The Edge

The Edge famously plays a Limited Edition 1976 Explorer. The link is an interesting article on the Edge's 1976 Explorer and how the tone of that guitar shaped the sound of U2. Worth a read, There are some really interesting points on the type of Explorers in production in '76 and also a bit from Dallas Schoo about his signal chain and how he gets his sound.

In this video, The Edge talks about buying his Gibson Explorer guitar brand new when he was in New York at age 17 (he had originally intended to buy a Les Paul). It was the first guitar he purchased with the intention of playing it as part of a band on stage in front of an audience. At first he admits to it feeling kind of strange playing it with his band mates, and that at the time nobody else was playing with Explorers, making The Edge and U2 rather unique.

He goes on to describe how a crack occurred on the back of the headstock in the mid-1980s when he threw the guitar behind him in order to help some members of the audience.

At 2:38, Edge demonstrates some of the parts of the U2 song “Beautiful Day” on the Explorer. He recalls during the recording of “Beautiful Day”, a certain lead part did not feel right on his other guitars, so he brought out and used the Gibson Explorer through his Vox amp.

From a gibson.com interview from 2010: "Gibson Explorers are still his signature instrument. The Edge prefers the Gibson Limited Edition Explorer built in 1976. He owns several, including the one he used on Boy, which is now retired from the stage."

In this photo, The Edge is playing his 1973 Fender Stratocaster in a black finish. Fender later made a The Edge Signature Stratocaster based on his original 1973 model. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he talks about that guitar:

"But I really missed the Strat, so when we got a little money together – when we got our record deal – the first chance I got I bought my black Strat, which I still have."

He continues to describe some of its distinctive features:

"It has some interesting features: the bridge is a brass bridge, not like the standard Fender bridge, and again that adds some resonance. It has a little more sustain, a little more girth to the tone. And I put a DeMarzio pickup in, which gets that tone. In addition to my Fender amp, I play to a Vox, which is a very bright amp, so it gives a little more substance."

Later in the interview, the interviewer asks, "An unusual thing about your '73 Strat is that it has a DiMarzio FS-1 pickup in the bridge position. Did you mod that out yourself?" The Edge replies:

"Yeah. With the amps I was using, the bridge pickup was just too piercing. It was too thin-sounding for me, so I did some research and found the DiMarzio FS-1, and it was just a bigger-sounding pickup. It worked great. Whenever I've gotten Strats, I've always put one of those in."

When the interviewer points out that The Edge never plays out of the bridge pickup, The Edge says:

That's true most of the time, but there are some songs, like "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and "Gloria," where I used the bridge pickup. I really got into the out-of-phase sound [where the guitar is set between the bridge and middle pickup] from The Unforgettable Fire onwards. Weirdly enough, I think "Pride (In the Name of Love)" was the first song that I really used that out-of-phase pickup position; I didn't use it on "Bad" or on the album. In rehearsal for the tour, I tried it and it was like, "Wow that's great. I love it! It's much better." So we did the tour.

I remember we did a live version of that and [Unforgettable Fire co-producer] Danny [Lanois] was in the studio listening to the guitar sounds from the show and he was like, "What the fuck, Edge? You sound so much better than the album. What did you do?" [Laughs] Then he got jealous, because the live guitar sound was better than what we got on the album. I said, "I'm sorry I didn't think of it!" But yeah, it's definitely better, this [laughs].

The full Rolling Stone interview is here.

This original guitar was donated to an auction so that the Gibson Custom Shop was able to create an exact replica of this guitar.

This vintage and stock 1966 Gibson SG Standard Cherry is used by The Edge.

A vintage and rare maple neck version is used by The Edge.

The Edge most famously uses his 1983 Goldtop on 'Until the End of the World' and 'Last Night on Earth'. It was used exclusive for recording during the 1990s (Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop). The guitar most likely uses Gibson P100 pickups.

The Edge uses this guitar on 'Angel Of Harlem' and 'Mysterious Ways'.

The Edge can be seen using the Gretsch Duo Jet guitar in this performance of Invisible on The Tonight Show from February 2014.

Not sure which model of White Falcon this is. Looks like a double cutaway, but I don't recognize the knob layout.

In this source you can see The Cage using a Gretsch 1963 Chet Atkins Walnut Country Gentleman for stage work.

The Edge used a Gibson ES-175 for One on the Zoo TV Tour.

This guitar was used in the "All Because of You" music video.

In this video of U2 performing "Ordinary Love" acoustic on 'The Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon,' The Edge can be seen playing a Taylor 818e Acoustic-Electric Guitar. This can be confirmed by a comment that Taylor Guitars made on the YouTube video Feb 24, 2014. They commented, "Here again is the performance of "Ordinary Love" with U2's Edge using a Taylor 818e #guitar. This has been making the rounds at Taylor HQ, glad to see it made available"

There is, however, a marking on the headstock that a stock 818e doesn't appear to have - perhaps something custom for Edge.

The Edge can be seen playing this guitar during "Helter Skelter", "Where The Streets Have No Name" in the Rattle And Hum film. It appears that The Edge used this guitar with regularity during the 1987 The Joshua tree tour but I have not seen him use it since.

The Edge has been seen playing this Fender Jaguar in Lake Placid Blue with a painted matching headstock and gold hardware. It is believed to be a 1962 vintage.

U2 performed on the Later...With Jools Holland show on BBC America & BBC2 on 10/21/2014. During the performance of the song "Volcano", The Edge was playing an Epiphone Casino Custom with Bigsby. You can see The Edge using it starting at 0:04, with the first upclose shot at 0:12. Throughout the rest of the video there are multiple up-close shots of the guitar.

According to this article from Epiphone.com, "the Casino was discontinued throughout the 70s and when Epiphone got back into action in the 90s, both vintage and new Casinos enjoyed a renaissance thanks to Paul Weller The Epiphone Casino, Lenny Kravitz, Noel Gallagher of Oasis, U2's the Edge, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, Brendan Benson of the Raconteurs, instrumentalist William Tyler, and of course, Dwight Yoakam who has carried the flag for the Casino for years before designing his Dwight Trash Signature model." This statement leads this moderator to believe that this is the re-issue.

Gibson writes in this article, "To some, Trini Lopez is just a name on two of Gibson’s coolest signature guitars. Dave Grohl, Noel Gallagher, The Edge and Andy Bell all love their Gibson Trini Lopez models."

The Edge played this Fender Standard Telecaster in Lake Placid Blue at a Buffalo concert in 2005 for a cover of John Lennon's song "Instant karma".

At :58s of the "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home" music video, you can see The Edge playing a Yamaha AE2000.

In this Guitar World interview, The Edge mentions the Bond Electraglide, misprinted as "Electric Light." He says, "There's a revolutionary new guitar called a Bond Electric Light, which is a very finely-crafted guitar without proper frets. Instead it has little serrations. I tried to incorporate it into my playing armory and I found that it wasn't working, until I discovered the things you can do if you really sort of abused it! I got fantastic results. Like the sort of heavy fuzz guitar at the end of 'One Tree Hill,' and the last three tracks on the middle of side two — that sound is from the Bond."

The Edge discussed this guitar in this Guitar World interview:

"GW 'Love and Peace…Or Else' is a pretty cool track. What are you doing to get that sound right before the solo? It almost sounds like you’re underwater.

THE EDGE The whole track is going through a filter, so it’s not just the guitar part. Yeah, the idea was one of rising to the surface. When it came time for the solo, though, I was careful not to be cliché. Playing a bluesy solo is loaded with clichés. I ended up using an acoustic guitar with a slide.

GW That’s an acoustic?

THE EDGE I swear to you. I tried playing it with an electric and it sounded so off-the-shelf. But miking up the acoustic really made the part stand out in a jarring way.

GW What kind of acoustic is it?

THE EDGE I believe it was an old J-200 Gibson. Very cool sound. I’m pretty proud of that."

In this exclusive Music Radar interview with Edge's guitar tech Dallas Schoo, four Rickenbacker 330 12-string models are listed as part of the touring setup (two guitars plus spares).

In this image, The Edge can be seen playing a Gibson Music Rising Les Paul limited edition electric guitar. According to an article on Gibson's website, Edge collaborated with Gibson and Guitar Center Music Foundation on this Les Paul in 2005. The guitar features a hand-painted finish "using the colors of Mardi Gras." Less than 300 of these were made, with the proceeds going to the Music Rising charity.

The original article can be found here on gibson.com.

In this video, Edge demonstrates various guitars of his, both vintage and current. At 4:03 into the video, he picks up his Line 6 Variax 700 Acoustic (with what appears to be a custom finish). He says, "What's good about this one is that you can change the tuning by just... [he goes on to demonstrate the controls of the guitar] I ended up playing The Fly on this guitar, and the guy who designed it was watching me play and was like 'Oh my god, we didn't design it for that kind of abuse!' But it works really great."

In this image, The Edge can be seen holding a Fender Classic Series Telecaster Custom electric guitar with a black pickguard and maple neck. The guitar appears to have a brown finish. Edge plays this guitar in the music video for U2's song Vertigo.

A good shot of the guitar can be seen at the 0:13 mark in this video of U2 performing Magnificent live in London at BBC Rooftop.

Visible in this photo, The Edge used this model at Woodstock 1981.