David Gilmour

As lead guitarist for Pink Floyd since 1968, David Gilmour has participated in the group’s climb from underground psychedelic cult favorite to successful rock band to legendary superstars of rock. Known for his soaring, melodic guitar solos and use of vibrato, he’s also co-written (primarily with Roger Waters) a few of Floyd’s greatest songs, such as "Comfortably Numb" and "Wish You Were Here."

A friend of some of the original Floyd members since childhood, Gilmour was playing with a band called Jokers Wild when he received the call from Pink Floyd to replace their psychologically disintegrating leader, Syd Barrett, on guitar. The personnel change led to a gradual change in direction over the next several years, with each album showing an increasing development of what would be their classic sound.

In 1973, they released their legendary work, Dark Side of the Moon, a masterpiece that set records for longevity that probably will never be equaled. Floyd spent the rest of the decade giving concert spectacles and unhurriedly releasing their now-classic albums every two years or so: Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979). The group reached its creative peak with their magnum opus, The Wall, taking four years to release their next album, and then falling apart into legal squabbles that resulted in Gilmour wresting control of Pink Floyd from ex-bandmate Roger Waters.

Without Waters, Floyd released several more successful albums, Momentary Lapse of Reason (1987) and The Division Bell (1994), but without the massive impact of their work in their ‘70s heyday. Their most recent release was the live album Pulse in 1995, but their classic albums continue to be radio staples, and the reverberations from those four albums in the 1970s continue to ripple through the world of rock.


Click below for the full David Gilmour bio:

Excerpt from:
Pink Floyd: Early Classics
Signature Licks
by Wolf Marshall

A step-by-step breakdown of the guitar styles and techniques of Syd Barrett and David Gilmour. 13 of their best from the early years: Astronomy Domine • Eclipse • Money • Time • Breathe • Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun • Us And Them • Bike • Brain Damage • Echoes • Fat Old Sun • If • The Gnome.

Inventory #HL695566
Book/CD pack $19.95 (US).

David Gilmour, like his Pink Floyd predecessor Syd Barrett, played a Telecaster initially, but he soon became one of the first British rock guitar legends to favor the Fender Stratocaster and to create a signature sound with the instrument. His parents bought the Tele for David’s 21st birthday, and he played it for a year (including on the Saucerful of Secrets record) until it was lost by an airline. Upon officially joining Pink Floyd, Gilmour purchased a custom Stratocaster (the first of many) at a Cambridge music store. During the early Pink Floyd years, Gilmour played a Strat almost exclusively, taking full advantage of its wide tonal palette and vibrato bar in his style. He used a Lewis 24-fret electric guitar on rare occasions for its extended range, as in the solo of "Money," and continued to employ a Tele sporadically in the repertory. Gilmour strung his electric guitars with Gibson Sonomatic strings made of a customized light-top (using the standard E and B for the B and G) and heavy-bottom set gauged .010, .012, .016, .028, .038, and .050. He used a Herco heavy-gauge pick.

David Gilmour’s earliest amp setup with Pink Floyd consisted of a Selmer 50-watt head with a 4x12 speaker cabinet. By 1970, he found his signature sound with a stack made of Hiwatt 100-watt heads with WEM 4x12 cabinets. The Hiwatt/WEM combination can be heard conspicuously on Meddle and Dark Side of the Moon. In the studio, he sometimes added a Fender Twin Reverb combo amp with two 12-inch speakers to his lineup for certain parts, as on Dark Side of the Moon.

David Gilmour’s early Floyd effects consisted of a Binson Echorec tape delay (like Barrett, he used this device from his first days with the band), a Dallas-Arbiter Fuzzface fuzz box, Uni-Vibe pedal, Vox wah-wah pedal, a DeArmond volume pedal, and Leslie and Yamaha RA-200 rotating speaker cabinets. The latter were routed through the output sections of Hiwatt heads and then to WEM 4x12 cabinets. In 1972, his effects boxes were mounted in a custom cabinet, and his array of processors grew to include a second Binson Echorec and a second Fuzzface, an MXR Phase 90, a Crybaby wah-wah, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress flanger, Big Muff fuzz, an Orange treble and bass booster, and a custom-built tone pedal.

Additionally, Gilmour used studio effects like ADT (Automatic Double Tracking, a favorite studio processor first developed at Abbey Road Studios for the Beatles), Kepex for tremolo, various tape effects, studio echo chambers, and backwards guitar. He also employed an EMS Synthi Hi-Fi guitar synthesizer (heard on "Time" on Dark Side of the Moon), and usually played a lap steel or Fender twin neck pedal steel guitar for slide parts. He used various acoustic guitars on early Floyd tracks, later settling on Martin D-18 and D-35 models in the 1970s, and, depending on the song, alternated between fingerpicking and playing with a plectrum.