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
11 rigs, filtered to Wah and filter.
- 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
- David GilmourPink Floyd · 1971 to 1983
The most copied board in the history of the instrument, and the one that proves ambience is a compositional choice rather than a coat of paint. Big Muff into a modulated, heavily delayed clean amp, with a compressor keeping every bent note singing.
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi
5 pedals · 3 records · 5 tracks
- Eric ClaptonCream · 1966 to 1968
The Cream-era rig is almost nothing: a Les Paul, a cranked Marshall, and a wah used as a vocal effect rather than a funk rhythm tool. That restraint is exactly why the tone still gets chased.
Vox V846 Wah
2 pedals · 2 records · 3 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
- SlashGuns N' Roses · 1987 to 1993
A Les Paul into a Marshall with almost nothing in between, which is the point. The wah is the only effect most listeners could name, and it is used as punctuation rather than as a texture.
Dunlop Cry Baby
4 pedals · 2 records · 4 tracks
- Joe SatrianiSolo · 1987 onward
Proof that a cheap orange distortion pedal is a legitimate main gain source. The DS-1 has been on the board for decades, and the smoothness people credit to expensive gear is mostly the compressor and the playing.
Boss DS-1 Distortion
4 pedals · 2 records · 5 tracks
- 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
- 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
- Omar Rodríguez-LópezThe Mars Volta · 2003 onward
A delay pedal used as a sound-design tool rather than an echo. Half-speed, reverse and looping are the point; the actual repeats are almost incidental, and most of what you hear is the pedal being abused in real time.
Line 6 DL4
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.