Pete Cornish P-2

The Pete Cornish P-2 is a high-gain distortion pedal built by British designer Pete Cornish. Cornish describes it as delivering "extremely fat, smooth, and harmonically rich distortion tones" and recommends it for "a fat, high-gain, searing lead sound and is perfect for solos and heavy rock rhythm work"¹. Its best-known association is with David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, who Cornish says uses the pedal prominently, along with Paul McCartney¹.

The P-2's story starts with Gilmour. Cornish's P-1 was designed for him before 1981, and Aion FX's circuit analysis found the P-1 was essentially a straight clone of Gilmour's favorite Big Muff, a Ram's Head V2, with Cornish's buffers added². The P-2 followed in 1981 as an updated version of the P-1². Kit Rae's history of Gilmour's gear notes that the P-2 brought "an improved treble-cut tone control circuit, less mid range scoop, and thicker lows. It had a passive treble cut control" similar to an electric guitar's tone control³.

Controls and footswitch

The P-2's tone control is its own design rather than a copied Big Muff stack. Cornish says it "has been designed to provide an attenuation of 14dB at 3KHz when set fully Counter Clockwise", with the fully clockwise position giving the maximum harmonic content, using passive frequency-attenuating components without unnecessary phase shift¹.

Switching is via a heavy-duty all-metal footswitch with Hi-Brite LEDs¹. The pedal also carries a unity gain buffer, which Cornish says "prevents 'Ghost Distortion' being audible in Bypass Mode"¹, a real concern with high-gain circuits where distortion can leak into the bypassed signal.

The public-sale versions of the P-2 also included a built-in double buffer, according to Kit Rae, along with a larger enclosure than the custom units made for Gilmour³.

The circuit: Big Muff roots and the G-2 connection

The P-2 is a Big Muff descendant. Aion FX lists it among "Big Muff-based pedals that share a PCB" with the G-2, and Kit Rae describes the Cornish P-1 and P-2 as "essentially custom made versions of Big Muff circuits with Pete's improvements"³⁶. Aion FX traced the circuit in 2023, noting the P-2 "had never actually been taken apart to our knowledge" before then².

The most striking finding is how close the P-2 and the G-2 really are. The PCB inside is marked "P-2/G-2"². Aion FX counted the differences: "Compared to the G-2, there are 16 parts substituted in total"². Kit Rae's independent analysis agrees, reporting that the G-2 "actually uses the same PCB as the P-2, but with 16 components changed to reduce the gain and change the EQ"⁷. So the G-2 is the same basic circuit voiced for less gain and a different EQ, while the P-2 is the higher-output sibling.

The P-2 Blend

There is also a blended variant. The unit Aion FX traced was a P-2 Blend, and they found "the blend circuit is on a separate PCB" from the distortion circuit². The Blended P-2 is a physically bigger pedal than the standard version, at 171 x 121 x 55 mm versus 145 x 95 x 49 mm⁸⁹¹. Its warranty runs twelve months rather than the standard P-2's two years⁸⁹.

David Gilmour's use

The P-2's reputation rests largely on Gilmour. Cornish states the pedal "is used prominently by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney"¹. Kit Rae's documentation goes further for the earlier custom era: of Gilmour's Cornish Precision Fuzz P-2 at the 1990 Knebworth concert, "It is documented that it was used for all the high gain solos in that concert"³.

The lineage runs through the P-1, which Gilmour used on the 2006 On An Island tour for a few songs, including Comfortably Numb, in some performances blended with a Butler 911 Tube Driver³⁷. An updated P-2 with Cornish's dual buffer system was offered for sale to the public around 2001³.

Power, size and warranty

A 9V battery is also an option, switched on when the IN/PWR jack is inserted, with the preferred type MN1604 and replacement through a drawer in the unit⁴. Orders are placed by email to the maker, advising your delivery location⁴.

The standard P-2 carries a two-year warranty from date of purchase: original manufacturing faults are repaired when the unit is returned post paid to the maker's address, and the warranty is voided if the guarantee labels are damaged or removed, and is not transferable¹. The Deluxe P-2 and Blended versions carry twelve months instead, excluding normal wear, misuse, unauthorized modifications and accidental damage⁸¹⁰.

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