Alex Turner

Alex Turner used an Acoustic Control Corporation 412GS 469 Vintage Guitar Amp 4x12 Speaker Cabinet in combination with his Acoustic 160 Brown Series Tube Amp during the Everything You’ve Come To Expect tour with his band The Last Shadow Puppets. This amp has 4 x 12 Original Eminence 50 Watt speakers. The cabinet can be seen under the Acoustic 160 and next to Turner’s Viper.

In this article featuring an interview with the Arctic Monkeys front of house engineer, Matthew Kettle, Matthew says that Alex uses an e 935 in the third paragraph (also shown in this image).

Alex Turner played an Acoustic Control Corporation 160 Tube Amp Brown Series during the Everything You’ve Come To Expect tour when playing with his second band, The Last Shadow Puppets. Turner played this early 80’s 160 along with an Acoustic cabinet too. Bass player Zach Dawes also played though acoustic amps on this tour. The amp can be seen pictured next to Miles Kane.

The Acoustic Control Corporation 160 guitar tube amplifier runs on (4) 6L6GC power tubes, (3) 12AX7 preamp tubes and (1) 12AT7 for reverb. It is switchable between 50/100 watts and can run at either 8 or 4Ω via toggle switch. It has a 5 band EQ, reverb and is a single input two channel amplifier. There is a Treble and Bass boost that are activated by pulling out the Treble and Bass knobs. It has a 3 prong power chord and goes from beautiful cleans to growling low end fuzz.

"Mic-wise, we had a shoot-out between the Neumann U67 and the Bock 251, which was another of James Brown's interventions. I'd normally use a 67 on Al, and there was the odd time we used an SM7 for a bit more of a crunchy sort of thing. But I'd say "90 percent of the vocals were through this green Bock”.

-James Ford

“I’ve been chasing down the Melody Nelson bass tone for, like, ten years now,” he says, and thinks he’s finally nailed it on Tranquility’s title track, on which he plays a tricksy line on a painstakingly sourced Burns Vista Sonic bass, close to the type played by Dave Richmond on the original Gainsbourg sessions. MOJO Magazine, 2018.

In this article from recordin Arctic Monkeys "AM" it states "Not inclined to stop there, the group also went to the trouble of making some of their guitar sounds mimic keys. Doubled guitar lines are rampant on AM, often with the use of a Hohner guitaret of all things."

In a user-uploaded photo on Twimg, Alex Turner is shown using a Vako Orchestron synthesizer.

In this photo from the official The Last Shadow Puppets' Facebook profile, you can see Alex playing this guitar. The photo was posted with the quote "Tokyo" due to the rehearsal for their gig at Shinkiba Studio Coast tonight, 27th April 2016.

In this photo in the booklet for the Last Shadow Puppets album "Everything You've Come to Expect," Turner can be seen playing a Martin D-12-20.

Alex has been using George L's patch cables throughout his career, as seen here on his AM pedalboard.

A second Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner can be seen added to his much more slimmed down pedalboard during the Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino tour.

Used for monitoring during the vocal tracking of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, as is visible in the documentary "Warp Speed Chic" at 5:50.

Alex Turner is seen playing his Epiphone Coronet pictured during this live performance on The Late Show. Turner debut this new guitar during recording and live performances for songs off of Arctic Monkeys 7th LP “The Car” and can be heard on songs such as Body Paint and Mr.Schwartz.

The Coronet features many attributes Turner seems geared toward in his guitars such as a lone bridge pickup, reminiscent of his old Fender Bronco and pickups similar to his often used Jazzmaster. The guitar was first seen being used by Turner during their live show in Brooklyn, New York City, at Kings Theatre.

The Epiphone Coronet was first introduced in 1958 and was one of their most popular and successful guitars during that era. That being said, it can be concluded that Alex’s model is a vintage model rather than a reissue, due to the headstocks being different than the modern version. Mostly all of Turners amplifiers are vintage and quite a few of his guitars and other gear are too.

Alex uses a vintage Vox Python strap in combination with his Gretsch Duo Jet, Ovation Viper and Fender Villager 12 String.

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 uses a Morley Pro Series II Wah on his pedalboard during the Humbug era. Seen only during this era, Turner used this pedal for songs such as “Dance Little Liar.” The Morley Wah can be seen pictured next to Turners Boss DM-1 Delay machine on the left of his pedalboard.

This pedal combines silky smooth volume control, wailing WAH and classic distortion tones. “High Q” Wah tone really cuts through the mix and our “Clear-Tone” buffer circuit drives long cables and prevents signal loading.

Turner can be seen holding an LP Cyclops Jingle Tambourine at 0:29 in this live performance of "Standing Next to Me" by The Last Shadow Puppets, and he plays it throughout the song.

At 1:10 of this clip, Turner can be seen playing a Kawai Monochord Upright Piano.

Alex Turner can be seen playing a vintage 1961 Fender Jazzmaster since The Age of the Understatement tour.

The headstock of this model, from 1961 onwards, displays the patent number below the "Fender Jazzmaster with synchronized floating tremolo" inscription - just like Alex's guitar, despite the tremolo still indicating "PAT. PEND.". This latter detail changes only in the 1962 model.

The guitar includes a buzz stop and initially featured a black pickguard, which was later swapped for a tortoise pickguard during The Car Tour.

Additional images can be viewed in Gordon White's Flickr album.

In their live performance of "Do I Wanna Know?" for triple j's Like A Version, Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys is seen using Beyerdynamic DT 150 headphones.

Alex Turner can be seen standing in front of his JC-120 in this photo taken by Ben Campbell while practicing before a show. The amplifier has been seen since Arctic Monkeys second tour of their Favourite Worst Nightmare tour used for both guitars and keys. More recently it was seen during the AM Tour used by Tom Rowley to amp the keyboards used during that tour.

In this image from the recent Arctic Monkeys show in Prague (Aug 2022), Alex Turner can be seen using the Earthworks Audio SR314 microphone

Alex Turner can be seen with his Mu-tron Micro V envelope filter/auto wah during Arctic Monkeys live performance at Studio Brussels in October 2022. Pictured, you can see the pedal on his pedalboard above his Coopersonic Valveslapper. This pedal can be heard live while Alex is playing tracks off the bands 7th LP, The Car, such as “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I am” and “Jet Skis On The Moat.” While not the original auto wah pedal Alex used during the tour/recording, which was the Guyatone PS-104 Crossbox, Turner switched to this pedal around the time of this live performance due to unknown reasons.

The Mu-Tron Micro V is a “advanced envelope-controlled filter device designed specifically for the musician who wants the touch-controlled wah effect” with a solid state circuit and filter range switch. The Micro V also contains a continuously-variable filter-range/sensitivity control. This pedal is more modern and offers more flexibility than the previous envelope filter pedal that Alex used, which may be why he switched, again, the reason is unknown. Though both pedals feature amazing tones and work perfectly with these new sounds Alex is using on tour/recording sessions.

In this Youtube video at 1:40, Alex Turner can be seen using Magnatone 440 amp.

In the music video for "There’d Better Be a Mirrorball" by Arctic Monkeys, Alex Turner can be seen using a vintage Melodium RM6 ribbon microphone, as well as an Altec Lansing 650. Additionally, in an episode of the "Hanging Out With Audiophiles" podcast, Arctic Monkeys' producer James Ford states: "I always do like a center kinda crotch mic, sort of above the kick pedal pointed at the snare. And often you can get a great sort of one mic sound with that, or that and a kick drum sometimes. And at the minute I’ve got these. I always get worried about saying too much about these, because then the price will go up, but these Melodium mics are f-ing brilliant. These are old French ribbons modelled on a 44 or something like that, but it’s much smaller and more compact. And really, I’ve been using them a lot. We did all the lead vocals for the Arctic Monkeys through one of those. It was actually Al Turner, who came up to me with that mic, and then kinda bought a bunch of them, they’re awesome, they’re really cool.”

In a Sound on Sound article titled "James Ford: Producing Arctic Monkeys," there is a photograph from the recording sessions of the Arctic Monkeys' album "Suck It and See," which shows Alex Turner's guitar amplifiers. Both amplifiers are mic'ed with two of the same ribbon microphones. Although the annotation mentions the microphones as SM7s, upon closer examination, it is evident that they are actually RCA BK-5B ribbon microphones.

The Shure SM57 Instrument/Vocal microphone is attached to the Selmer Zodiac Twin 30 Amplifier that lead guitarist Alex Turner uses for his performances with the Arctic Monkeys.

Alex Turner can be seen playing a Hofner 500/1 Bass during the recording sessions for Everything You’ve Come To Expect with Miles Kane for the second LP for The Last Shadow Puppets. Photographed by Zachary Michael, this is one of the only times Turner can be seen playing this bass.

Alex Turner can been seen playing this Gold Top Gibson Les Paul during the music video for Arctic Monkeys single “Body Paint” off of their 7th studio LP, The Car. While it can be assumed that he recorded the single with this guitar as well, he has played the song live with an Epiphone Coronet. He can be seen playing the song "I ain't quite where I think I am" live on this guitar, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC9kaBQFdkI

The guitar has been seen with Arctic Monkeys since their last tour of their 6th studio album, Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, as touring/recording member Tom Rowley can be seen playing the guitar live during songs such as during the solo for “Fireside” off of AM. Alex has used a Les Paul before, using Jamie’s Black Gibson often during the Suck It and See and AM tours respectively.

It can’t be assured if this is a modern rendition of the Les Paul Gold Top or if it is a vintage model. While Alex and the rest of the band often play vintage gear, they also use pedals and amplifiers that are newer.