The Doctor ' s recorder The Second Doctor owned a recorder which he enjoyed playing , mostly as a source of self - amusement , but also to help him think . While his future incarnations often relied on the sonic screwdriver as their favourite tool , this Doctor preferred the recorder as an all - purpose utensil . He played it several times while on Vulcan , ( TV : " The Power of the Daleks " ) in London in 1948 , ( AUDIO : " Lost and Found " ) in a marketplace on the Panjistri homeworld to amuse Lilith , ( PROSE : " " ) while in a Scottish prison cell , ( TV : " The Highlanders " ) while visiting Atlantis , ( TV : " The Underwater Menace " ) while visiting an Earth colony , ( TV : " The Macra Terror " ) while imprisoned by the Dalek s , ( TV : " The Evil of the Daleks " ) while imprisoned in Tibet , ( TV : " The Abominable Snowmen " ) and while under Robot Yeti guard . ( TV : " The Web of Fear " ) When the Doctor ' s TARDIS landed in Australia , Jamie made the Doctor leave his recorder in the ship before they went out . ( TV : " The Enemy of the World " ) Jamie once chopped up the recorder , but it didn ' t prevent the Doctor from producing a new one from somewhere . ( PROSE : " Twin Piques " ) After escaping from the Land of Fiction , the Doctor realised he had left his recorder there , and sent himself back in to retrieve it . While there , he encountered Goth , who asked him to help the Time Lord s , and thus sent him to meet his future self . ( PROSE : " Future Imperfect " ) When the Second Doctor and the Third Doctor were transported to Omega ' s anti - matter universe , the recorder fell into the TARDIS ' force field generator , and was therefore not converted into anti - matter during the trip . When the Doctors discovered this , they offered it to Omega , and the resulting annihilation seemingly destroyed the renegade Time Lord and his world . In exchange for his sacrifice of the instrument , the Third Doctor promised his earlier self that he would buy him a " thousand " more . ( TV : " The Three Doctors " ) Although his memories of meeting his future self quickly faded , the Doctor did remember that he had lost his recorder , and went to a music shop on Amber Station to get a new one . ( PROSE : " Briefly Noted " ) He gave his recorder to Flora Millrace , claiming to have extras . ( PROSE : " The Avant Guardian " ) The recorder was useful for more than just music . On an Earth - like planet , the Doctor used his recorder to lure a robot to the TARDIS . ( PROSE : " The Sour Note " ) On Harmony , he used it to escape from his captors by playing it discordantly , having seen earlier that it caused them pain . ( PROSE : " Planet of Bones " ) In Prague , the Doctor combined his recorder with his sonic screwdriver to communicate with a Doredsor , enabling him to translate colour to binary to Solresol to musical notation and back again . ( PROSE : " The Time Eater " ) On Trodos , the Doctor used his recorder on a Dalek ' s hearing system , sending it out of control . ( COMIC : " The Trodos Ambush " ) On a swamp planet , he used it to stop giant spider s from attacking him and his companions . ( COMIC : " Master of Spiders " ) On prehistoric Earth , he used it to befriend a herd of mammoth s and get them to destroy the Trod s ' power supply . ( COMIC : " Pursued by the Trods " ) Other references . Sarah Jane Smith discovered the Doctor ' s recorder in the TARDIS ' secondary control room . ( TV : " The Masque of Mandragora " ) The newly regenerated Fifth Doctor tried playing the recorder , but realised that it was not for him . ( TV : " Castrovalva " ) The Sixth Doctor , confused by a time - slip with the affected Second Doctor , tried to remember a musical instrument important to him . He mentioned a clarinet and a flute , before recalling it was a recorder . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) The Eleventh Doctor left a recorder in his TARDIS drawing room . ( GAME : " TARDIS " ) Modifications . The Doctor often added modifications to his recorder , allowing him to put it to unusual tasks . The Doctor used his recorder as a spyglass on the " Silver Carrier " . ( TV : " The Wheel in Space " ) He repeated this trick in Tobias Vaughn ' s base . ( TV : " The Invasion " ) In Atlantis the Doctor used his recorder as a blowpipe , expelling powder into Zaroff ' s face . ( TV : " The Underwater Menace " )