Brad Whitford

Brad Whitford is best known as the rhythm and co-lead guitarist for the hard rock band Aerosmith¹. Beyond his playing, he has worked as a songwriter for the group, co-composing well-received tracks such as 1976's "Last Child"¹. He is also a founder of 3 Monkeys Amplification and, on the Global Warming 2012 tour, traveled with an impressive stack of his own amps².

The Analog Man connection

Whitford's longest-running pedal relationship is with Analog Man. He used an Analog Man Chorus on the Aerosmith tour in 2003⁴, and he owns King of Tone pedal number 1, which he used on Aerosmith's late 2003 and 2004 tours of the USA and was still using in 2006³⁵.

The Analog Man Chorus he played is an analog chorus pedal offered in a true stereo version for running two amps⁶. The original design came together in late 1998, when AnalogMike organized everything and, with the help of electrical engineer and pedal designer Alfonso Hermida, found all the original parts and decided on the components and layout of the pedal⁴. The pedal is built on double-sided circuit boards with plenty of shielding⁷, and the manual's basic hookup is simple: plug the guitar in on the right (IN) and the amp on the left (OUT)⁷. In early 2006 the stereo circuitry moved onto the main chorus board (version 4), so the extra "stereo board" was no longer needed⁴. The stereo option costs $50 extra on a new standard chorus or Bichorus pedal⁴.

The Global Warming 2012 rig

Premier Guitar's rig rundown of the 2012 Global Warming tour found the core of Whitford's tone in the PRS amp at the center of his setup, one of two of Paul Reed Smith's personal favorite amps loaned to Whitford for the tour². Whitford says it has a "dream Marshall" type of sound and calls it his "holy grail amp"².

His pedalboard that tour covered the full range of effects:

All from Premier Guitar's rundown of the Global Warming 2012 tour board².

One of his go-to effects is the Pigtronix Disnortion, which he calls "Hendrix in a box"². The Mojo Hand Rook had recently replaced his Klon Centaur on the board².

Guitars

Whitford's 2012 touring arsenal included a variety of Gibson Custom Shop Tom Murphy reissue Les Pauls, Fender Custom Shop Strats, a Tele, an Epiphone Casino, and Echopark guitars².

Other pedals

Whitford's gear choices reach beyond one maker. A Source Audio press piece notes the Soundblox Pro Multiwave Distortion is used on tour by artists ranging from Brad Whitford of Aerosmith to Reeve Gabrels to Chuck Garvey of moe.⁸. DryBell reports he purchased several Unit67 pedals to incorporate into his multiple pedalboards¹.

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