Originally published on dolphinmusic.co.uk Mon February 11, 2013 by Hugh Mckenna, updated 2017

Mumford And Sons Gear Guide - the most complete guide to Mumford & Sons guitars, amps & pedals on the web! (Updated for the Wilder Mind Album release)

Their star keeps on rising, having just won a Album Of The Year Grammy for 'Babel' and passing 2.5 million album sales 'Mumford And Sons' can truly be said to have made it in America. That puts them in a pretty exclusive (and eclectic) club along with the Beatles, Stones, George Michael and Phil Collins. Thanks to some stellar photography from James Marcus Haney (who went on tour with the Mumfords in Canada) we've got a bit of an insight into what happens backstage, on stage and how they get their special brand of folk/rock sounds. The pictures are rather pretty too. In May 2015 the Mumfords returned with a new chart-topping album - 'Wilder Mind' - and, more surprising, a brand new sound! It wasn't quite as shocking as Dylan going electric but... almost! So we'll look at the new gear they've been using recently, too!

Marcus Mumfords' Guitar

Marcus Mumford is known to be a fan of Martin acoustic guitars and has used a variety of models over the years. These days he's mostly favouring the Martin D28, a classic (and industry standard) that has been used by other famous strummers such as Bob Dylan and John Lennon - to name a few. That bold, stadium filling sound could only really come from a steel string dreadnought, so if the D28 is a little out of your price range why not try the Martin DX1-AE electro acoustic instead? Another guitar used by Marcus was a beautiful vintage Gibson ES-125 archtop guitar, which has a P90 pickup. He also uses a G7th capo.     As far back as 2011 Marcus could occasionally be seen playing a Gibson ES-335 Semi-Acoustic guitar, as at the Bonnaroo music festival: In 2015, however, Marcus swapped the acoustic for a Fender Jazzmaster, a favourite amongst indie and alternative rockers! He uses a sunburst Fender American Vintage '65 Jazzmaster, but you'll find it hard to get hold of one as they're now out of production. However, the Fender American Professional Jazzmaster can save you a few hundred pounds! And if you're on a budget, the Squier  Jazzmasters are very affordable and built to an extremely high standard. Another addition to his repertoire is a vintage, 50's-Style Fender Telecaster in White Blonde finish. He got one because he wanted a "Bruce Springsteen vibe", and the guitar is distinctive for its modified neck pickup: His choice for guitar amp used to be a Fender Hot Rod DeVille (specifically, the Hot Rod DeVille 410) but now looks like two Fender '65 Super Reverb 4x10, as well as a smaller Fender Princeton Reverb. For smaller performances (ie. TV shows) we could spot Fender amps with just 1x 12" speaker - maybe a couple of Fender Deluxe Reverb amps.

Ben Lovett's Keyboard

Another constant in the Mumford setup is Ben using Nord keys, specifically the Stage 2. This is Nord's flagship performance keyboard with piano, organ and synth sounds. If you're just after some rousing piano tones like on Lover Of The Light then a simpler digital piano might be for you. When it comes to playing accordion Ben has used a Roland FR-7x accordion, a high end model costing around £4000. We have the Roland FR-3x, a fantastic pro level instrument with versatile features and sounds.

Winston Marshall's Banjo & Electric Guitar Rig

Winston tends to favour some pretty serious banjos and resonator guitars from Eagle and Gold Tone, high end quality often carrying a price tag to match. If you want to get some vintage sounds on stage our recommendation would be Gretsch banjos. They've been making waves recently with a range of acoustic instruments with period accurate appointments but modern build/sound quality. What could be more Mumford than a Resonator Uke or swinging Dixie Banjo. We've spied Winston setup with a pedal board, being a black and white aerial shot it's hard to make out some of the colour coded Boss pedals but there's clearly Boss Graphic EQ and TU-3 tuner pedals as well as Electro Harmonix Memory Man and Holy Grail Plus. They can get pretty raucous but it seems unlikely that the Mumfords would be packing a fuzz pedal (although there is clearly some banjo distortion on 'Lover Of The Light') but he definitely had two Boss delay pedals, either the Boss DD-3 or Boss DD-7. He also uses a few Boss LS-2 Line Selector pedals. His electric guitars include a Gibson ES-335 with Block inlays and Bigsby vibrato, a Fender Jazzmaster, Gibson Les Paul Junior and a 1979 Gibson SG. He still uses the same amps as before - two Marshall 1974x. On a recent photograph, you can see four Marshall amps on his setup, but only two with mics in front of them: The fact the other two amps and angled and un-miked seems to indicate they are used for Winston's benefit only - perhaps with the same setings of the other two, but louder. The miked amps can't bee too loud, so he uses the other two as a reference, maybe to get a more natural sound behind him rather than just relying on the monitors in front of him. It's a pretty sweet setup, that's for sure! On new song 'The Wolf', he also uses an eBow.

Ted Dwane Bass Rig

Ted is a little bit of an enigma in terms of gear, certainly he can frequently be spotted with an acoustic double bass or perhaps behind a drum kit from time to time. He's currently using a Fender Jazz Bass and an two Ampeg SVT-VR bass head amps, into one SVT-810AV and two Ampeg SVT-15E bass cabs. View a complete range of musical instruments over at PMT Online today!