Steve Turner

The photo from Effettidiclara shows Steve Turner's pedalboard, featuring the T-Rex Engineering Mudhoney distortion pedal.

Pedal 89 in Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World's Greatest Guitarists, as can be seen in the quick browse video at 0:37. It was sold to Blackbook Guitars in 2015, who reached out to Stomp Under Foot for a limited edition clone: the Fuzz Honey. The original seems to have been re-aqcuired by the time Stompbox was being made, however. The Fuzz Honey's product description is archived on Effects Database's page for it.

I am really happy to announce an exclusive pedal for Blackbook Guitars in Portland, Oregon.

The owner of Blackbook, Nate, contacted me about making a copy of Mudhoney’s, Steve Turner’s, original Civil War Big Muff that was used on all the early Mudhoney albums.

Being very familiar with the Civil War, as I have been making them for over six years now, and a fan of Mudhoney, I was very excited about this project.

Steve personally sold the pedal to Blackbook and has even commented on it through his Instagram page.

The pedal is called the Fuzz Honey and, as with all the Stomp Under Foot pedals, these are handmade in the USA.

The Fuzz Honey also uses original, NOS, Russian transistors and the same exact resistors and capacitors like the original.

These are limited to thirty pedals.

Visible in this photo from a July 16, 2012 OffsetGuitar.com post by user Zeus.

Turner's first Big Muff Pi. It is specified in Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World's Greatest Guitarists and this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview. Along with the Univox Super-Fuzz, it was the namesake of Superfuzz Bigmuff, which Turner reflects upon in this September 6, 2018 Vice interview. It is also visible in this May 2, 2007 photo and this excerpt of Live At El Sol at 5:08, which show that the original knobs were later replaced. According to this October 13, 2017 Red Bull Music Academy interview, the pedal was irreparably damaged when a van ran over it. The remains became part of the collection of the Museum of Pop Culture.

Maximumrockandroll, August 1990 (as archived on this Open Computing Facility fan page)

MRR: And you use the Big Muff.

Steve: Yeah. Fuck! I just got a Mosrite Fuzz Rite which is what Davie Allan of Davie Allan and The Arrows used.

Guitar Player, February 1992 (as archived on this Open Computing Facility fan page)

Turner and Arm don't break stylistic stride with their pedal choices either. "We use a lot of different fuzz boxes. On the road I use a Big Muff, a wah-wah pedal, and a Memphis distortion box, which looks like an MXR. I've never paid more than $15 for one - they break easily, but they're cheap."

Excerpt from I'M NOW: The Story of Mudhoney (at 0:39)

By the time that Mudhoney started, I was playin' the Big Muff 'cause it had more of that sustain, kinda like Blue Cheer, Stooges kinda thing going, and so Mark used the Super-Fuzz.

Red Bull Music Academy

“The Big Muff...has permanent status in guitar lore and gear,” says Steve Turner, guitarist of Seattle grunge trailblazers Mudhoney, who immortalized the pedal in the title of their 1988 debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff. “It’s gonna be one of those boxes everyone has to know about if you get into guitars. You’re gonna know about the Big Muff. I mean there’s just so many clones of it...it’s everywhere.” (Turner’s original Big Muff, which was run over by a van after a show, now sits in Seattle’s Experience Music Project Museum).

Vice

How important were those two titular pedals to the sound of the record?

I think they were very important. We only named it that because it was a bad pun. But the pedals were a big deal. Me discovered the Fuzzbox was a big deal. Mark had already loved feedback and fuzz. At the time I was so into the Stooges, Blue Cheer, and some of Neil Young’s guitar sounds, not to mention the mid-80s post-hardcore stuff like ANTi-SEEN, Pussy Galore, and Drunks With Guns, which was some really ugly stuff. Those two pedals really were the basis for our sound: Mark on the Superfuzz and me on the Big Muff.

Premier Guitar

You guys are obviously huge fuzz connoisseurs—you named your debut album after the two you just mentioned, Steve—but it’s interesting that the Nano Muff remains your favorite at a time when there are so many painstaking boutique clones of vintage fuzzes fetching pretty serious money.

Turner: I’m kind of trying to get the sound of my original Big Muff. The one I used on all of the earlier records is one of the last production Big Muffs, I think. I got it new in 1984 on closeout. Going off memory and feel, to me the Nano sounds the most like that.

Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World's Greatest Guitarists (2020)

"I bought my first one brand new in 1984, most likely at Seattle's American Music store," Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner recalls of the latter pedal. "I'd heard it was supposed to be cool—probably from [Pearl Jam/Green River guitarist] Stone Gossard, who I was in high school with at the time. Now, Stone was a metalhead then, and I was a punk, but mostly what appealed to us, as with most of Mudhoney's gear, is that it was cheap. Hard to imagine today, but there was literally a huge pile of them for $35 each. I should've bought them all. It turned out mine was the very last of the original run, and Electro-Harmonix discontinued it shortly afterward."

Mentioned in this February 1992 Guitar Player interview, as archived on this Open Computing Facility fan page.

Turner and Arm don't break stylistic stride with their pedal choices either. "We use a lot of different fuzz boxes. On the road I use a Big Muff, a wah-wah pedal, and a Memphis distortion box, which looks like an MXR. I've never paid more than $15 for one - they break easily, but they're cheap."

An early unit without a tone control was used on Sunday State's eponymous debut album, as featured in this November 9, 2020 Twitter post. The pedal was previously mentioned in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview.

Premier Guitar

So there’s a few companies like that I keep up with—Death by Audio’s Fuzz War was a pretty amazing pedal a few years back.

Twitter

Steve Turner recorded three songs with Sunday State near Seattle this past weekend. Look for an album in 2021.

Visible in this photo from Reddit user uninnocent's May 15, 2018 post titled "Saw Mudhoney, snapped pic of Steve Turner's board". It is also listed in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview.

Effects

DOD Overdrive Preamp 250

DOD YJM308 Yngwie J Malmsteen Signature Overdrive

Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff Pi

Foxx Tone Machine

Foxx Fuzz Wah Volume

Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer

MXR Micro Amp

MXR ’74 Vintage Phase 90

Vox V847-A Wah

Mentioned in this August 1990 Maximumrocknroll interview, as archived on this Open Computing Facility fan page.

MRR: And you use the Big Muff.

Steve: Yeah. Fuck! I just got a Mosrite Fuzz Rite which is what Davie Allan of Davie Allan and The Arrows used.

MRR: So are you going to do "Blues Theme" now?

Steve: We may as well do an entire '60s punk set now. It's the '60s punk sound.

He gave it to Mark Arm when he got the big muff but Steve did use it a few times in the studio for example the solo for touch me I'm sick

Visible in this photo from a July 16, 2012 OffsetGuitar.com post by user Zeus. This November 13, 2018 Instagram post shows that it was later rehoused.

The item can be seen 0:30 in the video.

Mentioned in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview.

In the studio I bring in a whole bunch [of other fuzzes], but then sometimes I just get lost trying to fix something that doesn’t really need to be fixed, you know what I mean? There are others, though—the Foxx Tone Machine. I used to use the Foxx Fuzz Wah Volume quite a bit. That’s one of the best fuzzes ever made, and the Tone Machine is basically the fuzz side of that. I always have that one in the studio with me, but I didn’t use it on this record.

We can see clearly an dunlop crybaby on Steve Pedalboard.

Visible in this photo from a July 16, 2012 OffsetGuitar.com post by user Zeus.

Visible in this photo and this photo from Reddit user uninnocent's May 15, 2018 post titled "Saw Mudhoney, snapped pic of Steve Turner's board". It is also mentioned in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview. It was notably used on “Hey Neanderfuck”.

Turner: The first song we actually got done for this record was “Hey Neanderfuck,” and I was trying to get as heavy and gnarly a sound as I could. There was this textured pink box this guy gave me—it didn’t have a name on it, so I can’t say what the company is, unfortunately. There’s definitely some [Univox] Super-Fuzz in there, but there’s also an octave button. It made that riff.

If you look near steves feet you'll see a vox wah pedal.

At 4:51 minute mark, Snark SN-10S pedal tuner can be seen as a part of Turner's board.

At the very beginning of this video, Turner's board is visible, with DOD 250 being seen on the far right.

In the photo from Effectsbay, Steve Turner's pedalboard includes the Peterson StroboStomp2 Pedal Virtual Strobe Tuner, used for precise tuning during performances.

Visible in this photo from Reddit user uninnocent's May 15, 2018 post titled "Saw Mudhoney, snapped pic of Steve Turner's board". It is also listed in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview.

Effects

DOD Overdrive Preamp 250

DOD YJM308 Yngwie J Malmsteen Signature Overdrive

Electro-Harmonix Nano Big Muff Pi

Foxx Tone Machine

Foxx Fuzz Wah Volume

Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer

MXR Micro Amp

MXR ’74 Vintage Phase 90

Vox V847-A Wah

Mentioned in this November 1, 2018 Premier Guitar interview.

In the studio I bring in a whole bunch [of other fuzzes], but then sometimes I just get lost trying to fix something that doesn’t really need to be fixed, you know what I mean? There are others, though—the Foxx Tone Machine. I used to use the Foxx Fuzz Wah Volume quite a bit. That’s one of the best fuzzes ever made, and the Tone Machine is basically the fuzz side of that. I always have that one in the studio with me, but I didn’t use it on this record.

At 12:35 Steve talks about this pedal.

Steve uses an MXR micro amp on the live studio sessions at KEXP Radio.

In this video we can see clearly that Steve use an Yngwie Malmsteen DOD pre-amp overdrive instead of the DOD 250 Overdrive Preamp.

The right pedalboard belongs to Steve.

Visible in this photo and this photo from Reddit user uninnocent's May 15, 2018 post titled "Saw Mudhoney, snapped pic of Steve Turner's board".

Last month, I attended a Mudhoney concert in Cleveland, where Steve Turner had a Strymon Flint on his pedalboard. He used the tremolo mode during my favorite Mudhoney song, which was an incredible experience. I captured this in a photo.

We see the tuner on the pedalboard throughout the rig rundown.