Alex Turner

In an April 2016 interview with Miles Kane and Alex Turner of Last Shadow Puppets, Alex Turner talks about recording demos for their album on a Tascam 388: "It’s the establishing shot! We had been demoing on my Tascam 388 eight-track recorder, working on some stuff on that, and then we just had to convince James Ford to do it again." Original source here.

Alex Turner can be seen using a Roland Space Echo RE-201 during this performance at Austin City Limits in 2018 as well as throughout their tour of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino. Located under the Gretsch amplifier behind Alex. Before Turner added the Space echo into his setup, he used a Boss DM-1 Delay Machine for his delay signal and reverb from his Selmer or Magnatone amps. While likely still using reverb from those amps, he gets his delay from this Rolland. The Space Echo can first be seen used by Alex during the recording of Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino in Arctic Monkey’s film titled “Warp Speed Chic” seen in his set up during recording. Jamie Cook has been using a Space Echo since their Suck It and See era, noted by producer James Ford that Cook got his delay signals from the Rolland. Jamie has been seen using it during all mentioned tours, including AM.

Located behind Tom Rowley, Alex switched up his amps on the TBHC tour and went back to a single amp set up. Turner has used a two amp set up since their second album, on their last two tours he used a Selmer Zodiac Twin 30 as his main amp and a Magnatone 410 as his secondary. On this the Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino tour Alex ditched the Magnatone and a large amount of his pedalboard. Replacing his tremolo and reverb from his Magnatone, Turner added this this vintage Gretsch Valco 6144 Reverb Unit. This unit is an early 60’s model, known for its tremolo and reverb.

The reverb is lush and splashy, with a different character than the Fender tanks produced in the 60s. The tank has one control for Reverb Intensity and a small three-way rotary switch to select the range of the reverb (Normal, Bass or Treble).

Arctic Monkeys are well known for their Reverb and Tremolo tones, especially on AM. A good example of how Alex most likely uses this amp is for “Do I Wanna Know” as there’s a subtle tremolo from both guitars tracked.

Alex Turner used this tape machine when recording the Arctic Monkeys new album Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino

Alex Turner uses a Radial J48 1-channel Active 48v Direct Box during The Last Shadow Puppet’s “Everything You’ve Come To Expect” tour. Alex uses this J48 to increase the headroom of his amplifiers without compromising sound quality. With such vintage gear, specially Turner’s Acoustic 160 stack, using the J48 allows him to drive the amp while delivering the pure and natural sound of the instrument.

The Radial J48 is an active direct box that has been specifically designed to work around the limited current that is available with 48-Volt phantom power, and do so while delivering the pure and natural sound of the instrument. A unique switch-mode supply steps up the internal rails to allow an input signal of up to 10V without any noticeable distortion. The single most important development goal of the Radial J48 was increasing the headroom without compromising sound quality. To this end, every possible effort was made to deploy the limited energy resources of phantom power to the audio signal path. To begin, phantom power is converted using a super-efficient digital switch-mode power supply that steps up the internal rail voltage to an impressive 10 volts. This allows one to hit the J48 with as much as 9-Volts without choking! To further increase available horsepower, all non-essential devices such a power-hungry LEDs are turned off when the J48 is in use. A typical LED requires almost as much current as does the complete audio circuit.

Pictured is Alex Turner during a show in 2016 during The Last Shadow Puppets second albums tour. The Radical J48 Direct Box can be seen next to his Boss Tuner and Watson Fuzz.

MKII Used In this article by Sound on Sound prodcer James Ford says he and the Arctic Monkeys used the Studer A800 MKII when recording their album Suck It And See

Alex Turner utilized the Radial Engineering J48 MK2 48V Phantom Power Active Direct Box during the Humbug tour, as evidenced by the provided photograph.

Turner can be seen operating a Foster 250 in this photo taken during the recording of Arctic Monkeys' album "AM".