David Rhodes

David runs his signal through Boss Vibrato, Chorus and Octaver pedals, a T.C. Electronic distortion box, and a master volume pedal. Though he owns a Vox AC30, a Roland JC-120, a 60/100-watt MESA/Boogie, and a small Gallien Krueger, Rhodes often defers to the engineer when it comes to making amp choices: “He knows the room and the sound he wants, so I’m happy to work with whatever he plugs me into.” Preferring the sound of worn strings, Rhodes uses gauges .010 through .046 for electric and .011 through .052 for acoustic.

Since joining Peter Gabriel, David Rhodes has relied on an arsenal of guitars and effects. To begin with, there’s his trusty ’63 Fender Jazzmaster, which he describes as “a very lovely guitar. It’s very wooden, with a beautiful, mellow tone. On So, when Daniel Lanois was playing – we’d often put things down together – he’d play the Jazzmaster.”

David Rhodes: Used on all Peter Gabriel tours of the eighties and early nineties. Used during the recording of So and Up, and for those tours. Can be heard and seen on the live version of Digging In The Dirt, (Secret World Live).

“Onstage,” says Rhodes, “I’ve got a whole rack of my own – a couple of digital delays, including an old MXRDS-2, a Yamaha SPX90 multi-effects processor, and a Roland SDE-1000. I always have the MXR on a very short slap – about 17 milliseconds – just to fatten up the sound a little. I use the SPX90’s stereo delay on the verse of ‘Red Rain’; I have one side of the delay in quarter-note time, and the other side in triplet time. I use the same effect on ‘San Jacinto’, where I play one of the keyboard lines."

"I also have a Roland 31-band graphic equalizer, the SEQ 331, a T.C. Electronic 1140 parametric equalizer, and an Ibanez HD-1000 Harmonics/Delay on ‘The Family and the Fishing Net’ for doing sound effects an octave up. I have quite a long delay on it – about 310 milliseconds – with a lot of feedback.”

"I also have a Roland 31-band graphic equalizer, the SEQ 331, a T.C. Electronic 1140 parametric equalizer, and an Ibanez HD-1000 Harmonics/Delay on ‘The Family and the Fishing Net’ for doing sound effects an octave up. I have quite a long delay on it – about 310 milliseconds – with a lot of feedback.”

Rhodes’ main guitars are three Steinbergers: a 12-string, a model with a TransTerm transposing tremolo, and a very early prototype. He also owns a ’62 Fender Jazzmaster (“an old friend”), and a ’66 Gibson 355 fitted with an early-model Sustaniac, a feedback device made by Maniac Music, which mounted on the guitar’s headstock, allows the player to use a foot pedal to determine which harmonics will feed back. A Chet Atkins semi-acoustic, a ’54 Gibson Les Paul Junior, a ’62 Fender Stratocaster, a 12-string Ovation acoustic, and a K. Yairi acoustic with a violin-style headstock round out Rhodes’ collection.

David runs his signal through Boss Vibrato, Chorus and Octaver pedals, a T.C. Electronic distortion box, and a master volume pedal. Though he owns a Vox AC30, a Roland JC-120, a 60/100-watt MESA/Boogie, and a small Gallien Krueger, Rhodes often defers to the engineer when it comes to making amp choices: “He knows the room and the sound he wants, so I’m happy to work with whatever he plugs me into.” Preferring the sound of worn strings, Rhodes uses gauges .010 through .046 for electric and .011 through .052 for acoustic.

In this image from Rhodes' website, a QMX-8 can be seen on his pedalboard.

Another member of Rhodes’ Fender family is a ’62 Strat.

Among his acoustics are an Ovation Adams 12-string and a couple of Ovation 6-strings; he also has an old Fender XII electric 12-string.

Running down his pedal lineup, Rhodes kicks off with a string of Boss boxes. “I always use a CE-2 Chorus. I just like the way it wobbles the sound.” For that extra wobble, he usually couples it with a great deal of amp vibrato. For distortion, he relies on the DS-1 pedal or an SD-1 Overdrive – most notably on “Big Time,” and – live – on the choruses of “Shock the Monkey.”

Running down his pedal lineup, Rhodes kicks off with a string of Boss boxes. “I always use a CE-2 Chorus. I just like the way it wobbles the sound.” For that extra wobble, he usually couples it with a great deal of amp vibrato. For distortion, he relies on the DS-1 pedal or an SD-1 Overdrive – most notably on “Big Time,” and – live – on the choruses of “Shock the Monkey.”

Rhodes’ main guitars are three Steinbergers: a 12-string, a model with a TransTerm transposing tremolo, and a very early prototype. He also owns a ’62 Fender Jazzmaster (“an old friend”), and a ’66 Gibson 355 fitted with an early-model Sustaniac, a feedback device made by Maniac Music, which mounted on the guitar’s headstock, allows the player to use a foot pedal to determine which harmonics will feed back. A Chet Atkins semi-acoustic, a ’54 Gibson Les Paul Junior, a ’62 Fender Stratocaster, a 12-string Ovation acoustic, and a K. Yairi acoustic with a violin-style headstock round out Rhodes’ collection.

"My effects included a TC Electronic 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay, Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe and Octavia pedals, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, a Boss Vibrato, an Ernie Ball volume pedal, and an old Matchless Hot Box distortion.”

Using Native Instruments Guitar Rig 4 and a Gibson Les Paul Studio Robot to create loops of audio on-stage, Rhodes builds his songs as he goes along.

“But for my solo show I just have a laptop running Native Instruments Guitar Rig, the Guitar Rig foot controller, and a Gibson Les Paul Robot guitar with motorized tuning pegs, which let me switch tunings easily without bringing more than one guitar. On some songs I’ll also loop a chord sequence or a bass part as I’m playing and singing and then solo on top of that, which allows me to get quite a muscular sound. People are often surprised when they see one bloke making such a fearful din!”

“But for my solo show I just have a laptop running Native Instruments Guitar Rig, the Guitar Rig foot controller, and a Gibson Les Paul Robot guitar with motorized tuning pegs, which let me switch tunings easily without bringing more than one guitar. On some songs I’ll also loop a chord sequence or a bass part as I’m playing and singing and then solo on top of that, which allows me to get quite a muscular sound. People are often surprised when they see one bloke making such a fearful din!”

In this image from Rhodes' website, an RE-20 can be seen on his pedalboard.

In this image from Rhodes' website, a Metal Shaman can be seen on his pedalboard.

In this image from Rhodes' website, a 3D Shaman can be seen on his pedalboard.

In this image from Rhodes' website, a Head Master can be seen next to his pedalboard.

In this image from Rhodes' website, we can see that his amp rig from 2014 included a Knucklehead Reverb head.

The Kate Bush section of David's website indicates that he played a "Robot" version of an LP Studio while working with Kate Bush.

Running down his pedal lineup, Rhodes kicks off with a string of Boss boxes. “I always use a CE-2 Chorus. I just like the way it wobbles the sound.” For that extra wobble, he usually couples it with a great deal of amp vibrato. For distortion, he relies on the DS-1 pedal or an SD-1 Overdrive – most notably on “Big Time,” and – live – on the choruses of “Shock the Monkey.”

“Onstage,” says Rhodes, “I’ve got a whole rack of my own – a couple of digital delays, including an old MXRDS-2, a Yamaha SPX90 multi-effects processor, and a Roland SDE-1000. I always have the MXR on a very short slap – about 17 milliseconds – just to fatten up the sound a little. I use the SPX90’s stereo delay on the verse of ‘Red Rain’; I have one side of the delay in quarter-note time, and the other side in triplet time. I use the same effect on ‘San Jacinto’, where I play one of the keyboard lines."

"And I’ve got a Roland SRV-2000 digital reverb, which I use pretty constantly with a few different settings. On ‘San Jacinto’ I use a very large room effect, and on ‘Red Rain’ I use a smaller room."

David Rhodes is credited with "Guitar [EBow]" in the liner notes for the Peter Gabriel song "Wall of Breath."

"My effects included a TC Electronic 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay, Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe and Octavia pedals, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, a Boss Vibrato, an Ernie Ball volume pedal, and an old Matchless Hot Box distortion.”

"My effects included a TC Electronic 2290 Dynamic Digital Delay, Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe and Octavia pedals, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress, a Boss Vibrato, an Ernie Ball volume pedal, and an old Matchless Hot Box distortion.”