Below is a photo gallery of some famous, and some not so famous musician's pedal boards featuring their Big Muffs. If you are in a professional band and have used a Big Muff, shoot me an email (it's the bottom of the home page ) and I'll add you to the users list. Email a pedal board photo featuring a Big Muff used in the studio or in a live show and I'll post it.

Jack White's and Dan Auerbach's Big Muff tones are perhaps the best use (in my opinion) of the unaltered, raw, crunchy Big Muff tones in all their glory, whereas David Gilmour's Pink Floyd tones best exemplify the wide range of beautiful, creamy, huge and unique sounds that can be created by combining the Muff with a clean tube amp, an overdrive, compressor, and/or modulation effects that add to and harness its tone, rather than mask it. J Mascis' live Big Muff tones are in-your-face loud, but very melodic. The Smashing Pumpkins are a great example of taking the basic late '70s vintage Big Muff tone and layering it in multiple tracks to create a massive, deep, dark, mids-scooped rhythm tone, and some incredib;e modulated Big Muff tones for solos.

The most well known and most heard Big Muff user would have to be David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, having used USA "Ram's Head" Big Muffs in the late 1970's, a Sovtek "Civil War" Big Muff in the 1990's, and Pete Cornish modified Big Muff circuits on many of Pink Floyd's greatest recordings. J Mascis of Dinosaur is another well known Big Muff user, associated with both the Deluxe Big Muff in the 1980's, a vintage Ram's Head model in the 1990's, and others. It is a trademark of his live Dinosaur Jr. sound. Jack White is another very avid user of the Big Muff, which you can hear on all the White Stripes, Raconteurs, and Dead Weather albums. The huge bottom end of the Big Muff perfectly suited the bass-playerless White Stripes simple 'guitar and drums' format. In a similar manner, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys, another popular guitar/drums duo band, used Sovtek Big Muffs on some of the early Keys records, and in his live rig. Another user was Billy Corgan, who used a late 1970s op-amp Big Muff to such good effect on Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream album. Thousands of guitarists have chased that Siamese Dream Big Muff tone.

Jimi Hendrix may have also been another user, contrary to what many experts claim. He purchased one the year he died, though it is unknown if there are any recorded examples of him using it. The V1 Big Muff was likely for sale in late 1969 (not 1971 as many sources incorrectly claim), and definitely was on the market by 1970, the year Jimi died. E-H founder Mike Matthews, and others, have stated Jimi bought one at Manny's Music in New York, and Mike claims to have witnessed Jimi using it in the studio in 1970. Guitarist Carlos Santana, who purchased a Big Muff in 1971, was also often associated with the Muff in Electro-Harmonix advertising, though it is unknown if he ever recorded with one. It was possibly used on the Santana (aka Santana III) album released late in 1971, though Carlos may have used a borrowed Big Muff on some tracks from Abraxas.

Another 1970's Big Muff user (along with the rebranded version for Guild caled the Foxey Lady) was guitarist Robert Fripp, of King Crimson, who was reportendy using one in 1971.

The Isley Brothers songs Climbing Up the Ladder and Voyage to Atlantis from 1977 are other examples of Ernie playing lead with the Big Muff. A V2 Big Muff is pictured on the Isley Brothers stage in the photo below, circa 1975, along with the Maestro to the left.

(the signal) goes through a Cry Baby wah-wah, a Big Muff fuzz, a Maestro Phase Shifter, and an Octavia made by Roger Mayer. - Ernie isley from Guitar Player, September 1981 “On ‘That Lady’ there was a Big Muff, a Maestro Phase Shifter, and a Fender Twin. That was pretty much it.” - Ernie isley from Vintage Guitar magazine, February 2018

A year after that, the funk/soul scene was hammered with the famous solo from the Isley Brothers hit, (Who's) That Lady, played to perfection by Ernie Isley. There are various accounts of what was actually used in the studio, some sources state it was recorded directly into the mixing board with a Strat and Roger Mayer Octavia, but other sources state it was a Big Muff and Maestro Phase Shifter, and Ernie also used a Big Muff and a Maestro Phase Shifter when playing it live throughout the 1970's (the modulation on the record actually sounds identical to the Maestro too).

Armed with a '58 Gibson ES-335, a custom Red Rhodes-designed compressor, and an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzz, Peluso walked into a session that featured such studio heavyweights as guitarist Louie Shelton and drummer Hal Blaine. Peluso plugged his guitar into the compressor and the Big Muff, and then ran direct into a custom Haeco mixing console. All tracks were recorded on a Scully 2" 16-track analog tape machine. According to Peluso, "Richard told me to quote the melody and then solo. I was really laying back because I didn't want to get in the way of all those beautiful tracks. But Richard stopped the tape and said, "No, no, no-we want you to PLAY!' He rolled the tape again, and that second take is what you hear on the record". He also states that he used a Fender medium pick that he had cut serrations into, which is heard on the solo, and that he tuned his guitar FFCFAC for the solo. He says it is the only tuning he has ever used. Peluso goes on to say that Richard Carpenter mixed the guitar solo very loud, very bold for a Carpenters tune. - From "Classic Riffs" Guitar Player, August 2001

I wrote most of this melody while visiting London in 1971...While constructing the arrangement, I pictured a melodic fuzz guitar solo, and knew just the guitarist I wanted to employ—Tony Peluso. Karen and I had met Tony in 1971 when his band, Instant Joy, had backed Mark Lindsay, who had opened for us on our spring tour. The resulting guitar solo is, in my opinion, one of the best in recording history. “Goodbye To Love” went Top 10, but did provoke some “hate mail” from people who claimed we had sold out, and gone HARD ROCK!!! - Richard Carpenter from his website

The earliest known documented recording of the Big Muff Pi was by guitarist Tony Peluso, who recorded the solos for The Carpenters hit Goodbye to Love in 1972 with a V1 "Triangle" Big Muff, using a Gibson ES-335 recorded directly into the recording board with no amplifier. A very rocking solo for the time, and very heavy for the Carpenters, the use of the Big Muff in this song paved the way for the rock and roll power ballad.