Jack White

All I used in the White Stripes for seven years was an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff and the Whammy. So you might be hearing me building up to the note with the pedal.

Premier Guitar:

I only used to have two in the White Stripes: a Big Muff and a Whammy pedal. That’s all I had! It’s kind of crazy to have all of these. But in 20 years of making recordings, you have all these different tones for different solos and songs.

"I got a Whammy Pedal and I thought, Okay, you don’t have to do solos, but it would be nice if once in a while the guitar broke out and had a moment for itself and then went back to the band. The Whammy enabled me to get an octave higher than everybody else, so I could break through for a few seconds and do a lick and then come back to the song. And now I just want solos to be an octave higher and piercing... Also, I like to manipulate my DigiTech Whammy pedal starting with the low octave. I love low octaves. I’ve always loved playing octaves on the piano, even as a little kid. So when they came out with that pedal, and I heard Tom Morello use it in Rage Against the Machine, I knew I’d finally found an interesting pedal."

Premier Guitar:

There’s a thing somebody sent me, because I use a Whammy pedal. I’ve always used it since the White Stripes, but this is a new contraption [called a Step Audio Riff-Step] that you can hook up to the Whammy pedal to bounce between four different settings whenever you tap it. That’s going from an octave up to a fourth down to an octave below to a fourth up or something. It just kind of worked out for that song in a cool way. Now I have to do it every time [laughs].

"Sometimes, I use a POG pedal. I think I was the first person to record with one on the White Stripes song “Blue Orchid.” Electro-Harmonix sent me one as a present when we were recording Get Behind Me Satan. “Blue Orchid” came out two weeks after the session, so it had to be the first song to feature the POG. I use it to add the first and second octaves below, and one octave above the root note. It’s four of the same note simultaneously. It’s just so heavy. The riff is actually pretty simple, but it’s all about the one. It’s a funk-based idea."

The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

This photo of Jack White's pedalboard shows he uses the MXR M-133 Micro Amp (top right of the board).

He has also placed an MXR M-133 Micro Amp inside of a couple guitars. From an interview in GuitarPlayer:

"I had a couple of guitars made for the Raconteurs. I designed a Gretsch “Triple Jet” by adding a third pickup to a Double Jet, and putting an MXR Micro Amp inside the guitar. You can instantly get an overdriven sound by clicking on that pickup. You can just plug into an amplifier. If it’s time to play a solo and break out a little more, just click that switch on the guitar."

The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

Jack White has been known for using many a fuzz pedals through out the years. During the White Stripes era, Jack White can be seen using the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff with Tone Wicker.

Jack Whites pedals in 2002 playing Radio City Music Hall with The White Stripes, Opening for The Strokes.

Jack White used the Z-Vex Wooly Mammoth Bass Effects Pedal in the James Bond film "The Quantum Solace". White also uses the Wooly Mammoth with The Dead Weather.

Analog Man talks about the Tuner Mute Box they built for Jack in 2005 on their website.

According to the Premier Guitar's 2019 interview, White uses the Boss NS-2 pedal.

Jack White included a Dunlop JD-4S Rotovibe Expression Pedal into his Raconteurs pedalboard so as to expand his sound.

The Voodoo Lab Tremolo Pedal is mainly used in Jack White's pedalboard for The Dead Weather.

The Electro-Harmonix Nano Bassballs is used in Jack White's Raconteur and the Dead Weather pedalboards. This envelope filter effect is prominent in the Raconteurs song "Salute Your Solution".

Jack White can be seen playing guitar through a Union Tube & Transistor Black Bumble Buzz pedal in this video.

The pedal was designed and hand-made specifically for Jack White by Chris Young of Union Tube & Transistor, whose pedals Jack has also used on songs like "Sixteen Saltines" and "I'm Shakin'".

The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

Thar's the photo of Jack's pedalboard during Raconteurs tour. Plasma coil can be seen next to the Whammy.

At 5:00 in the video, we can see Jack White and Ben Blackwell talking about the DOD FX80 Compressor and how Jack used it on De Stijl album.

In this source picture, Jack White is photgraphed with the Minifooger MF Drive by Moog on the left of his pedalboard.

From the "Big Muff Users and Their Pedalboards" section of Kit Rae's Big Muff Page:

"Shown above: Jack White's large 2007 European tour pedal board. AnalogMan tuner switch box, Boss TU-2 Tuner, unknown 4 knob Boss pedal used for a short time (white knobs indicate this is possibly a CE-3 compressor or LM-2 Limiter), MXR Micro Amp, Digitech Whammy WH-4, Big Muff (reboxed), and the Electro-Harmonix POG with with board fitted on top to keep the slider settings in place."

A bronze-plated Demeter TRM-1 Tremulator Tremolo Pedal is used in Jack White's 'bronze' pedalboard for the Raconteurs. The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

Union Tube and Transistors Instagram page shows a look at Jack Whites current board for The Raconteurs tour 2019.

Almost all of them are painted copper, one of these pedal I believe to be the Keeley Electronics Caverns v2.

One of the pedals on this board includes 8 knobs, two foot switches and two toggle switches, which happens to be the exact layout for the delay+reverb pedal. It also look to be similar in size and the in/out jacks look to be in the same place as the caverns v2 pedal. The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

In this photo of Jack White's pedalboard there appears to be an Eventide H9 Max Multi-Effects Pedal.

Digitech Whammy DT can be seen at one of the 2017 tour photos. The pedal was mentioned in the 2019 Premier Guitar interview.

An Analog Man Tuner Box can be seen on the right side in this photo of a Jack White pedalboard.

In this video, Jack White demonstrates his new Third Man Triplegraph Digital Octave Pedal from CopperSound Pedals.

In addition to his NYC reissue, White used a V6 rehoused by Mike Piera of Analog Man. Kit Rae shares what Piera told him about the circuit on his Big Muff Pi Page, which includes this ca. 2005 photo of White’s pedalboard.

Shown above, left to right: Jack White's large pedal boards, circa 2005, with a red Big Muff (rehoused by Analog Man). Mike at Analog Man told me that this Muff is an old 1970's model, and it already had an LED added before he re-boxed it for Jack. Mike stated that Jack wants his Muffs reboxed in smaller, sturdier enclosures because he crushes the stock enclosures. He also refinishes the enclosures in different colors for Jack, as he wants a different look for each of his tours for his different bands. Although it has been rumored that Jack's Big Muffs are modified (the usual myth is a flat mids mod) they are actually stock circuits. The 'mod' is the different enclosure. Based on the knob type, knob positions (all at 1:00), this is a most likely a V6 Big Muff. The pots in the 1970's Big Muffs were soldered directly to the circuit board, and prior to the V5/6versions, the 1:00 position shown on Jack's red Muff (above) would have made the tone completely on the treble side, but the knob type was only intoduced with the V4 and V5 versions.

From the "Big Muff Users and Their Pedalboards" section of Kit Rae's Big Muff Page:

"Shown above: Jack White's NYC reissue Big Muff Pi Big Muff Pi (this first version was manufactured 2000-2001) from a November 2001 gig, with a Digitech Whammy-Wah. (...) His Digitech Whammy-Wah (later switched to a Digitech Whammy) was used for an octave-up effect. 'In my small pedal chain it’s the whammy first, then the Big Muff. What I like about the Whammy pedal is that it can raise my guitar an octave and what I like about the Big Muff is that it’s just distortion. I have them in that order because it’s not high-pitched distortion, but high pitch with distortion'"

The Analog Man website talks about this custom pedal for Jack White saying, "We also made him two like this for his tour with the Raconteurs in 2006."

According to the Premier Guitar's 2019 interview, White uses the Boss TU-3 tuner.

Used on Why Walk A Dog?

He is now using the Third Man Records version of the Mantic Flex

Jack White is a master of weaving ugly-duckling sounds into pop music’s vernacular. So it’s little wonder why he saw the appeal in Mantic’s excellent phase-locked loop (PLL) mayhem generator, the Flex. This new version is co-branded with Mantic and the name of White’s Third Man Records. But it marks a return to the design origins of the Flex, which has since evolved into a more complex variant called the Flex Pro. The Third Man version is the only way to get the original, simpler Flex. But while “simple” may be a useful descriptor for the relative number of controls, it does little to describe the many bizarre and demented tones and textures this circuit generates.

Premier Guitar:

We did use it on some songs. I used it a couple of times on my last solo record, too. I want to be careful not to use it too much, but it’s kind of irresistible because it does so many interesting things. (...) I start the song ["Sunday Driver"] off with it, actually. Live onstage, I have to give that to Dean Fertita. He has to play the Mantic on that song, because I can’t do the other arpeggio-sounding octave thing on the guitar at the same time. I overdubbed both of those when we recorded. Brendan is playing something totally different as well. That song’s got a lot of guitars on it.

Featured on the official ZVEX artist page.

Jack White uses a Tremolo Probe and a Woolly Mammoth