Joe Perry

Joe Perry is the lead guitarist, co-founder, principal songwriter and co-producer of Aerosmith, and he also fronts his own solo band, The Joe Perry Project¹². Rolling Stone ranked him 84th on its list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, and in 2001 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Aerosmith². For players, his rig is a study in how a working guitarist splits gear between the road and the vault: a modern touring board built around DryBell vibe and boost pedals, and a warehouse of vintage units that mostly see studio use.

Aerosmith and The Joe Perry Project

Perry is best known as the lead guitarist and founding member of Aerosmith, where he is co-founding member, principal songwriter, electrifying lead guitarist and co-producer¹². Outside the band he has his own solo project, The Joe Perry Project².

His effects history reaches back to the band's 1970s records. He got heavily into the Kustom Bag talk box for Aerosmith's 1975 LP Toys in the Attic, using it on both "Walk This Way" and "Sweet Emotion"⁴. General Guitar Gadgets names him among the traditional talk box users, alongside Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton and Jeff Beck⁵. Beck was a lasting influence on Perry, who saw at least one show on almost all of Beck's tours and performed onstage with him on a couple of occasions⁶.

On the guitar side, a 2012 Premier Guitar rig rundown found Perry traveling with a large collection, including the Billy 335, a Dan Armstrong lucite, a BC Rich 10-string Bich, Custom Shop Teles and Strats from Fender, and guitars from boutique builder Echopark Guitars⁷. His tech, Trace Foster, was not exaggerating when he said Perry has "20 feet of amps"⁷.

The live rig: DryBell Unit67 and Vibe Machines

Perry's main touring rig in recent years has carried DryBell pedals. The Croatian maker has photographed his pedalboard featuring a DryBell Unit67 and, on the same board, two Vibe Machine V-1 units, used for the Aerosmith "Deuces Are Wild" shows in Las Vegas².

The Vibe Machine is a compact vibe pedal, currently in its V-3 form⁸. The Unit67 is a compact pedal that combines compression, boost and EQ, and DryBell says it also serves as an exceptional pedalboard buffer⁹¹⁰. It is available in a Red Edition as well as a silver version¹¹¹². Guitar World's reviewer found the all-in-one compression/boost/EQ approach saves pedalboard real estate¹³.

Perry's own view of boost pedals fits the Unit67's role. He told Guitar World:

He added that the boost is meant to kick the amp's preamp into distortion, and that in his world less is more as far as boost and distortion pedals go³. A 2012 Premier Guitar rundown made the same point from the outside: Perry prefers boost effects to overdrive or distortion⁷.

The 2012 rack drawer

Premier Guitar's 2012 Global Warming tour rundown listed the effects in Perry's rack drawer⁷:

The Centaur was a core part of his tone that he had relied on for about 10 years at that point⁷. He still travels with original Klons: "I have an original Klon, three or four of them, and I can't go anywhere without it"³.

The current pedalboard, in Perry's words

In a 2026 Guitar World interview, Perry walked through the pedals he keeps on his board³:

• Warm Audio Jet Phaser, an always-have phaser on his board³
• Warm Audio Warm Bender Fuzz with true bypass, standing in for a real Tone Bender fuzz he owns³
• Xotic Effects XW-1 Wah, modified with a short throw so it goes from bass to treble³
• Modified EHX POG with an expression pedal, used to bring it from bass to treble with his foot³
• Fulltone MDV-3 Deja Vibe, alongside an original of the pedal it is kind of like³
• Prescription Electronics Experience fuzz/octave³
• An old Electro-Harmonix Queen Triggered Wah, a unique-sounding pedal it took him years to find a second copy of³
• Five Fulltone Custom Shop Tube Tape Echo units³

On the tape echo, Perry keeps a pristine Echoplex at home but uses Fulltone's copy, which he says can't be beat, and he had his Fulltone version of the Echoplex tweaked by the guys at Fulltone³.

Perry also described how he orders his chain: reverb and delay pedals closest to the amp, with always-on pedals like compression first in the chain from the guitar³. Not every recommendation lands with him, though. He recently got a replica of an old British fuzz that was recommended to be placed before a compressor; he tried it, but it didn't work for him³. And when he uses the Jet Phaser, he might put a clean boost right after it and hit the boost pedal when he hits the phaser, depending on the song³.

Beyond pedals, Perry told Guitar World that he controls his sound with the guitar's volume knob rather than keeping it all the way up³.

Where the vintage pedals live

Most of Perry's vintage pedals are up at the Aerosmith warehouse, and he mostly uses that stuff in the studio because very few have direct bypass, though some pieces have been updated with that feature³. That is the practical split in his rig: modern, true-bypass-friendly units on the touring board, vintage pieces in the studio where bypass switching matters less.

Questions