Adrian Belew — Rig Network

Belew adopted the Parker Fly as his primary guitar for later King Crimson material and solo work — the piezo-equipped Fly allows simultaneous acoustic-style and electric signals, and its hexaphonic output triggers Roland guitar synthesizers for MIDI control. The lightweight carbon fiber construction suits Belew's active stage presence.

Unique to this artist in the database

Primary guitar through the Bowie, Talking Heads, and early King Crimson period — a heavily modified Stratocaster with Roland GK pickup for guitar synthesis triggering. The Strat's single-coils provide the bright, defined attack that survives extreme processing.

King Crimson rhythm guitar amp — the JCM800's compressed, tight gain suits the polyrhythmic, interlocking guitar parts of the Crimson repertoire. Belew runs it with moderate gain for the aggressive rhythm parts.

The Whammy is Belew's most important effect for real-time pitch manipulation — used to create the bird calls, animal sounds, and extreme pitch bends that define his textural guitar work.

The Roland VG-8 (and later VG-99) converts guitar string signals to digital, allowing Belew to model different guitar and amp types in real-time — the core of his guitar-as-sound-design approach.

Unique to this artist in the database

Multiple delays used to create the layered, rhythmically complex textures of King Crimson — delay time set to interact with the song's metric structure.

Polyphonic octave generator for creating organ-like and keyboard-adjacent tones from the guitar signal.