John Frusciante

This photo of John Frusciante's pedalboard from circa 2003 reveals he uses two Boss DS-2 Turbo Distortion Pedals. Both of them appear to be the distinctively orange color, and have four knobs. They can be seen on the right side of the photo.

A mainstay on John Frusciante's pedalboard, his MXR M-133 Micro Amp Pedal can be seen in the bottom row of this pedalboard from circa 2006 (Stadium Arcadium era). It is to the right of his Big Muff Pi. The photo is from Guitar Player magazine, November 2006 issue. Photo credit David Lee.

An Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi can be seen in this picture of John Frusciante's pedalboard. Electro-Harmonix also confirms the use of the Big Muff Pi.

In addition to the English Muff'n, John has also toured and recorded with the Micro Synthesizer, Big Muff Pi (both USA and Russian), POG, Metal Muff, HOG, Holy Grail, and Deluxe Electric Mistress. That said, I'm sure you fru-heads are still going to email and tell me what I left out.

Used on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, John used the Dyna Comp on the solo of "Mellowship Slinky in B Major" and for the intro of "Under The Bridge" and if you go on YouTube and look up "John Frusciante recording Mellowship slinky in B Major solo" you can see it by his right knee next to the time.

You can see this pedal featured in the new setup of RHCP for Unlimited Love Tour.

The Boss SD-1 can be seen beside his turbo distortion from this photos of their performance of "these are the ways" on the Jimmy Kimmel show April 1st

Akkording to John Frusciante Effects he used a TS9 at a show on April 14th 1989 at Shafer Court (Virginia Commonwealth University). The pictures are a little blurry but as the TS9 has a pretty unique look it seems to be pretty certain.

According to this rig diagram, John Frusciante uses a Boss DS-1 Distortion pedal.

In an April 2004 issue of Guitarist magazine, John Frusciante talks about using the ZVex Fuzz Factory pedal on his studio album Shadows Collide with People. He says, "Well, there's the Fuzz Factory. That guy (Zachary Vex) makes really interesting effects and he handpaints them himself. The song Water has that crazy guitar sound at the end of it and that's just me playing right-hand finger harmonics and that's the sound that came out of the thing!

John Frusciante - Water (track 14 on Shadows Collide with People): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McH-5snJ32E

He has used the CE1 for all he's career for main chorus sound. I think he used also the CE2 but can't find nothing. This photo is from the Californication's recording sessions, but this pedal can be seen in every live video and pedalboard pic.

In this scanned article from Guitarist magazine, June 2003 edition, Frusciante's pedalboard can be seen. In the top row of the pedalboard, the green Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeling Pedal can be seen.

John is clearly seen using a Boss FZ-3 on his 1998/1999 Californication recording session pedalboard and it remained on his tour pedalboard until 2000.

"One that I've found recently that I really like...using this Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress effect and then using this DOD Analog Delay that Omar has that I'm borrowing right now. I turned off the original signal and had an echo maybe half a second long, or a little longer. And set it to one repeat or a couple of repeats," says John Frusciante, at 2:29:00 in this interview, talking about his use of the EHX Electric Mistress and DOD Analog Delay.

John Frusciante's MXR Phase 90 with block logo can be seen in the middle of his pedalboard (circa 2000) in this photo.

"One that I've found recently that I really like...using this Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress effect and then using this DOD Analog Delay that Omar has that I'm borrowing right now. I turned off the original signal and had an echo maybe half a second long, or a little longer. And set it to one repeat or a couple of repeats," says John Frusciante, at 2:29:00 in this interview, talking about his use of the EHX Electric Mistress and DOD Analog Delay.

John Frusciante used a DOD FX65 on stage during the Pinkpop Festival in 1990. The pedal appears very clearly in this video taken from the concert around 2:41 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfOdTdv_sJo&list=RDNfOdTdv_sJo&start_radio=1).

According to JFtab.com he used a DigiTech Whammy for a short amount of time. In an Interview Dave Lee (Frusciante's Guitar tech) confirms he used the Digitech Whammy from april - july 2007. (http://www.jfeffects.com.br/2016/12/jf-effects-interviews-dave-lee-guitar.html)

It can be heard in intro Jams like Cochella 2007 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_iw2HdQbE)

The Mosrite FuzzRite appeared on John's 2006 Stadium Arcadium tour pedalboard. Shown here as no.5 on his pedalboard.

In this photo, you can clearly see that there's a red wah pedal on Frusciante's board. Because of the knobs on the side of the pedal, it's admittedly that is a Xotic XW-1 Red Limited Edition.

The Guyatone VT-X tremolo was included on John's 2006 Stadium Arcadium tour pedalboard. It is marked as no.15 on this image.

An Electro-Harmonix Russian Big Muff Pi can be seen here on his 2000 Californication tour pedalboard.

"Occasionally, I use an Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress or maybe a chorus pedal. Let me see … [opens drawer] I have nice drawers with all my effects in them, but I hardly ever use them."

According to the research of John Frusciante Tablatures, Frusciante used replaced his DigiTech PDS-1002 with a DM-2 in 2007 during the Stadium Arcadium World Tour.

In this photo of John Frusciante's pedalboard from the Stadium Arcadium Era, it can be seen that the he uses two Moog Expression pedals in the bottom row, all the way to the right. This photo appears to be a scan from a magazine article, and the caption reads: "Two Moog Expression Pedals -- used for realtime parameter control -- are located just below them on the right."

In an interview with Premier Guitar, John Frusciante discusses his affinity for various synthesizers and mentions the Roland GR-300 Polyphonic Guitar Synthesizer among his favored instruments, highlighting its role alongside drum machines, samplers, and computers in his music creation process.

According to an EHX article about Frusciante, he uses the Pog live and in the studio.

John Frusciante frequently used the original grey Ibanez WH10v1 Wah pedal from 1987 to 1990. He occasionally switched to the black and purple version during the Californication era. This usage is supported by a user-uploaded photo.

According to an EHX article about Frusciante, he's used the Metal Muff live and in the studio.

Used on The Empyrean, particularly on the solo for "Enough of Me", as stated in this April 2009 Vintage Guitar interview.

The main stuff for guitar sounds was that rig, and I was treating it with a modular synthesizer. So the recordings usually had nothing more than a wah pedal, distortion, and fuzz. I use the Boss Turbo Distortion pretty regularly, and an Electro-Harmonix English Muff’n tube fuzz, which has really extreme EQ and a big, thick, meaty sound. I used it on the solo for “Enough Of Me.” I turn the EQ up, but leave my guitar Tone knobs down and use either the middle or neck pickup so the initial source sound is really dark and kind of plain. If you blast the tone controls on the effect, you get a really thick, beautiful sound that reminds me of an exaggerated Eric Clapton tone in Cream, where you have this really smooth fuzz. For that solo, I was jumping from low to high notes rather than following a linear train of thought. I was kind of thinking in two ways at once by alternately playing very low notes with high notes, where the octave was displaced by a couple of octaves, and it worked really well.

According to an EHX article about Frusciante, he's used the Micro Synth on tour and in the studio.

Used at the end of Parallel Universe during the solo section. Quote from John. " I borrowed an MXR Phase 100 from the people who were recording next door. I was looking for a way to approach that solo, and the Phase 100 worked out well." [Guitar Player (UK), September 1999]