Robin Guthrie

"Keyboards? I can't play them either. On the new LP we've been using an Emulator a bit, and a DX7. We've used Mellotron quite a bit, for example on the 'Sunburst' 12in: it belongs to the studio we use in Edinburgh, Palladium, the guy that runs it has loads of instruments. Some of those older instruments just have so much character about them."

"On the first LP we used a Roland TR808, then went on to a Linndrum for a bit. We did the 'Lullabies' 12in with that, horrible. Nasty piece of work. It just sounds like a Linn. Then we got the Drumulator, an early one, I think it's serial number 70."

In this article:

“People will say, ‘Oh, listen to that guitar tone. That must have been a 1957…’ It's like, ‘No, it wasn’t!’ I quite often just use this little baby here [picks up a Squier ’51] – $150 worth of Squier whatever-the-fuck-it-is! It’s made in Indonesia.”

-Robin Guthrie

In this 1996 Guitar Player interview, Robin Guthrie says: "I also like to feed back off the Yamaha NS-10 studio monitors as opposed to doing it off the amp."

In this interview with Guitar World, Guthrie mentions the Source Audio Ventris to be his "go-to big, swirly reverb at the moment".

In the music video for Evangeline, Robin Guthrie plays what appears to be a 1964 Gretsch Duo Jet Silver Sparkle. The way the video is shot makes it rather difficult to see clearly, but at 2:37-2:39 you can see the distinctive tremolo shape, and two staggered pick up selector switches.

Robin Guthrie has confirmed the use of the Paul Reed Smith Standard 24 during the recording process of the album "Heaven or Las Vegas," as quoted in an interview featured on the official Cocteau Twins website:

“As said before, for that whole album I mainly used the Paul Reed Smith..."

Robin Guthrie uses a Shergold Marathon 6 String Bass, as evidenced by his statement, "We've been getting some basses recently, too — I picked up a Shergold six-string bass which I haven't had much of a chance to try out, and an eight-string Ibanez bass," in the article "Coctale" from One Two Testing, November 1984.

Robin Guthrie's use of the E-Mu Emulator I is confirmed in an article from One Two Testing (November 1984), titled "Coctale." Guthrie discusses the keyboard, noting, "The Emulator we were using was MIDI'd," which suggests that the original Emulator used was the midiless Emulator I, later upgraded to include MIDI functionality.