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 Octave and pitch.
- Jimi HendrixThe Jimi Hendrix Experience · 1966 to 1970
Close to every effect a modern board takes for granted was, in 1967, four boxes Hendrix was using in public for the first time. The fuzz, the wah, the octave and the Uni-Vibe between them define what an electric guitar is allowed to sound like.
Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face
4 pedals · 3 records · 6 tracks
- Stevie Ray VaughanDouble Trouble · 1983 to 1990
The definitive argument that an overdrive pedal is a volume control, not a distortion box. The Tube Screamer is barely breaking up on its own; it is there to hit an already loud Fender hard enough to make the amp do the work.
Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer
4 pedals · 3 records · 8 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
- 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
- Jack WhiteThe White Stripes · 2001 to 2007
A board chosen for constraint. Cheap guitar, one huge fuzz, and an octave-down pedal doing the job a bass player would otherwise do, which is how two people made records that sound like four.
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi
4 pedals · 2 records · 4 tracks
- Matt BellamyMuse · 2001 onward
The Fuzz Factory is mounted inside the guitar body, which turns an unstable, barely controllable fuzz into a playable instrument: the knobs are under his hand while he is still holding a chord.
Z.Vex Fuzz Factory
4 pedals · 3 records · 7 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.