John Frusciante’s Unlimited Love/Dream Canteen Pedalboard (2023 Update)

Since the Red Hot Chili Peppers announced that John Frusciante will be rejoining the band, every gearhead has been wondering what kind of gear will he use. Fortunately, we finally get an answer.

On April 1, 2022, RHCP played a gig together with the band Irontom at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles. Irontom’s bassist, Michael Goldman, was filmed by his bandmate during a soundcheck, who then posted the video on the band’s Instagram page.

Goldman is seen testing out a smaller pedalboard, belonging to Irontom, while above it, we see a larger pedalboard which is prepared in advance for John Frusciante who would perform later on on the same stage.

A little fun trivia detail – Irontom’s guitarist, Zach Irons, actually owns one of Frusciante’s guitars – the 1961 Fender Stratocaster finished in white. He was even using it at the gig, as seen in the photos shared on the band’s Instagram page.

John’s “Unlimited Love” Pedalboard (Early 2022)

Below is the zoomed-in shot of the Instagram footage, with every pedal labeled with a number. Please note that two pedals on the far left are not visible in this particular frame, but they can be seen in the video.

1. Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble
2. Boss DD-500
3. Digitech PDS1002
4. MXR Carbon Copy
5. MXR Echoplex
6. MXR Flanger
7. MXR Phase 90
8. MXR Dyna Comp
9. EHX Big Muff Pi
10. MXR Micro Amp
11. Boss XT-2
12. Boss DS-2
13. Boss SD-1
14. MXR M236 Super Badass Variac Fuzz
15. Ibanez Wh10
16. MXR Reverb
17. MXR Reverb
18. ???
19. Moog Low-Pass Filter MF-101

Few interesting things to note here – first, John really seems to like his MXR pedals nowadays. He did use the MXR Phase 90 and the MXR Micro Amp since basically forever, but most of the other MXR pedals are something completely new.

Most notably, he ditched the EHX Holy Grail for the MXR M300 Reverbs – two in fact, which is pretty interesting. Perhaps he needed two different settings and needed to switch quickly between them. MXRs are a lot smaller than the Holy Grail, and maybe it was just a matter of making the pedalboard more compact.

He also ditched both the Line 6 pedals, the DL-4 delay, and the FM-4 filter. Now, at least for the delay, he’s using the MXR M299 Carbon Copy and the MXR Echoplex.

Also, this is the first time we’re seeing a compression pedal on John’s pedalboard – in this case, an MXR DynaComp, and we see a pretty big downsizing in regard to the Moog pedals. During the Stadium Arcadium era, he had nine of them on his pedalboard.

Another pedal worth noting is the relatively modern Boss XT-2 distortion, which John uses alongside the DS-2 – one of his go-to distortion pedals.

John Frusciante’s Apollo Theater Pedalboard (Late 2022)

By late 2022, John’s pedalboard changed somewhat. The photo you see below is from the Apollo Theater concern in New York, played on September 13, 2022.

We see that John added the Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler, which is a pedal he used a lot in the past. The pedal is marked with a piece of tape reading “Television” which means that John is obviously using this on “Throw Away Your Television”.

We also see that he added a Micro-Tron IV Mu-Tron envelope filter pedal. Interesting thing is that on the Mu-Tron he removed the far-right foot switch that activates the “Up and Down” effect. In any case, this is the only time we’ve seen John use this pedal, and he has since removed it from his pedalboard, so he was probably just trying it out.

1. Boss DD-500
2. Digitech PDS1002
3. Boss CE-1 Chorus Ensemble
4. MXR Carbon Copy
5. MXR Echoplex
6. MXR Flanger
7. MXR Phase 90
8. MXR Dyna Comp
9. Moog CP-251 Control Processor
10. Boss TU-3 Tuner
11. Big Muff Pi
12. MXR Micro Amp
13. Boss DS-2
14. Boss DS-2
15. Boss SD-1
16. MXR M236 Super Badass Variac Fuzz
17. Ibanez Wh10
18. MXR Reverb
19. MXR Reverb
20. Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler
21. Moog Low-Pass Filter MF-101
22. Micro-Tron IV Mu-Tron envelope filter

If you want to see how each individual pedal is set up, and to what setting, click on the image above and that’ll open up a high-res version of the image.

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