“It's interesting to note that Jim Marshall didn't know much about amplifiers,” Ritchie Blackmore says. “And yet he knew how to design something that caught on like crazy. This is a similar situation with Leo Fender, who never played a guitar.”
Blackmore knows something about the gear created by Marshall and Fender. After all, he played Marshall amps throughout his tenures with Deep Purple and Rainbow, and he’s used Fender Stratocaster guitars for nearly his entire career, including today with Blackmore’s Night.
But he never thought either man built the perfect gear.
Consider Fender. Blackmore doesn’t like the standard fretboard, preferring scalloped frets. It all goes back to a teenage experience.
“I think it’s an obvious thing to do. I’m surprised all electric guitars don't have naturally concave wood in between the frets.”
— Ritchie Blackmore
“I was playing an old classical guitar back when I was 15, and I liked the feel of the scalloped neck — the concave wood,” he says. “When I was about 19 or 20, I started sandpapering down the fretboard in between the frets, and it felt better.
“It’s three days of scalloping with tape over the frets. Then I take the tape off the frets and have it re-lacquered.
“I think it’s an obvious thing to do,” he adds. “I’m surprised all electric guitars don't have naturally concave wood in between the frets.”
And then there’s Marshall, whose amplifiers never pleased Blackmore in their stock form.
“I didn't like the sound of the regular Marshall — it was too mellow and too muted,” he says. “Jimi Hendrix always had trouble with the transformers blowing up if you pushed the amp too hard.”
So Blackmore set about fixing the problem. If Marshall didn’t know much about amplifiers, he would talk to the people who did.
“I used to go to the factory in Bletchley to speak to Ken Flegg and Ken Bran, and I'd try to get them to give me more distorted treble on the output side,” he explains. “I’d go into a soundproofed room to test the amps — which still didn't stop the women who worked in the factory from saying they couldn't work or concentrate with me playing so loud.
“They ended up building an extra output stage on the 200-watt Marshall, which took the wattage up to 280 watts. At that point, I basically had the loudest amp ever made by Marshall. They said if I told anyone, they would deny it, because they didn't want to have to make any more like that. I think I caused them a bit of grief.”
Blackmore got the amp he asked for: the loudest Marshall ever made. Flegg and Bran added an extra output stage to a Marshall Major — a 200-watt monster designed around four KT88 output tubes — raising the wattage to 280.
It was really just an old tape deck that was lying around the house. I thought it would be a waste not to use it.”
— Ritchie Blackmore
It may have been powerful, but it still wasn’t quite enough in the tone department. Blackmore wanted more bottom end without additional dirt. Where a guitarist today might use a compression pedal to add girth without distortion, Blackmore achieved the same effect by using an Akai tape deck as a preamp.
“I liked the fact that it fattened up the sound without distorting it too much. It was really just an old tape deck that was lying around the house. I thought it would be a waste not to use it.”
When asked to describe the perfect guitar tone, the typically loquacious guitarist was illustrative and to the point.
“The combination of an owl meeting a bumblebee in mid-flight.”
In other words, the perfect blend of warm midrange and biting edge. Blackmore’s classic electric tone was always heavy but not heavily distorted — the result of a simple sonic formula.
“Just a bit of overdrive. Then, I turn all the treble off, have a bit of middle, and turn the bass off.”
Blackmore, now 80, was recently honored with the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Guitar Museum. The award, announced February 23, 2026, recognizes his 60-year career as a founding member of Deep Purple and Rainbow, as well as his work with Blackmore’s Night.
