Alex Turner

Alex Turner is pictured here playing a Gretsch 6187 Corvette before an Arctic Monkeys performance, circa 2012-2013. While this one of the only times Alex can be seen playing the guitar, it cannot be determined whether it is his guitar or not. The possibilities of it being his stem from keeping it as a back up and/or to practice with, but it could possibly be someone else’s guitar that he was testing out, again this cannot he determined. Nevertheless, the guitar fits into Turners typical guitar realm, as he owns and plays quite a few Gretsch guitars.

The Gretsch 6187 Corvette is a 16 inch fully hollow electric archtop with a DeArmond Dyansonic pickup in the bridge. It very similar to a Gibson ES-125, but a much rarer guitar. The tones that come from this Gretsch fit right in to something you could hear from Alex.

Alex Turner can be seen with his Guyatone Crossover PS-104 Auto-Wah pedal during Arctic Monkeys live performance at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn, New York City in October 2022. Pictured, you can see it sat on his pedalboard above his distortion pedal. This is the first time Turner has had a Wah style pedal on his board or being used in his music. This pedal can be heard both live and on studio recordings of songs off their 7th LP, The Car. Tracks such as “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I am” and “Jet Skis On The Moat” feature this pedal prominently and feature this new side of Arctic Monkeys guitar riffs.

The PS-104 was a pedal produced in the 1970’s by Guyatone and is considered to be quite rare. It is a Cross Over BOX Dynamic Envelope Filter style pedal with both Drive and Decay Controls with the latter controlling the periodic time of effect waves. The warm analog auto-wah effect has a distinct treble bite. The effect also varies with the performance dynamics such as a harder/stronger pluck at the strings on a guitar will give a stronger effect. The pedal can vary with how hot the guitar pickups are, also depending on if you have any other pedals before it in the effect chain.

Turner described the PS-104 and it’s sound in an interview when being asked about how he wrote and came up with the riff for “I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I am.” Alex had this to say about the sound “I think really that probably was when finding again that effects pedal in the drawer somewhere and blowing the dust off and before you know it, you’ve got that lick.”

Alex uses the Yamaha piano for "there'd better be a mirrorball" and "big ideas"

his clavinet can be seen at the top of his keyboards

Alex can be seen playing this guitar for "the hellcat spangled shalalala"

He is playing the Bösendorfer piano here

Alex uses the Korg synthesizer to play "I wanna be yours" on the 2023 tour. He also presumably used it for the recording of the car

In this performance at BBC's Maida Vale Studios in 2018, Alex Turner can be seen using a vintage Beyerdynamic M 160 Dynamic Double Ribbon Microphone at 0:05 and throughout the rest of the performance. The microphone could also be seen for the duration of the set that Arctic Monkeys played at Maida Vale, however, the performance has since been removed from BBC iPlayer. A vintage Beyerdynamic M 160 Dynamic Double Ribbon Microphone can also be seen in the photo from the performance situated at the piano that Alex Turner is using.

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

You can see the buzz stop on Alex's Jazzmaster, you can see it in almost if not every video or photo of this guitar. I think it's this one because it's the only one that i can find that was made before 2009.

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

(Minute 1:45) Here Alex is using an Orange Crush 12 amp before a show in the Humbug era.

During The Car tour, Alex Turner used the Audio-Technica AT4047/SV microphones to mic his guitar amps, as shown in the BrooklynVegan photo.

In the acoustic session of "Suck It and See," Alex Turner is seen using a Shure SM58 dynamic microphone for his vocals. This performance was recorded live at the Edge's studio in Toronto on May 21, 2011, and is documented by Arctic Monkeys France on YouTube.

This isn't a custom but rather a regular tele with a bigsby