymoog Plus does have flaws consistent with vintage instruments and consistent with touring, which remain to retain the unique provenance of the synthesizer.

Particular to this instrument, the wooden end caps have been painted black to blend into the rest of Dr. Fink’s stage rig during the tours, and there are three modifications in the back of the synthesizer, including an output port allowing Fink to use the Memorymoog as a trigger for an early Linn drum, which is located in the second “o” in Memorymoog, and a strip of velcro inbetween the “m” and “o” in Memorymoog, which was used to attach a small light to illuminate the control panel on stage.

The end caps of Dr. Fink’s Memorymoog Plus have been painted black to blend in with the other keyboards on stage. We have chosen not to restore them to their original wood in an effort to retain the unique provenance of this instrument.

The minor flaws on the body of Dr. Fink’s Memorymoog Plus are consistent with its age, and with its years of touring. We intentionally chose not to restore these flaws in an effort to retain the unique provenance of this instrument.

The fully restored Memorymoog Plus, serial number 3527, has an estimated value of $8,000- $10,000. Given its provenance, it is truly priceless.

The Oberheim OB-Xa was used by Dr. Fink from 1982 to 1986 during his tenure with Prince and The Revolution according to the Guitar Cloud website. Including around the Purple Rain era.

Listed by Dr. Fink in this interview as one of the keyboards used around the Purple Rain era.

Dez Dickerson used a Hondo 780 Deluxe with Prince on the 1999 tour. He also plays one in the Purple Rain film.