01—Electro-Harmonix
Big Muff Pi
Every Gilmour solo from Animals onward — the canonical heavy-fuzz pedal of rock guitar.
At $99, the most pedal you can buy for the money. The NYC reissue is the standard. Should be on every fuzz-curious pedalboard.
02—On the bench
Mike Matthews' four-transistor sustain-and-fuzz pedal, in production almost continuously since 1969 — the defining heavy-fuzz pedal of rock guitar. The Big Muff is a Gilmour pedal, a Dinosaur Jr pedal, a Smashing Pumpkins pedal, a White Stripes pedal, and a thousand other things; depending on the era and the variant, it's a violin-like lead boost or a buzzsaw wall of doom. Three knobs (volume, tone, sustain) and a famously scooped midrange that makes single notes sing and chords sound enormous. The current 'NYC' reissue is close to the 1970s V2 (Ram's Head) circuit — the version Gilmour used on Animals and The Wall. Different Big Muff variants (Triangle, Ram's Head, Op-Amp, Civil War, Russian) have different EQ curves and gain structures, but the basic identity is consistent: huge, scooped, sustained fuzz.
- 01scooped midrange — chords sound enormous
- 02long sustain on single notes
- 03tone knob is wide and weird (boost lows OR highs, no middle)
- 04stack with a Tube Screamer in front to add mids back
- 05every variant sounds slightly different; all are correct
03—In the room
Where else this pedal lives.
- David Gilmour
- J Mascis
- Billy Corgan
- Jack White
- Frank Zappa
JHS Smiley if you want the specific Gilmour Ram's Head version; the stock NYC Big Muff if you want the canonical one cheaply.