He may (or may not) be the Mayor of Simpleton, but Andy Partridge knows one thing: The Roland PG-1000 programmer that goes with his D-50 confuses the hell out of him. "I'm not a very logical person," Partridge declares, and the PG-1000 "is aggressively logical and it rather upsets me." Until he figures it out, he's happier with a "tiny little Yamaha sampler" that he used for songwriting until recently. He seems to be having more fun with a new toy, a Alesis HR-16 drum machine. Partridge records home demos on a 1982-vintage Tascam Portastudio; for that purpose he keeps a "fizzy" Session MKII amp -- "not fantastic". He was impressed with a Fender Stage Lead he played through during the Oranges and Lemons rehearsals. Oops, guitars: Until '82 he played an Ibanez Artist exclusively, but that changed when he got a Fender Telecaster Squier -- "it has a nice clangorous tone" -- that's his current electric one-and-only. On the acoustic side, Partridge has played his Martin D-35 on all XTC albums dating from English Settlement. He also has a small Yamaha acoustic for "twanging" purposes, and a "Woolworth's" bass guitar (no name on the head) with a "very unusual tuba-like tone to it." Guitar strings are D'Addario or Ernie Ball Regular Slinky. Other gear: Korg DDD-1 drum machine, Yamaha D1500 digital delay, Alesis MIDIverb, Hitachi boom box. He has PG Tips teabags but prefers coffee.

Now if you want to talk guitar, ask Dave Gregory. He was crushed that he couldn't take his entire guitar harem (over 20) with him for Oranges and Lemons, but he made do with his faves: a 1953 Gibson Les Paul gold-top; a Schecter Telecaster-style ("quite versatile"); a 1963 Stratocaster; a semi-hollow 1964 Epiphone Riviera with miniature humbuckers, heard on the "Pink Thing" solo ("It has a nice Beatley sound"); and one of the first 25 Rickenbacker 12-strings shipped to England in the wake of A Hard Day's Night. Gregory uses Ernie Ball strings "out of force of habit," but creates his own gauge set: .011-.013-.016-.024-.038-.050. He has a Roland JC-120 amp "for those rare occasions that I go out of the house," and a Japanese Fender Sidekick 30 amp for home practice. Effects include a MIDIverb and D1500. For keyboard dabbling he keeps a Roland JX3P with MSQ-100 sequencer, and "an old acoustic piano."

According to the "equipment list" found on Church Studios, owned by Epworth, one of the things listed is Alesis Midiverb.

This MusicTech interview shows off Deaton’s new studio. In one photo you can see the midiverb sitting on a space echo.

I still really love the TCs [M5000 and 2290]. You can get really amazing digital feedbacks out of those. It's so astonishing because nobody is really aware that you can get something like that out of that equipment. It goes down to even Alesis [Quadraverb II and Midiverb]. Sometimes I'm using a spring system from Tapco [4400]. It's a stereo system and it uses different types of springs so the reflections are different.