Stompbox: 100 Pedals of the World's Greatest Guitarists

by Eilon Paz, Dan Epstein (Editor), James Rotondi (Editor)

A deluxe photographic celebration of the unsung hero of guitar music—the effects pedal—featuring interviews with 100 musicians including Peter Frampton, Joe Perry, Jack White, and Courtney Barnett.

Ever since the Sixties, fuzz boxes, wah-wahs, phase shifters, and a vast range of guitar effects pedals have shaped the sound of music as we know it.

100 Pedals of the World’s Greatest Guitarists is a photographic showcase of the actual effects pedals owned and used by Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Frank Zappa, Alex Lifeson, Andy Summers, Eric Johnson, Adrian Belew, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Ed O’Brien, J Mascis, Lita Ford, Joe Perry, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Vernon Reid, Kaki King, Nels Cline and 82 other iconic and celebrated guitarists.

These exquisitely textured fine-art photographs are matched with fresh, insightful commentary and colorfulroad stories from the artists themselves, who describe how these fascinating and often devilish devices shaped their sounds and songs.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History

512 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

Reviews

[Beige Alert · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I was a guitarist or electrician or had a bigger tablet for my digital copy, this might have been a five.

What started out as a sale book with pretty pictures, graduated slowly into a full read and that $1.99 also became a couple hundred bucks on some new equipment and some motivation to try once again to become a person who can play simple rock songs on guitar and bass for fun.

Luckily the second-hand music market makes it easy to not take too much of a loss for failure when selectively buying used equipment to begin with.

The stories with each pedal were more interesting and well edited than I thought they might be. I loved the story of someone stealing Kim Thayil's CS9 at Roseland... btw, the acoustics and some of the sightlines there suck - but maybe that's why it's so PORTLAND. Broken is beautiful or somesuch nonsense.

Digressing.

The number of small US pedal manufacturers covered were kinda fascinating to me, although the first purchase this book was the cause of was a (supposedly) 1990's Tube Screamer with a bypass switch and 808 mod.

A new 3-Series JHS reverb was second however.



Kick out the (Pearl) Jams MotherF*#%er!

Truly living on the edge.

[David Turko · Rating 5 out of 5]

The ultimate book about pedals and gear in the guitar world. Its title pretty much says it all. A hundred guitarist show off their favorite pedals. But what really stunned be was how in depth these interviews were and how passionate the guitarist were about their gear. On top of this, the book goes into the history of pedals along with interviewing some of the creators of these guitar pedals. If their is a bible for guitar gear worship this book would be a part of it. I loved everything about this and will be coming back to this book soon.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love playing with effect pedals and find the subject really interesting. But the ostensible raison d'être of Stompbox - 100 of the "greatest guitarists" discuss their favourite pedal, accompanied by a photo of said item - occupies less than half of this book. The rest is a collection of articles that are mildly interesting but don't add anything new to the subject. I feel that anyone sufficiently interested in pedals to want to read the first half of the book will already know all the information in the latter half. A much slimmer volume that just had the players and their pedals would have been much better, although presumably couldn't warrant the same price. It also has to be said that although there are some genuine greats amongst the players included, there are some choices clearly only here to make up the numbers.

So was it worth it? Well ... not really. It's an interesting diversion but ultimately this book is not worth the expensive, luxurious and ostentatiously heavy coffee table treatment.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book! I originally purchased it to be a coffee table book but it's quite a bit more loaded than that. The artist interviews have lead me down multiple rabbit holes listening to records, learning about designers, and of course fidgeting around with my own stomps. Also if you happen to own any of the effects in the book, try the settings out!

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting, but esoteric, book. The format is pretty cool as is the background of the pedals. However, look elsewhere if you're searching for a guide to copying the tones of well-known guitarists. Quite a number of the artists listed are only famous among smaller circles and not in the worldwide arena of music.

[Jason Ware · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a sumptuous book. Lots of great history and information about effects pedals and the creators. We'll written. Large beautiful photos of these desirable sonic tools/objects. I didn't expect to read all of the text, mostly gawp at the photos, but I read it from cover to cover.