Pete Cornish Deluxe P-2

The Pete Cornish Deluxe P-2 is a distortion pedal hand-built by Pete Cornish in the UK, and Pete Cornish describes it as "highly recommended for a fat, high-gain, searing lead sound." The maker says the P-2 "delivers extremely fat, smooth, and harmonically rich distortion tones," and lists it as used prominently by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney¹. Each unit is hand built, wired and tested by Pete, Lynda and Mingus Cornish¹.

Under the hood it is a Big Muff-family design. Aion FX's circuit analysis identifies the Pete Cornish P-2 and G-2 as "two Big Muff-based pedals that share a PCB but with several part differences" that distinguish them²³. The P-2 traces back to the P-1 that Cornish designed for David Gilmour before 1981³².

A distortion pedal that keeps ghost distortion out of bypass

The feature Pete Cornish emphasizes most on the Deluxe P-2 is its unity gain buffer. In the maker's words¹:

Ghost distortion is distortion that bleeds into your signal even with the pedal switched off, a known annoyance with high-gain circuits. Because the buffer sits in the signal path, your clean tone stays clean when the pedal is disengaged. The same buffer arrangement appears across the Cornish line, including the Pete Cornish P-2 and the Pete Cornish Deluxe G-2⁴⁵.

Aion FX's 2023 tracing of the P-2 circuit found it to be a Big Muff derivative with Cornish's own modifications. The unit they traced was a P-2 Blend, with the blend circuit on a separate PCB, and that blend circuit is the same as the one in the non-Blend P-2³².

Enclosure, footswitch and battery

The Deluxe P-2 is housed in a rugged die-cast box with lined control knobs¹. The footswitch is a heavy duty custom made all-metal unit with a large cap and protection ring, plus a Hi-Brite LED¹.

Battery access is a practical touch: the 9V battery sits in a removable drawer, so you do not have to open the enclosure to swap it. The battery switches on when you insert a plug into the "IN/PWR ON" jack, and the preferred battery type is the MN1604¹.

P-1, P-2 and G-2: how the Cornish distortions differ

The Cornish distortion family starts with the P-1, designed for David Gilmour before 1981². Aion FX's comparison of the circuits found real differences between the siblings:

In Aion FX's words, "The P-2 is smoother, less dark than the P-1, and has slightly more mids"². The P-1, by contrast, "leaves the tone section intact"⁷. There is also a Pete Cornish G-2 Blended variant, and Cornish says of the P-2 Blended: "I have not altered the P-2 sound, just added a Blend function to the output"⁶⁵.

The standard P-2 sits in a smaller enclosure than the Deluxe, at 145 x 95 x 49 mm⁴, while the Deluxe P-2 measures 171 x 121 x 55 mm¹. Both carry the same buffer and battery arrangement.

David Gilmour and the P-2

Pete Cornish lists the pedal as used prominently by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney¹. Kit Rae's independent research on Gilmour's gear documents the Cornish P-2 at the 1990 Knebworth concert:

On the 1994 Division Bell tour, Rae's research indicates the pedal was probably carried as a backup for Gilmour's Sovtek Big Muff, since signal chains show it was not used⁸. The earlier P-1 was built into Gilmour's 1976 pedalboard and used briefly on his 2006 On An Island tour⁸.

Pete Cornish makes these pedals by custom order⁹, so they are not mass-market retail products.

Warranty

The Deluxe P-2 carries a twelve-month warranty from date of purchase. Repairs of any original manufacturing fault are carried out if the unit is returned post paid to the maker's address. The warranty excludes normal wear, misuse, unauthorized modifications and accidental damage, is voided if the guarantee labels are damaged or removed, and does not cover the customer's own equipment connected to the unit¹.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load

Questions