Pedals

Boss

DS-1 Distortion

1978 · Distortion

The orange box Joe Satriani took on stage as the simplest, smallest, most reliable thing he could find.

Boss

CE-2 Chorus

1979 · Modulation

Guitarists asked for chorus in a box they could carry. Steve Stevens can’t imagine his songs without it.

Boss

DD-3 Digital Delay

1986 · Delay

Boss changed only the name, and Noel Gallagher calls it the greatest delay pedal of all time.

Boss

BD-2 Blues Driver

1995 · Overdrive

Three knobs on the box, and the other two are your guitar’s volume and your right hand.

Dallas Arbiter

Fuzz Face

1966 · Fuzz

Two transistors in a round box that smiles, and the fuzz Jimi Hendrix bought by the handful.

DigiTech

Whammy

1989 · Other

Tom Morello used it to chase hip-hop’s high wail; Jack White used it to fake a bass line.

Dunlop

Cry Baby

1967 · Wah

An amp engineer’s shortcut, built into an organ pedal for horn players. Guitarists plugged in anyway.

Electro-Harmonix

Big Muff Pi

1969 · Fuzz

Built to chase Hendrix, it missed, and made the smallest amp in the house sound like a wall.

Electro-Harmonix

Deluxe Memory Man

c. 1978 · Delay

A warm, wobbly analog echo, and the kind of box that taught the Edge the repeats could be the beat.

Electro-Harmonix

Small Clone

c. 1979 · Modulation

Its maker had gone broke years before it put the water under “Come As You Are.”

Electro-Harmonix

Holy Grail

2002 · Reverb

It’s called the Holy Grail, and on “Hey” John Frusciante probably never switched it off.

Electro-Harmonix

POG

2005 · Other

A present from Electro-Harmonix, and one guitar in a two-piece band got far too heavy.

Fulltone

OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Drive)

2004 · Overdrive

Leave it on, ride the volume knob, and whatever amp the club hands you, you get a sound.

Ibanez

Tube Screamer TS808

1979 · Overdrive

Named for a screaming tube amp, and at its best when it hardly screams at all.

Klon

Centaur

1994 · Overdrive

Bill Finnegan wanted an overdrive you couldn’t hear, and built about 8,000 by hand before he had to stop.

Line 6

DL4 Delay Modeler

1999 · Delay

Line 6 built it to copy old echoes. A bored guitarist played into the looper, and the loop became a song.

Maestro (Gibson)

FZ-1 Fuzz-Tone

1962 · Fuzz

A broken console made the sound. A scratch track nobody meant to release made it famous.

MXR

Dyna Comp

1972 or 1974 · Compressor

Built to make loud notes quieter, and Pete Townshend stepped on it to push his solos.

MXR

Phase 90

1972 or 1974 · Modulation

One knob, and the quiet swirl Eddie Van Halen stepped on when he wanted to be heard.

MXR

Distortion+

1974 · Distortion

Two knobs, no tone control, and the one gadget Randy Rhoads said he used a lot.

ProCo

RAT

1979 · Distortion

Named for a basement full of rats, born of a wrong resistor, and at its best plugged in the wrong way.

Sola Sound

Tone Bender MkII

1966 · Fuzz

A session man asked for more sustain, and three transistors later the first Zeppelin album had its thunder.

Strymon

TimeLine

2011 · Delay

Engineers tired of big companies built a delay of their own, and players filled its 200 presets with theirs.

Univox (Shin-ei)

Uni-Vibe

1968 or 1969 · Modulation

Robin Trower plugged it in at Manny’s and heard Hendrix, then made the sound his own.