Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend frequently uses the Hiwatt DR103 Custom Head for live performances, often referring to it as his favorite amplifier. This is evidenced by a user-uploaded photo on Dolphinmusic.

According to thewho.net website, Townshend used Fender Princeton Reverb amplifier.

In this photo Pete can be seen posing with his Mesa/Boogie Mark 1 1x12" combo with graphic EQ (making it likely to be a '78 model). Pete was a well known endorser of the Boogie Mark 1 amplifier during its heyday appearing in early Mesa ads in front of his Mesas.

In this picture you can see one of the Hiwatt CP103 amplifiers actually used by Pete Townshend on the road with the Who. This unit was apparently #25. These were custom made for Pete by Dave Reeves to replicate and improve upon the L100 amplifiers designed and built by Reeves for Arbiter's Sound City stores. The 4 channel preamp and simplified tone stack and control set were favored by Pete over the fully evolved DR103 Hiwatts produced for the mass market. The CP103 and L100 design is said to have more of a Fender type American voice than a stock Hiwatt. If anyone with Hiwatt experience is lucky enough to play an original in a place where they can turn it up to Pete levels without summoning the police, please let us all know if it sounds more like a Fender to you than a stock DR103.

On the Mesa Boogie pages of Whotabs.com Pete is quoted to have said "MESA/Boogie have made a very good front-end tube preamp, and I’m using four of those. It’s the best I’ve ever tried; I’ve tried literally everything on the market..." in the October 1989 issue of Guitar Player Magazine. Towards the bottom of the page a photo of Pete's 4 Studio Preamp equipped rack is shown. The who's stencil can clearly be seen on top of the rack.

In this photo taken at a gig circa 1966 Pete can be seen rocking out thru a Selmer Treble and Bass 50 with the late 60s black tolex. According to the year-by-year gear list on Whotabs Pete used these amps in early '66 on the road as an alternative to the early Marshall 100 watt stacks he was also using live.

Since 2001, the Vibro King has become Pete's go-to amp for live performances.

In this picture Pete can be seen recording through a '59 3x10 Fender Bandmaster gifted him by Joe Walsh prior to the recording of "Who's Next."

From:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/joe-walsh-pete-townshend-guitar-tone/

In a recent interview with the San Diego Reader, Walsh confirmed a famous legendary tale that he had helped Who guitarist Pete Townshend to cement the sound of his now-famous guitar tone.

“Yes. That happened. The James Gang opened for the Who when they performed ‘Tommy’ in Europe. Pete and I are in the same zip code in terms of writing music and playing guitar. He had taken me under his wing as kind of a mentor. But during ‘Tommy,’ he’d locked into a certain amp/guitar setup for touring, and he got stuck there. It was time for him to move on and I sensed that.”

Walsh allows that many rock guitarists of the time were employing the Fender Stratocaster and the Gibson Les Paul as their primary instruments for creating musical destruction. He had a setup that in his mind provided an especially harmonic secret sauce to the guitar playing sound and he shared that with Townshend.

A bright orange ’57 Gretsch Chet Akins model guitar paired with a ’59 Fender Bandmaster amp, both gifts from Walsh, gave Townshend exactly the right sonic mojo that he needed to create the next Who album, ‘Who’s Next.’

Pete used this amps head circa 1965-1968, in this photo it can be seen behind Pete.

In this photo taken at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 Pete can be seen smashing his guitar into a rented Thomas Organ manufactured, trapezoid head shell Vox Super Beatle with matching trolley and cabinet (the amp head is turned around backwards for easier access to the controls the same way the Beatles set them up during their final tour of the USA).

1964, The Who at the Railway Tavern, Pete can be seen playing a Fender Pro rehoused in a custom head cabinet through a Marshall 4x12. This brownface pro could have been any year from 1960 to 63 when it was discontinued during the change to blackface cosmetics and circuitry at Fender.

In this photo taken during the Who's performance at the Richmond Jazz and Blues festival, August 6th 1965, Pete can be seen playing through two JMI manufactured Vox AC-100 amplifiers with matching cabinets and trolleys.

In this photo from thewho.net you can see Pete playing a narrow panel 4x10 tweed covered amplifier driven by a big muff PI. The logo clearly says Peavey and NOT Fender. The logo also does not appear to say "Bassman" and as the Bassman was the only tweed 4x10 and given the era the picture was taken that means the combo pictured has to be a Peavey or Earth Sound Research tweed combo (very similar four 6L6 equipped circuits). Who.net asserts this is a Peavey, and though the photo is a bit blurry I am pretty sure the badge on the front of the amplifier says Peavey as the "Earth" logo on their tweed offerings looked a little different (I have run into both these old amplifiers in person).

Pete played Hiwatt cabs for years during the early days of The Who.

In this photo the head of this amp can be seen used in a pair of 4x12 marshall cabinets.

In a user-uploaded photo from Thewho, Pete Townshend is seen using custom Marshall 4x12 cabinets with V30 speakers, paired with a Fender Bassman head.

In this photo, Pete is using 8x12 Marshall cabinets powered by two Marshall JTM45 100 Tremolo, the main stuff were that these cabinets had an “THE WHO” shield badges .

In this photo froma Who performance in 1967 Pete can clearly be seen windmilling in front of a pair of Sound City One Hundreds (AKA L100, designed and built under contract by Dave Reeves of future Hiwatt fame, get the connection?). Starting around this time Pete started stacking his heads and spring reverb unit on a chair next to his 4x12 cabinets.

In this photo Pete can be seen playing through two Sunn 100s amplifiers driving a pair of matching 100s 2x15" cabinets.

Pete Townshend’s use of blackface Fender Showman amplifiers and Fender 2x15 cabinets on the American tour in August–September 1967.

Beginning with the 30 March 2010 Royal Albert Hall gig, Pete has used a Lazy J Model 20 amplifier and matching extension cab alongside the Fender Vibro-King amplifiers. (Vibro-Kings appear to also be on line, but shielded behind plexiglass.)

The amplifier is a copy of a tweed Fender Deluxe, and are made to order by Lazy J Projects in the UK. The amp is 18 watts, two channels, with one 12? Celestion Blue Alnico speaker.

In the video titled "The Who Rig Rundown with Pete Townshend & Jon Button" by Premier Guitar on YouTube, at the 6:46 mark, Pete Townshend's guitar technician, Simon Law, discusses the Fender Vibro-King Custom 60W 3x10 Tube Guitar Combo Amp Black, confirming its inclusion in Townshend's gear setup.

At 6:46 in the Premier Guitar YouTube video titled "The Who Rig Rundown with Pete Townshend & Jon Button," Simon Law, Pete Townshend's guitar technician, is shown presenting a Fender Bandmaster VM 2x12 amp as part of Pete Townshend's rig setup.

In the video titled "The Who Rig Rundown with Pete Townshend & Jon Button" by Premier Guitar, Pete Townshend's technician, Simon Law, is observed at the 7:35 mark displaying an Eminence GA SC-64 George Alessandro Signature 12" Guitar Speaker, indicating its use in most of Townshend's amplifiers.