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Much of Trower's success is due to his unique sound. Many of us have slapped together various pedals, amps and so forth, trying to match it--with little success. No wonder--Trower's gear has been a carefully choosen, time-tested grab bag of components that all meld to create his own wall of sound.
Guitars The one consistency throughout the years (dating at least from 1971's Broken Barricades) has been his Fender Stratocasters. In the late 70s and early 80s, he used two 1966 Strats (both stock), one with the E string tuned down to a D. He outfitted a third Strat with Bill Lawrence humbucking pickups to cut down on noise at difficult gigs. Later on, in the 90s, he changed to custom Strats, made by Fender to his specs. In particular, he seemed to alternate between one with stock pickups and another outfitted with Lace Sensors. His decision to switch to new guitars (as opposed to his earlier use of 50s and 60s models) came about because he had 15 vintage guitars stolen in 1979, and ultimately felt that he didn't want to become dependent on one or two irreplaceable instruments. Trower's main tip for setting up a Strat is to keep the action high. He tests them by first playing without amplification--then, if the guitar sounds true, he'll plug it in. As far as strings go, in the 70s and 80s, he used a fairly top heavy Ernie Ball set (.011, .015, .016, .024, .034, .046). Remember though, he was tuning down a half step during this period (see section on tunings below). Later, for In The Line Of Fire in 1990, he used a extremely top heavy set of .012, .015, .017, .026, .036 and .046! To the best of my knowledge, he was tuning to A440 for that album, so I'm at a loss to explain how he could bend the strings with any efficiency. For the record, he claims to use a three-position toggle switch (instead of the modern five way variety) and favours the middle position for rythym. The song, Bridge Of Sighs, was played in the middle position, but for Daydream, he used the back pickup. For most of his career, Trower also disabled the "whammy bar" by placing a wood shim between the springs and the body. With the newer Fenders, he relies on their locking machine heads and now uses the whammy at times. Amps Traditonally, Trower has been a Marshall man. His setup as of 1980 was as follows: two Marshall amps--an older modified model set for a cleaner sound, and a newer pre-amp model providing distortion and sustain. In the late 80s and 90s, he switched to a dual Fender rig with Marshall 4 x 12 cabinets. At one point, he actually used three Fender Twins hooked up to three separate Marshall cabs! Effects His effects setup has also been an integral part of his sound. During his classic period, he used a hydrid pedal board consisting of a Univibe, two Electric Mistress boosters, a Mutron flanger and a couple of homemade boxes. The board itself was rigged by his guitar tech and included a pre-amp that boosted the signal and prevented noise. But, for a period starting in the late 80s, he reverted to a more basic setup simply consisting of a Jennings Cry Baby wah wah, a Tube Works booster and a plain vanilla Boss chorus pedal. By the way, Trower is notorious for not revealing the exact settings of his effects and amps. His opinion is that because most of his gear throughout the years has been modified, the settings are irrelevant. Still, even when he's used stock equipment, he hasn't let interviewers know how he sets up his rig.
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We've all at times been a bit baffled by Trower's tuning from album to album. The rule of thumb seems to be that on 'Twice Removed' and 'Bridge Of Sighs' he tuned to concert pitch (A 440), but then, from 1975's 'For Earth Below' until 'Take What You Need', he mostly tuned a semi-tone flat (A Flat tuning or A 415).
Complicating matters is that to a guitar tuned to concert, a song such as Too Rolling Stoned played on 1976's 'Robin Trower Live!' would seem to be in the key of B, but on 'Bridge Of Sighs', it's obviously in C! To throw a total monkey wrench into the works, on some songs, he even tuned his low E string a full tone flat (Jack And Jill from 'Victims Of The Fury' is an example)! Adding insult to injury, on 'Passion' and 'Take What You Need', Trower used both A 440 and A 415 for different songs! Another twist came in 1990 with the 'In The Line Of Fire' album. RT has said (on his Hot Licks video in one instance) that he tuned his entire guitar down a full step so that an A chord would actually be a G, an E chord would be a D and so forth. I don't doubt the validity of this statment, but so far, I can't duplicate this method entirely. When I tune my guitar to A 440 and play along with the album, everything make perfect sense. For example, on Sea Of Love, if you tune your low E String to a D, and tune the rest of your axe to A 440, the song plays perfectly in the key of D. On the other hand, Turn The Volume Up reproduces the open positionings correctly in A 440, but if Trower tuned a full step down, he'd still be getting the open strings, only tuned to a full D instead of E. Anyway, if anyone has tried tuning down the full step, please let me know what you concluded. IMHO, here's my lowdown on some of Trower's tunings. Again, if you tune to A 440 when he's using "A Flat" tuning, you'll be playing songs a half step flat on your fretboard (i.e.--you'll be doing a lot of songs in B Flat and E Flat)! Try tuning to A 440, and then to A 415, and checking out some of the examples.
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