What Pedals Does David Gilmour Use?
David Gilmour's pedalboard is one of the most documented and studied in rock history. The core has remained consistent since the early 1970s: a Big Muff for sustain, an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress for modulation, an Echorec or delay unit, and a compressor to glue everything together.
The Signal Chain (Classic Era)
Guitar → Cornish Pedalboard (contains all effects) → Hiwatt DR103
The "Pete Cornish" pedalboard is central to the Gilmour story. Cornish, a UK electronics engineer, has built custom pedalboards for Gilmour since the 1970s. He wires all pedals in true-bypass or buffered configurations that maintain signal integrity regardless of which pedals are engaged.
Classic Pink Floyd era chain:
Maestro Fuzz-Tone (early, pre-1971) → EHX Ram's Head Big Muff Pi → Boss CS-2 Compressor → EHX Electric Mistress → Boss CE-2 Chorus → EHX Electric Mistress (flanger mode) → Binson Echorec (delay) → Hiwatt DR103
Pedal 1: Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi
The primary drive pedal. Gilmour uses different Big Muff versions by era:
Ram's Head (1973–1977) — Wish You Were Here, Animals
Sustain: 7–8
Tone: 12 o'clock (neutral)
Volume: Unity gain with bypass
The Ram's Head Big Muff is named for the four transistors' arrangement that looks like a ram's head on the PCB. It has a slightly more defined, midrange-present character than later Muff versions.
Sovtek Big Muff (1994 PULSE era)
Sustain: 6
Tone: Slightly warmer (below 12 o'clock)
The Sovtek-era Muff is darker and warmer, suitable for slower, more sustained playing.
EHX Triangle Muff (early 1971–1972)
Earlier recordings use the original triangle-knob Big Muff. The "One of These Days" era tone comes from this version.
Pedal 2: Boss CE-2 Chorus
Gilmour uses the Boss CE-2 in two ways:
- Subtle always-on chorus — Rate 9–10 o'clock (slow), Depth 8–9 o'clock (minimal). Adds the slight swirl and dimension to sustained notes without obvious chorus wobble.
- Prominent rhythm chorus — Rate and Depth increased for the "Comfortably Numb" rhythm guitar texture.
The CE-2 is a rare Boss pedal (discontinued 1986) but widely cloned. The Boss CE-2W Waza Craft is the official reissue.
Pedal 3: Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress
The Electric Mistress is a flanger (and chorus) with several distinct functions in Gilmour's rig:
- Filter Matrix mode — engages only the comb-filter stage, creating a subtle "hollow" quality without obvious flanging. Used as a semi-permanent tone shaper.
- Full flange — Rate and Depth raised for dramatic jet-sweep effects
- Chorus mode — at slower rates, provides a different modulation texture to the CE-2
The Electric Mistress is used on "Animals," "Pigs (Three Different Ones)," and numerous other recordings.
Pedal 4: Binson Echorec (Vintage Delay)
The Binson Echorec is a magnetic drum delay unit — Italian-made, from the 1960s and 1970s. It uses a rotating magnetic drum (rather than tape) to record and play back the signal with multiple delay taps.
Why the Echorec?
The Echorec's delay character is different from tape delay — it has a slightly mechanical, warm quality, with multiple playback heads that create complex, overlapping repeats. The "Time" and "Breathe" echoes are created by the Echorec's multi-tap capability.
Gilmour's Echorec settings:
Swell (delay time) determines the rhythmic relationship to the song's tempo. He typically syncs delays to match the beat — quarter note or dotted eighth repeats.
Modern Alternatives to the Echorec
- Boss DD-2 (Gilmour's modern rig): Simple digital delay, straightforward
- Strymon Timeline: Multi-tap delay modes that can approximate Echorec character
- Chase Bliss Generation Loss: Vintage degraded delay character
Pedal 5: Boss CS-2 Compressor
Present throughout Gilmour's rig as a gentle level stabiliser — not as an obvious "country chicken-picker" compression effect. The CS-2 at mild settings (Sustain 8–9 o'clock, Level at unity) evens out the transient peaks and improves the consistency of sustained notes through the Big Muff.
The Pete Cornish Pedalboard
From the 1970s onwards, all of Gilmour's effects have been housed in custom Pete Cornish pedalboards. Cornish's contributions:
- True-bypass switching (before it was standard)
- Buffered line-driving to maintain signal quality over long cable runs
- Custom "G-2" fuzz (used in some eras as Big Muff alternative)
- Integration of rack effects into the board's switching system
Cornish boards are custom-order, exceptionally expensive, and waiting lists extend years.
Why Cornish's True-Bypass Wiring Matters as Much as Any Single Pedal
It's easy to focus entirely on the Big Muff or the Echorec when discussing this rig, but the Pete Cornish pedalboard's engineering is doing quiet, essential work throughout: true-bypass switching and buffered line-driving ensure that engaging or bypassing any one of the many pedals in the chain doesn't degrade the signal or introduce unwanted tonal coloration from the others sitting dormant in the loop. A cheaply wired board with the same pedal list would likely sound noticeably worse — thinner, noisier, less consistent — simply from cumulative signal loss across so many bypassed units in series.
This matters practically for anyone building a multi-pedal board inspired by this rig: investing in quality true-bypass switching or a well-designed effects loop system is not a luxury detail here, it's part of what makes a large pedalboard like this work without degrading the core tone.
Common Mistakes
Using a Big Muff version from the wrong era and expecting identical character. As the pedal breakdown shows, the Ram's Head, Sovtek, and Triangle versions each have genuinely different tonal characters (defined midrange, darker and warmer, or earlier-era voicing respectively) — picking the wrong version for the era you're trying to replicate produces a mismatched result.
Treating the Electric Mistress as only a dramatic flanger effect. As the pedal section explains, its subtle Filter Matrix mode is used as a near-permanent, understated tone shaper rather than an obvious swept effect — missing this application means missing a meaningful part of the rig's constant character.
Assuming any digital delay unit fully replicates the Binson Echorec's character. As the Echorec section notes, its magnetic drum mechanism produces a specific warm, slightly mechanical, multi-tap quality that differs from clean digital repeats — modern units like the Strymon Timeline approximate this reasonably well but aren't identical.
Underestimating the compressor's contribution because its effect feels subtle. As the CS-2 section states, it functions as a gentle level stabilizer rather than an obvious effect — its absence is felt in reduced consistency and sustain evenness across the whole signal chain, not as a single dramatic missing quality.
ToneStakr's Take
For players building this pedalboard on a practical budget, prioritize a quality Big Muff (a Ram's Head reissue or a well-regarded clone) and a genuinely clean amp platform over chasing an exact vintage Binson Echorec or a full custom Cornish board — the fuzz-into-clean-amp relationship is the foundational element, with the Electric Mistress, chorus, and delay layering additional character on top of an already-working core tone.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the "Comfortably Numb" lead tone?
A Ram's Head Big Muff (Sustain 7-8, Tone at 12 o'clock) into a Hiwatt DR103 run clean. The sustain and singing quality comes specifically from the Muff's fuzz character interacting with the Hiwatt's substantial clean headroom, rather than from either component alone.
What delay does Gilmour use?
A vintage Binson Echorec for the classic Pink Floyd era, with Boss DD-2 and various Digitech models appearing in later rigs. Regardless of the specific unit, the delay time is typically synced to the song's tempo rather than set to an arbitrary fixed value.
Does Gilmour use reverb pedals?
He relies on rack-mounted reverb units (Yamaha SPX90, Alesis MidiVerb) rather than floor-based reverb pedals, supplemented by the amp's natural room ambience — a meaningfully different signal path than a standalone reverb pedal at the end of a board.
What is the Big Muff Tone knob setting Gilmour typically uses?
Around 12 o'clock — a neutral setting that preserves the Big Muff's natural voice without deliberately emphasizing either the bass or treble extreme, letting the pedal's inherent character come through unshaped.
Is a Pete Cornish pedalboard necessary to replicate this rig, or can a standard pedalboard work?
A standard pedalboard with quality true-bypass switching or a well-designed effects loop system gets you most of the practical benefit — genuine Cornish boards are custom-order, extremely expensive, and have multi-year waiting lists, making them impractical for the vast majority of players regardless of budget.
Which pedal should I prioritize buying first if building this rig gradually?
The Big Muff Pi, without question — it's the single pedal doing the most recognizable tonal work in this entire setup. A quality clean amp and a Big Muff alone get you a genuinely usable approximation of the core Gilmour sound before any other pedal is added.