U2 – Songs Of Innocence

In this photo, The Edge is playing his 1973 Fender Stratocaster in a black finish. Fender later made a The Edge Signature Stratocaster based on his original 1973 model. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he talks about that guitar:

"But I really missed the Strat, so when we got a little money together – when we got our record deal – the first chance I got I bought my black Strat, which I still have."

He continues to describe some of its distinctive features:

"It has some interesting features: the bridge is a brass bridge, not like the standard Fender bridge, and again that adds some resonance. It has a little more sustain, a little more girth to the tone. And I put a DeMarzio pickup in, which gets that tone. In addition to my Fender amp, I play to a Vox, which is a very bright amp, so it gives a little more substance."

Later in the interview, the interviewer asks, "An unusual thing about your '73 Strat is that it has a DiMarzio FS-1 pickup in the bridge position. Did you mod that out yourself?" The Edge replies:

"Yeah. With the amps I was using, the bridge pickup was just too piercing. It was too thin-sounding for me, so I did some research and found the DiMarzio FS-1, and it was just a bigger-sounding pickup. It worked great. Whenever I've gotten Strats, I've always put one of those in."

When the interviewer points out that The Edge never plays out of the bridge pickup, The Edge says:

That's true most of the time, but there are some songs, like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Gloria," where I used the bridge pickup. I really got into the out-of-phase sound [where the guitar is set between the bridge and middle pickup] from The Unforgettable Fire onwards. Weirdly enough, I think "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was the first song that I really used that out-of-phase pickup position; I didn't use it on "Bad" or on the album. In rehearsal for the tour, I tried it and it was like, "Wow that's great. I love it! It's much better." So we did the tour.

I remember we did a live version of that and [Unforgettable Fire co-producer] Danny [Lanois] was in the studio listening to the guitar sounds from the show and he was like, "What the fuck, Edge? You sound so much better than the album. What did you do?" [Laughs] Then he got jealous, because the live guitar sound was better than what we got on the album. I said, "I'm sorry I didn't think of it!" But yeah, it's definitely better, this [laughs].

The full Rolling Stone interview is here.

Since Songs of Innocence, the Edge has been using 4 of these in his rack rig.

Also, in this video by Premier Guitar (https://youtu.be/qDYfXvGuaL4) that can be clearly seen in his effects rack.

Mentioned in this April/May 2007 Australian Guitar interview with The Edge's guitar tech, Dallas Schoo, on page 28 of the issue. It was used for "New York" (as stated in this January 2001 Guitar Player interview) and live for the solo on "Until the End of the World" on the Elevation Tour (as seen in AudioFile's feature "U2 - Wired for Sound"), the Vertigo Tour (as is visible in this Guitar World feature at 2:07) and the U2 360° Tour (as is visible in this still of a live performance).

Guitar Player, January 2001, "Basic Instincts"

GP: What were your main fuzzboxes?

Edge: The Ampeg, a Tube Screamer for a good general distortion without being too in-your-face, and an old Manny's Fuzz--which is really extreme. I also used this really obscure Japanese pedal called the Sobart [sic] for the heavy sections of "New York." That pedal is so extreme. You step on it and all hell breaks loose. On "When I Look at the World", I'm using an Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer for that mad distorted tone.

Australian Guitar, April/May 2007

And the Sobbat Drive Breaker with that big thumping bass distortion, where does that get used?

The Edge walked in with that. It's a Japanese device. Edge, once in a while, would want a distortion twist, you know, and he will walk in with things and I get to walk in with things. But if you walk in with things [something] and Bono hears [it, he] goes "Oh my God, roll the tape!". And that's what happened. We used that on the solo on "Until The End Of The World". It's such an offensive little box that only works on a solo at the very end - it doesn't work all through a song.

AudioFile, "U2 - Wired for Sound

[tapping the DB-1] This came outta nowhere, this Japanese distortion thing.

Sobbat Owner's List / Artists page

ご存知U2のギタリスト。色々な雑誌等で語られておりますが、例のグラミーアルバムの中の 「NEW　YORK」という曲で中間部分にDB-1を使用していただいているとのこと。強力ですね！この曲は！最近知りましたが、 ブライアン・イーノ氏よりエフェクター入手との情報が入りました。（*未確認です）