The Edge's guitar strings: the U2 delay-rich rig, sourced

David Howell Evans (born August 8, 1961, Barking, London, England, raised in Dublin since 1962), known professionally as The Edge, is the founding lead guitarist of U2, the Dublin-formed rock band whose 1980-present catalog is one of the most-commercially-successful and critically-cited rock bodies of work of the post-1980 era. From the foundational records Boy (1980), War (1983), and The Joshua Tree (1987) through the experimental electronic-rock phase of Achtung Baby (1991) and Zooropa (1993), and the modern catalog All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) onward, U2 has remained one of the most-recognized stadium-rock acts in modern music.

The Edge's defining tone is built on his canonical delay-pedal patterns (the dotted-eighth-note rhythmic delay heard on 'Where the Streets Have No Name,' 'With or Without You,' and 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'), which transform his rhythmic guitar parts into pseudo-arpeggio textures. His approach to electric guitar treats delay and ambient texture as primary compositional tools rather than added effects, an approach that's been widely cited as foundational by guitarists across alternative rock, ambient music, and post-rock genres.

His 1976 Black Gibson Explorer is the canonical instrument across U2's early catalog. Across his career he's also played a Fender Stratocaster (his canonical Achtung Baby-era guitar, with humbucker pickups installed), Rickenbacker 360/12 (his 12-string electric, heard on 'I Will Follow' and 'A Sort of Homecoming'), Gretsch Country Gentleman (his canonical Joshua Tree studio instrument on tracks like 'Where the Streets Have No Name'), and various Gibson Les Paul instruments. He's frequently identified by which guitar on which song, the band's stage shows include rapid instrument-changes between songs.

For strings, D'Addario nickel-wound, light-to-medium gauge .010-.046 territory. Standard E tuning on most U2 material; occasional Drop D and DADGAD on selected tracks.

His pedalboard is one of the most-elaborate in stadium rock. Multiple delay pedals (Korg SDD-3000, TC Electronic 2290, Electro-Harmonix Memory Man), distortion / boost pedals (Boss DS-1, Pro Co Rat, custom Korg Yamaha distortion), and a wah pedal anchor the rig. Vox AC30 tube amps drive the saturation; the AC30's chime is part of the canonical Edge tone formula.

The dotted-eighth-note delay technique transforms his rhythmic guitar parts into apparent arpeggio patterns. By playing a single note at quarter-note intervals into a delay pedal set to repeat at a dotted-eighth-note interval (3/16 of a quarter note), The Edge produces a rhythmic pattern that includes both his original notes and the delay's repeats, fillig the rhythmic space without requiring him to play more notes. The technique is mathematically clean (it works at any tempo because the delay time tracks the song's BPM) and tonally rich (the pickup-and-amp tone repeats with the delay, layering harmonic content).

The Vox AC30 tube amplifier provides the bright, slightly compressed Class-A tube tone that's the bedrock of the U2 guitar voice; the AC30's particular tonal signature (chimey high-mids, slightly compressed dynamic range, tube saturation that comes in around 9 o'clock on the volume) is part of why the canonical Edge tone is hard to replicate with other amplifiers. The combination of an iconic instrument (Explorer or Strat or Rickenbacker), light D'Addario strings, multiple chained delay pedals, and an AC30 is the recipe.

The dotted-eighth-note delay pattern is the central technique. Set a delay pedal to a delay time equal to 3/16 of your song's quarter-note duration; play single notes at quarter-note intervals. A Vox AC30 (or AC30-style amp) at moderate volume; light-to-medium D'Addario .010-.046 strings; a Boss DS-1 or Pro Co Rat for distortion. The instrument matters less than the delay-pedal-and-amp pairing for the canonical Edge texture.