How the Beatles crafted the guitar and bass tones that forever changed the sound of rock music

The Beatles
(Image credit: Michael Webb/Getty Images)

No band has had more pages written about them than the Beatles. There are books that examine every day of the band’s history, large volumes about their recordings and books devoted entirely to their gear. Yet for all that has been written about them, there is still much mystery about the finer details, such as what exact guitars and amps they used to record specific songs.

We set out to answer that last question by closely examining a select group of songs spanning the Beatles’ entire recording history. A big part of the challenge is that a great amount of conflicting info exists, even among the experts. Even the members of the Beatles, producer George Martin and engineers like Geoff Emerick have provided conflicting accounts, and sometimes those people have contradicted themselves.

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