Alan Murphy

For some reason Alan found that he could no longer get a good sound out of his trusty Mesa Boogie mk II. Paul had since moved to Fender and designed a small 18-watt amplifier called the Super Champ. Alan was bemused when asked to demonstrate this tiny amplifier, but after a couple of days, despite the lack of volume, became totally dedicated to the tone. From then on (1981/2) Alan always used Champs for recording solos. Alan owned 3 ‘Champs’ and none were modified at all, aside from changing the wiring so that the footswitch controlled the mid-boost instead of reverb (Alan didn’t use the amplifier’s reverb.)

Alan saw a cherry red Gibson 335 and could only raise sufficient funds by Jim throwing in his Eko guitar part exchange and Alan’s Telecaster plus £50. This was to become Alan’s main guitar for many years. He changed the colour from red to blond, later bitterly regretting this and changing it back to red again!

Alan Murphy used the Mesa/Boogie Studio .22 amplifier but later switched to Fender Super Champs to achieve his desired sound, as noted on his official equipment page.

Alan Murphy preferred rack effects over pedals, and the Roland SDD-320 Dimension D is prominently featured in his work with Kate Bush and Go West, as detailed on the Alan Murphy Equipment page.

This was the other main effect used on his sound

Guitar solo at 2.14 and 3.33.

Used during most of the Go West period. Video here https://youtu.be/yZOgaYwlod0

Alan was demonstrating Fenders in the early 80's and was taken with the JV Stratocaster that came from Japan.

Later on, during the Kate Bush tour Alan experimented with the idea of using a MXR delay unit between a Mesa Boogie and the Session Power amp. No other effects were used except the occasional volume pedal. The guitars he used were the Gibson 335 and a Roger Giffin strat.

Alan didn’t take to guitar synthesisers due to the note time delay and for the lack of response to the techniques guitarists use, as well as the inability to respond to double string bends. However he used a revolutionary version of the guitar synth – the ‘Stepp DG ‘ – after spending a day with Bill Aitken , although this instrument also had delay problems and couldn’t respond to damping techniques or string sustain.

In 1986 Alan was using mainly Fender Squire Stratocasters and had about 12 or 13 of these. On one of these he replaced the pick-ups with Bill Lawrence single coil humbuckers to improve the noise aspect. He also owned Fender Esprits and Elites, an Aria RS Esprit and of course his 335. On some of the Stratocasters, he had Kahler tremolo systems fitted which required some routing of the body to have them fitted.