David A. Stewart

Mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)".

On the same trip, in a hotel room in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Stewart began playing around with EDP’s Wasp synthesizer, accidentally stumbling upon the future, more electronic direction that he and Lennox were to pursue as Eurythmics. “I could actually get some interesting things happening,” he says. “Y’know, like, sequenced little sort of random hold patterns that sounded very exciting to us, even though it was just coming out of the plastic speaker in a crappy hotel room in Wagga Wagga. We weren’t even writing songs, I was just messing about on it.”

(...) Soon after, Lennox travelled to her native Scotland to visit her parents, leaving Stewart with time alone to further his experiments with the Wasp, pairing it with EDP’s matching proto?sequencer the Spider, and a TEAC 144 Portastudio. “I kind of voraciously learned how to use that really quickly,” he says of the latter, “and I realised it was little miracle. I had done things before, even before I met Annie actually, where I’d managed to get my hands on a Revox tape recorder, and I’d bounce things in a really crappy way, back and forth, and make a kind of montage of stuff.

“But with this Portastudio and the Wasp and the Spider sequencer, and then the [Roland TR?606] Drumatix, in one way or another I managed to manipulate the drums and the sequenced keyboard together. Then I was able to choose which sections I’d sequenced and sort of fly them over and bounce them. So I’m recording on track one with the sequencer, but then I’d sort of send it to track three or four and then I could switch it in and out when I didn’t want it. I could drop in if I wanted to change to a different chord or note or sequence. So I kinda built a track, kept bouncing back and forth. Some of them became the actual tracks on the Sweet Dreams album.”

Used for "Sweet Drums (Are Made of This)", as mentioned by Stewart in this Sound on Sound "Classic Tracks" interview about the song's production.

But it was with Stewart’s £2000 purchase of a MkI Movement Systems MCS Percussion Computer that his beats progressed to the next level. Only around 30 were ever built and the musician/producer had one of the first off the custom production line. “The guy lived in Bridgewater,” he recalls, “and we had to sleep on his floor for a couple of days while this prototype was being finished. But you could actually make drum patterns and see them for the first time on a little black and white screen like a heart monitor.”

It was one of his initial trials with the MCS that produced the distinctive beat on ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)’. “There was thing on it where if you had a tom?tom sound, you could just turn a knob and tune it all the way down to sound like a huge drum that you would bang on a ship to get the people rowing. That’s what I did on ‘Sweet Dreams’. The first downbeat, the doom, was actually a mistake, ’cause the bloody drum computer kept doing the opposite of what I was trying to do. But then I thought, Ooh that actually sounds much better than what I was trying to do. That low drum, y’know, it’s good ‘cause it’s not boomy. It’s like a thud, but it’s so low. And then with the [four on the floor] bass drum on top of it, still to this day, you put it on in any club and everybody gets up.”

On Dave's Pro Page on TC Electronics site, they mention him using the D-Two Delay.

According to Premier Guitar, Stewart uses the Engl Classic Tube 50 2x12 Combo Amplifier.

According to Premier Guitar's rig rundown, Stewart uses the MXR EVH90 Phase 90 pedal.

According to Premier Guitar's rig rundown, Stewart uses the Diaz Tremodillo Guitar Pedal.

According to Premier Guitar's rig rundown, Stewart uses Dunlop GCB95 Wah pedal.

According to Premier Guitar's rig rundown, Stewart uses the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus power supply.

David A. Stewart uses the TC Electronic MojoMojo Overdrive pedal, as shown in a user-uploaded photo.

TC Electronics mentions on their official site that Dave uses the Shaker Vibrato.

"Once you have the Flashback pedal, you have your delay pedal, you have Joe Perry’s delay pedal, you have everybody’s delay pedal. It never gets old." - Dave Stewart.

On the accompanying photo of Dave Stewart's pedalboard the Blackstone Mosfet Overdrive can be seen.

On the accompanying photo of Dave Stewart's pedalboard the TC Electronic PolyTune can be seen.

Taken from his book, Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This: A Life In Music, Dave Stewart discusses buying the Suzuki Omnichord and using it on the song, Love Is A Stranger.

As per this article, David A Stewart owned a Robin Octave guitar - he is also pictured with this guitar on the front cover of the magazine the article is sourced from. He used this guitar around the time of Be Yourself Tonight.

"A guy came up to me after a gig in America and said, 'I bet you'll like this, I've just made it,' and I've been playing it ever since. It starts an octave higher than a normal guitar, and for some of the stuff I play on it, like the riff from 'Right By Your Side', you'd be off the edge of the fretboard on a normal guitar.

According to this article, David A. Stewart owned a 1920s Martin Ukulele.

"It's about 1920, or something, needs repairing, a friend gave it to me. We just plucked one string and recorded it in time with the bass drum and then triggered it using a gate from the hi-hat so every time the hi-hat played you could hear the ukelele string — dink-dink-dink."

According to this article from 1985, David A Stewart had a Guild 12-string guitar. It appears on "Aqua", where the bass line is blended with the 12-string

"It's really beautiful. I've had it about eight years. I chose the one I wanted and Guild inlayed my name on it for me. All acoustic guitars seem to be different, even if they're all off the same production line. I've never played two that were the same."

As per this article from 1985, David A Stewart had a Bond electric guitar (likely referring to the Electraglide). He played it on "Adrian" and "Here Comes That Sinking Feeling" on Eurythmics’ Be Yourself Tonight album.

In the Muzines article "Eurythmics, Eurhonor" (August 1985), it is mentioned that David A. Stewart used the Korg PSS-50, also known as the Korg Super Section sequencer.

As per this article, David A. Stewart had used a Rockman headphone amp to obtain a rather "biting, raw sound" for his guitars - on the chorus setting and the first edge setting.

As per this article, David A. Stewart had a Roland SH-101 for writing material on the road, alongside a Sequential Circuits Six-Trak.

As per this article, David A. Stewart had a Sequential Ciruits Six-Trak for writing material on the road, alongside a Roland SH-101.