Glenn Tipton

The Hamer Phantom GT featured a contoured body with double offset cutaways and a pick guard. The neck had 22-frets (24.75 inch scale), a rosewood fingerboard, dot inlays and was made of mahogany (changed to maple in 1985).

Other appointments were a Kahler flat-mount 2300 C locking tremolo and a single Hamer Slammer pickup. The Phantom GT had a limited production run from 1984 to 1986. Glenn's personal models feature Duncan or EMG pickups.

"Glenn has traditionally favoured Strat-shaped guitars, and the GT is sort of a combination of different models we've made for him in the past. It features a custom-wound Seymour Duncan humbucker, and we designed the double cutaways so that he has unobstructed access to every fret." - Joel Dantzig (Hamer Guitars technical director).

"For me, a guitar has to assist my role as a performer, and the Hamer GT does that." - Glenn Tipton

In this video, at 10:00, Tipton pulls out a White Fender Stratocaster and states:

"This one is one of my favorites, was one of my favorites, when I bought it, a Stratocaster. One of the first guitars I ever owned was a Strat, and I was actually playing in Newcastle, a gig in Newcastle, and someone stole it. It was an old [indesernable] about '57 or '58, I'm never very good on dates. It was a wonderful guitar and it got stolen from me, so at the time we had very little money and I was about to give up, and a friend of mine, he bought another Strat [indesernable] for me, not this one which I got for £30... And so I actually managed to buy a Telecaster and I became a two-guitar guitar player. But I love this guitar, it's a wonderful instrument, again like the Telecaster it's only got certin uses in a band like Priest but outside of that, it's versitile, it's great to write songs on, and you've heard me say it before but it is a blank canvas really, you can do anything with this guitar, and you've only gotta beef it up with a few effects, and it's got more that it's value on any Priest album. So you can do anything with this guitar that you want, and it's a guitar I'm really found of."

Glenn can be seen clearly through this video playing a Crate BV120H

At 3:24 - 3:26 he can be seen using a Gibson SG with a chrome pickguard, a non-gibson bridge, an EMG pickup in the bridge position and what seems to be a stock pickup in the neck position.

In this video, at 8:00, Tipton pulls out a Black Gibson Explorer and states:

"This is a guitar I recently bought and I love it... Again it's a really well ballenced guitar and great to play, but the reason I bought this guitar was the sound of it, it just sounds great, you plug it in, just sings. it's got alot of depth, alot of bottom-end and it's just a great tool, really good guitar, volume control's in the center which I didn't realize when I bought it, but after all I didn't know, it's a little awkward to get to. It's great, I should probably take this on the road next time I go, lovely guitar really like it."

In this video, at 1:25, Tipton breifly pulls out a Black Gibson SG with a Chrome Pickgaurd and states:

"This, is a very early guitar, again you may have seen me use it on stage, the chrome scratchplate reflects the light, and this was one of the first guitars that I ever had. It's a little battered there as you can see, but it's still usable and still sounds good."

On his website, Tipton states:

The stage gear is the second most important thing after the music itself. It has to be something that you can rely on and feel not only safeness but also comfort. Glenn tells us a bit about his equipment:

“Each tour is different and requires different units or amps in the racks depending on what songs we are playing. It’s forever changing and I’m always experimenting with new equipment and I think it always will change and evolve on stage. On the stage guitars, I use Kahler tremolo systems. The guitars are strung with Ernie Ball RPS-10 strings, which are specially reinforced for the Kahler tremolo systems. My other considerations for stage work are the pickups: They’ve got to be hot!! Most of my stage guitars are fitted with EMG 81s, which are of course active. All the EMG 81s are wired with the batteries in series so they run the pickups at 18 volts. That makes them last longer and the pickups sound hotter, with more edge and poke. This is partly for the signal-boosting active circuitry and partly to avoid worrying about the danger of picking up the local radio station midway through a solo. In later years I’ve used modified EMG’s (GTX’s) as well which are specially designed for me.”

He can be seen playing through this amp at 0:16, and 0:40. A common misconception many have is that his JCM800 was a JCM800 2203, but it isn't true. His JCM800 was a JCM800 1959 Mk II Super Lead. Notice the JCM800 amps in this video, they have 4-inputs.

For the Turbo / Fuel For Life tour in 1986, Hamer introduced a new non-production model called the GT Custom. Its black angular body loosely resembled a Gibson Explorer.

This guitar features a maple fretboard with black dot inlays, two Duncan and EMG humbucking pickups, a Kahler locking tremolo and a white stripe outlining the body shape.

"The GT is my own design and it looks a bit strange, but there's always method in madness. For me anyway, this is a great thing, because onstage, I still play some stretch stuff, so I need to get the guitar at this angle and as you can see, it just fits nicely to me”.

“So this was all tailor-made. It's got a very narrow neck which is how I like to play. But the beauty of this guitar is we can do anything onstage, you know, play with our teeth or jumping around, and then I can just find the right position to play. So it's got a certain nice line to it, but it's very functional and it also balances the guitar. If you ever tried to design guitars, they can look very good, but they can be top or bottom heavy, but with this guitar, it's really nicely balanced and it's always in a good position to play."

"Almost hidden is my almost-obligatory nu-metal tool, an Ibanez RG Series seven-string. Though I’ve already recorded with it, I’ve got to admit that I don’t use it much, it’s got that great de-tuned sound but it’s not exactly where I'm at as a guitar player, I do however feel It’s always important to experiment and keep up with new sounds and ideas that may lead to new pastures and that trigger fresh ideas."

On his website, Tipton states:

The stage gear is the second most important thing after the music itself. It has to be something that you can rely on and feel not only safeness but also comfort. Glenn tells us a bit about his equipment:

“Each tour is different and requires different units or amps in the racks depending on what songs we are playing. It’s forever changing and I’m always experimenting with new equipment and I think it always will change and evolve on stage. On the stage guitars, I use Kahler tremolo systems. The guitars are strung with Ernie Ball RPS-10 strings, which are specially reinforced for the Kahler tremolo systems. My other considerations for stage work are the pickups: They’ve got to be hot!! Most of my stage guitars are fitted with EMG 81s, which are of course active. All the EMG 81s are wired with the batteries in series so they run the pickups at 18 volts. That makes them last longer and the pickups sound hotter, with more edge and poke. This is partly for the signal-boosting active circuitry and partly to avoid worrying about the danger of picking up the local radio station midway through a solo. In later years I’ve used modified EMG’s (GTX’s) as well which are specially designed for me.”

Glenn Tipton is associated with the Rocktron mAXE Guitar Rack Preamp, as listed on his official website.

In this video at 3:30, Tipton pulls out a Cherry Sunburst Gibson Les Paul Reissue and states:

"This is a Les Paul, I used to play Les Pauls alot, I don't play them much now. It's very good for Blues, which I'll show you later on, I was a Blues player when I first started though, I don't play very much now. And this is a reissue, first, when I bought this Guitar, I got a friend to bring a half a dozen Guitars around, and uh, I tried them all, and uh, this was the best sound... So this is a Les Paul it has a great sound, great tone, I tried this as a selection of them, and uh, this really matches some of the old Sunbursts, the old Goldtops & the '57s & '59s, and this is really a complete to another sound... and it's got a use for recording if you want that sort of bitey sustain sound."

In this video, at 1:45, Tipton breifly pulls out a Black Fender Telecaster and states:

"This is a Telecaster, I use this for getting you know like -it's probably out of tune now- it's got a very nice ring to it. There's nothing like the sound of a Telecaster, and it's great for just doing chords, simple musical chords, comes across on an album as like a great contrast to like the distorted heavy, heavy guitars that we're noted for."

On his website, Tipton states:

The stage gear is the second most important thing after the music itself. It has to be something that you can rely on and feel not only safeness but also comfort. Glenn tells us a bit about his equipment:

“Each tour is different and requires different units or amps in the racks depending on what songs we are playing. It’s forever changing and I’m always experimenting with new equipment and I think it always will change and evolve on stage. On the stage guitars, I use Kahler tremolo systems. The guitars are strung with Ernie Ball RPS-10 strings, which are specially reinforced for the Kahler tremolo systems. My other considerations for stage work are the pickups: They’ve got to be hot!! Most of my stage guitars are fitted with EMG 81s, which are of course active. All the EMG 81s are wired with the batteries in series so they run the pickups at 18 volts. That makes them last longer and the pickups sound hotter, with more edge and poke. This is partly for the signal-boosting active circuitry and partly to avoid worrying about the danger of picking up the local radio station midway through a solo. In later years I’ve used modified EMG’s (GTX’s) as well which are specially designed for me.”

"I have a vast array of amps that I use and always spend a lot of time experimenting with different sounds. Each song you work on may need a different approach and I have ENGL amps and cabs, Marshall amps and cabs, Line 6 heads and combos, Mesa's, Crates and various combos including VOX AC 30's and Cornell's. They all have a use and mic'd up in the right way all can sound good as long as they provide what the track needs."

The ESP GT-600 can be seen sporadically into this video starting at 0:16 until the end. Glenn Tipton's ESP GT-600 are sold with the EMG "Vengeance" signatures included.

Oct 16, 2008

What gear did you use for the regular guitar sounds? Tipton: I used my Hamer GT Phantom— my favorite guitar—for a lot of the rhythm and lead tracks. It has EMG 81 pickups, wired at 18 volts, and an SG-type neck that’s slightly slimmer and not as round as a Stratocaster’s. I’ve got another GT Phantom with Seymour Duncan Livewire Metal LW-HMET pickups, too. I also used a guitar with a modified Hamer shape that was built by a guy named John Diggins. It has a more bassy sound. I like simple guitars, and I don’t like tone controls. The GT Phantom only has a 2-way switch, and I can get all the tones I want from that or the EQ on my rack. I also used a ’61 Fender Stratocaster on a couple of things for a cleaner sound. We plugged into a DigiTech GNX3 and a DigiTech GSP1101 preamp, but we also used other old preamps such as the Piranha, a ’76 Marshall JMP 50-watt head through a ’76 Marshall 4x12 loaded with Celestion greenbacks, a Marshall MG15DFX combo, and even little practice amps. There’s still nothing like the crisp edge of a miked-up sound. We used Shure SM57s and some ribbon mics and experimented with positioning two orthree mics at a time.

Glenn Tipton uses the Rocktron Intellifex effects processor, as listed on his official website.

Mentioned in this August 5, 2014 Guitar.com interview.

Guitar.com: When you started playing guitar, what was your favorite?

Tipton: My very first guitar was a Rickenbacker short scale neck. It was lovely to play, but it sounded awful. And so I shopped that in for a Strat. My big hero at the time was Rory Gallagher, and I got a Strat, a Dallas Rangemaster treble boost, and a Vox AC-30. And I used that for quite awhile. And then I got an SG and I used that, so I had the Strat and the SG. And I used those for a long time, until I got involved with Hamer, and had some custom guitars made by Hamer. And I still use the Gibson as well, quite a lot. The necks on my Hamer guitars are caliper measured from an SG neck. I love the neck on an SG.e did a pretty good job of it.

Glenn Tipton uses the DigiTech GSP1101 Multi-Effects Preamp & Processor, as detailed on his official website's equipment list.

Glenn Tipton uses the DBX 166A Comp/Limiter, as listed on his official website's equipment page.

Glenn Tipton uses the Engl 850/100 Tube Poweramp, as listed on his official website.

Glenn Tipton is listed as using the Engl 642 Invader Amplifier on his official website.

Glenn Tipton uses the Voodoo Lab GCX Guitar Audio Switcher, as detailed on his official website.

Glenn Tipton uses the MXR M135 Smart Gate, as listed on his official website, highlighting its role in managing noise during performances.

Glenn Tipton uses the EMG Glenn Tipton "Vengeance" Active Guitar Pickup Set in his Hamer Phantom GT model guitar, as noted by EMG Pickups.

"I’ve got a silver Roland G-707 guitar synth with an added Kahler. It makes some fantastic sounds, but playing it live was a nightmare. You had to wind in some direct guitar sound and you had to develop a technique to avoid it glitching which isn’t easy. You could say it was really innovative at the time, and we were initially criticized for using it... then everybody started playing them! I suppose we were searching for a new direction, trying to break new ground - it's the kind of thing that makes guitar life interesting though and a challenge! Nowadays, on Nostradamus I used a Godin LGXT for the synth guitar work. Things have moved on quite a bit."

"I originally bought a plastic looking translucent red six-string Legend electric to make into a lamp for the wall. But when I got back, I tried it and discovered it's got a very raw, unrefined sound, so it didn't become a lamp after all. It illustrates a certain way of thinking - if a guitar has a use and sounds good in its own way, who cares how much it costs or who made it."

You can see the 335 on the page.