Gear history
The boards behindthe records
What was actually on the floor when those records were made, why each pedal was there, and what it costs today. Assembled from interviews, rig rundowns and live photography.
- Rigs
- 23
- Records
- 58
- Tracks
- 128
- Pedals
- 55
6 rigs, filtered to Phaser and chorus, 1990s.
- Billy CorganThe Smashing Pumpkins · 1991 to 1996
The Siamese Dream guitar sound is dozens of tracks of the same Big Muff, and specifically the op-amp version rather than the transistor one. Which variant of a Muff you have changes the record you can make with it, which is a good argument for reading the model line before buying.
Electro-Harmonix Op-Amp Big Muff
3 pedals · 2 records · 6 tracks
- Tom MorelloRage Against the Machine · 1992 to 2000
A deliberately small board used in ways nobody intended. The Whammy set to two octaves up is a scratch effect and a siren rather than a pitch shifter, and the toggle-switch stutter needs no pedal at all.
DigiTech Whammy
5 pedals · 3 records · 7 tracks
- John FruscianteRed Hot Chili Peppers · 1991 to 2006
A board organised around a wah with an unusually wide sweep and a chorus with a genuinely strange voicing. The clean parts are as effected as the loud ones, which is why the quiet sections never sound thin.
Ibanez WH10 Wah
4 pedals · 3 records · 8 tracks
- Jonny GreenwoodRadiohead · 1993 to 2001
A board built for interruption rather than for tone. The ShredMaster is on for a few bars at a time and off the rest, and the Whammy is used for texture and noise rather than for playing melodies.
Marshall ShredMaster
4 pedals · 3 records · 7 tracks
- Adam JonesTool · 1993 onward
A board with one genuinely unusual box on it. The talk box routes the guitar through a tube into his mouth, so the vowel shapes come from his own vocal tract rather than from a filter circuit trying to imitate one.
Heil Sound Talk Box
4 pedals · 3 records · 7 tracks
- Trey AnastasioPhish · 1994 onward
Two Tube Screamers back to back, which sounds like a mistake and is not. Stacking two moderate gain stages gives far more sustain and far less fizz than turning one of them up, and a jam band needs notes that hold.
Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
4 pedals · 2 records · 4 tracks
This is editorial gear history, the same kind every guitar magazine and rig-rundown video publishes. No artist, band or manufacturer listed here is affiliated with Gear Avail, and nothing on these pages is an endorsement. Rigs change between tours and between takes, so each one is scoped to a documented era rather than presented as a career-long setup. Where only the sessions are documented, the record is listed without specific tracks.