Pete Cornish

The name carries weight among touring players. Q Magazine described the business as the destination "when the biggest (and necessarily, the most loaded) names in rock need their effects pedals rationalizing, their voltage [stabilized]"². David Gilmour's All Tube Effects Stage System was custom designed and built by Pete Cornish, and the P-2 pedal is used prominently by both Gilmour and Paul McCartney³.

From Practical Wireless to Sound City: how Pete Cornish started

Cornish discovered electronics young. Q Magazine tells it: laid low by tonsillitis at age eight with nothing to read but a copy of Practical Wireless magazine, he found his vocation². At 16 he secured an apprenticeship with the Ministry of Aviation, one of only 16 places available in the country, where he inspected and evaluated military equipment and developed what Q called "a mania for high-quality wiring"⁷².

His training included an electronics course with the Air Ministry and a three-year technical apprenticeship at Aquila in Chiselhurst, started in 1960, making and repairing valve radios⁸. He then worked in Bromley electronics firms and the planning department of relay makers before drifting up town to Sound City in London's West End, where he became Service Manager to the group of shops, part of the Dallas-Arbiter Group⁷⁸.

The pedalboard business began there. As Cornish recalled in a 1979 interview: "One day Peter Banks came in and said would I make him a pedal board"⁸. Q Magazine identifies the client as Peter Banks of Flash, and later Yes². By about 1979 the company had standardized the CryBaby body for pedal controllers, which Cornish said looked good and were very well built⁹.

Custom pedalboard and rack systems

The core service has stayed the same since the 1970s. As a 1979 profile in Musicians Only put it, Cornish takes a player's effects out of their own cases and puts them all under one roof, connects them to one power point, and makes sure they don't fall apart⁸¹⁰. Q Magazine described the method: the company receives a boxful of the artist's favorite effects pedals, guts them, modifies the wiring for improved reliability and guitar signal integrity, and conceals them in a single sturdy wooden box with size 11-friendly buttons replacing the original units' flimsy switches².

Every item of Pete Cornish equipment is individually designed and built to the customer's specific requirements⁷. All the boards are one-offs, and Cornish, a keen photographer, snaps each one before it goes out⁸. In 1979, Andy Summers of the Police had one, as did Steve Hackett, whose board's lights were visible from the audience at a Genesis gig⁸.

Several stand-alone pedals in the current range began as parts of these systems. The NB-3 and the NBM-2 were both originally designed as integral parts of each Pete Cornish Custom Pedalboard and Rack System¹¹¹².

How a Cornish board is built: relays, regulated supplies and floating outputs

The construction details come from Cornish himself, in the 1979 Musicians Only interview⁸:

• Switching: by reliable relay, not solid state.
• Power: each effect gets its own regulated supply, with voltages varying between 15, 12 and 18 volts, some with positive earths.
• Hum prevention: all outputs are floating and earthed at only one end, to prevent hum loops; the case covering, which Cornish called his own secret, also prevents hum.
• Mechanical: any component bigger than a capacitor is held down, circuit boards are screwed to the wood with the biggest screws that fit, wires are fastened to the casing every other inch, and the toughest marine ply is used.
• Indicator lights: 28 volt filament bulbs rather than low-power LEDs, which are not bright enough under a fierce light show.
• Layout: effects are split into footswitch, controls and circuit; switches sit at the front circled by wooden rings, pots sit on etched aluminum sunk in wells, and the circuit sits at the back.

On bypass, the company's position is clear from its product pages: all pedals except the Vintage TBs include internal Buffer/Line Drivers¹³, and the Play/Mute switch is suitable at the output of other buffered pedals but may not be suitable with true bypass or unbuffered pedals, a use the company does not recommend¹⁴. The Deluxe P-2 allows extended cable runs in bypass mode¹⁵.

Solid State and All Tube effects systems

Today the company offers two systems, each offering Pete Cornish craftsmanship¹. The Solid State effects board system works by completely isolating each pedal from its neighbor, which the company says eliminates the tone and volume losses associated with multiple pedal setups¹. The All Tube Effects Stage System was custom designed and built for David Gilmour, who uses the P-1 prominently in it³.

Alongside the systems sits the stand-alone pedal range, all hand built. The SS-2 is an overdrive/distortion pedal the company describes as totally different from any overdrive/distortion previously available, housed in a rugged die-cast box¹⁶. The LP-2 is a loop selector designed to be used with any guitar or bass effects pedal or device that needs a boost or cut when activated¹⁷. The G-2 is a distortion pedal, and "G2" is a trademark of Pete Cornish Pedals¹⁸¹⁹. The range also includes utility pedals such as the battery-free A/B/Y Box²⁰ and the Dual LD-3 line driver²¹.

Every stand-alone pedal receives a serial number when it is made. The format encodes the year, the build count and the dealer: PC/13286, for example, was built in 2013 and was the 286th pedal built that year, purchased direct; CR/1106 was the 6th pedal made for CR Guitars in 2011. Gray Series pedals from 2014 carry the format PC/14XXX/G, and Battery-Free Series pedals PC/14XXX/B²².

Pete, Lynda and Mingus Cornish

The company is a family operation. Each unit is hand built, wired and tested by Pete, Lynda and Mingus Cornish⁵, and each pedal is individually hand made by Pete and Lynda Cornish from the etching of the circuit board through to the testing, with no other person involved¹⁰. Pete also plays in a group, The Pete Cornish JAZZ FX, performing Power Jazz⁷.

Ordering, warranty and repairs

Orders are accepted by email only, to petecornishpedals@gmail.com, advising your delivery location; the company cannot accept orders by telephone⁶. The telephone number, (0)1435 813393 or international +44 1435 813393, is given for support⁴.

Warranty terms vary by product line:

The Deluxe P-2 and Deluxe OC-1 warranties do not apply to the customer's own equipment connected to the unit¹⁵²⁴.

Prices

A 1979 article put finished boards around the GBP 600 to GBP 900 mark on average, varying with the specials the artist wanted⁸. Current stand-alone pedal prices are published as UK prices on the maker's price lists dated 31 March 2026⁴²⁶:

The price lists reserve the right to change prices to reflect increased material costs²⁶.

The range (41)

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