David Gilmour — £500 · Sweet Spot Tone

• On the Boss Katana 50 MkII: use the Brown channel — the closest model to a Marshall-voiced preamp at this price. Set character to 8, gain to 5. For Gilmour's lead volume jump, use the Boost mode rather than adding a separate boost pedal.
• Use a long slapback delay (400–500ms) at low mix level
• Big Muff sustain around 7–8, tone around 5
• Vibrato is everything — practice slow, wide bends
• Play in the spaces — Gilmour's phrasing is about silence as much as notes
• Clean amp is essential — the Muff does the work, not amp distortion
• The Big Muff's sustain knob at 7-8 is usually the sweet spot with single coils — above 8 the sustain compresses the single-coil dynamics so much that the string noise and attack character disappear
• A Hiwatt into a 4×12 cabinet at correct stage volume (not bedroom level) sounds completely different from the same amp at bedroom volume — the power tubes contribute a musical hardness at stage volume that simply doesn't exist when running quiet

• ✗Placing a tuner or buffered pedal before the Big Muff — most fuzz circuits (especially germanium ones) are sensitive to the impedance of the signal feeding them. A buffered pedal before the fuzz changes how the guitar volume knob responds. Run fuzz first in the chain
• ✗Using the Big Muff into a driven amp with the sustain above 8 — at high sustain into a driven amp the signal becomes a thick, undefined wall of fuzz with no note definition. Keep the amp channel clean
• ✗Using a humbucker guitar as a substitute — the quack, string noise, and bright attack of single coils are irreplaceable. No amount of EQ on a humbucker produces the same result.
• ✗Scooping the mids on a Marshall-style amp — the upper midrange emphasis is what makes British amps cut through. Mid-scoop EQ sounds good alone but disappears in a band mix.
• ✗Using too much gain on the drive pedal — pedal-driven tone works best with the amp providing some character and the pedal adding focus and saturation, not replacing the amp entirely.

If you like David Gilmour's tone, these players use a similar approach — same gear philosophy, comparable sound characteristics.