Reverb has revealed new sales analytics that shed light on which effects – both new and old – have been finding their way onto players’ pedalboards throughout 2025.

The online gear marketplace’s annual sales reports continue to expand in scope, and after uncovering telling trends across the electric guitar and amplifier markets, its pedal sales data takes a deeper dive into which effects are truly top of the tree.

The rankings have been split into new categories, with the best-selling pedals that launched in 2025 earning their own list, alongside overall best-sellers, the most popular used pedal picks, and a leaderboard of sales totted up by various firms.

It’s worth noting that floor modelers are not being counted as pedals, and their sales vastly outstrip tube amps again, as traditional amps continue to struggle.

So, what of the stompboxes? Well, Boss has been named as the best-selling pedal brand of the year, with Electro-Harmonix, MXR, and TC Electronic directly behind.

Honorable mentions go to Xotic and Fender, who hold up the rear, having released a five-star rated booster and affordable challengers to Peterson and Boss’s thrones. But there's no spot in the top 20 for Marshall, which dropped a debut series of amp-in-a-box pedals at the start of the year.

The bestselling pedal that’s new to 2025 goes to the MXR Rockman X100. The revolutionary headphone amp, championed by Joe Satriani, Phil Collen, and Boston (the band, not the city), has seen Tom Scholz’s design reimagined in stompbox form. It proves ’80s guitar tone nostalgia has well and truly captured guitarists’ imaginations this year.

MXR also sits in second place with the MB301 Bass Synth, while JHS' schematic fumble clearly didn't hurt sales figures as the now-discontinued Notadümblë sits in third.

Of overall pedal sales for 2025, a collaborative pedal, EHX/JHS’s Nano Lizard Queen Octave Fuzz, takes top spot. TC Electronic's PolyTune 3 Mini and Boss GE-7 Equalizer, two fairly unglamorous but hugely useful pedals, trail closely behind, and last year's best seller, the IK Multimedia TONEX One, falls to fourth.

Joe Bonamassa's Way Huge Klon copy, the Deep State, is the best-selling signature stompbox, ranking sixth with Jack White's JHS x Third Man Hardware Troika delay – a later release – and the Jackson Concorde-inspired version of Randy Rhoads MXR SE Distortion+ pedal placed 9th and 18th.

But what about second-hand sales? Interestingly, the Line 6 HX Stomp, which escapes modeler categorization, races into first place, with the MXR M169 Carbon Copy Analog Delay and Boss BD-2 Blues Driver also on the podium.

See Reverb for the full rankings.

With a fast-tracked career into music – from her upbringing in Brazil to performing alongside the likes of Adam Lambert, Willow Smith, and Avril Lavigne among many others – bassist Pops Magellan has an enviable résumé.

Yet for all her experience as a sidewoman, it’s now as a bandleader in her own right that she looks set to make her most personal musical statement to date.

“I love playing bass with other artists,” says Magellan. “It just felt like it was time for me to also commit to my own music.”

Recognised for her versatility and groove, it’s Magellan’s more lyrical approach that comes to the fore on her new solo EP Damage. Featuring a few of the talents from her session career, but with an emphasis on collective creativity and a shared musical experience – not as a showcase for blazing bass skills – Magellan has tapped into her strengths as a modern groove master.

“The bass guitar drives everything, but it’s not the main focus for me when I’m writing songs or leading a band. Then I think it pays to be more strategic, because it’s an instrument that glues everything together.”

What inspired the new EP?

It's really a combination of my life experiences and everyone who’s ever inspired me. All of my baggage is connected to my music.

What's been the biggest learning curve?

I was used to being booked for a gig, learning the material, preparing for a tour, or coming up with a bassline for a session, but as a solo artist there are different things to think about.

When I played my debut show at the Baked Potato I barely had time to focus on my bass playing. I was thinking about leading the band, and talking to the audience, but I don’t say that as a negative thing. My brain was just wired to do things in a certain way, and I love challenging myself.

Another big lesson was learning how to ask for help and letting other people be a part of the process.

How often do you practice?

It depends. I do so much work on a computer nowadays that I don't practice as much as I used to. I make sure I spend at least one hour each day in my studio, even if it’s just sitting down with my bass or coming up with a new idea.

What do you remember about filming at EastWest Studios?

It was an amazing experience, but still challenging. I’d put myself in a situation where I had to plan and direct the entire session. I guess that’s when I really understood what it meant to be a solo artist.

I also got to play with some amazing musicians. That’s Taylor Graves playing on Misunderstood. He also recorded on the EP, but for the live session it felt even better.

His solo was an amazing moment. And there was also Art Menezes on guitar, Curtis Crump, Laila Annelle, and Robert ‘Sput’ Searight. To watch these guys walk into the studio to play on my songs was just crazy.

Are you the type of person who spends hours going for that perfect take?

There's really no such a thing as the perfect take. There might be a take where you feel the magic happens, and all the technical aspects align, but there's always something you could do differently. I was just lucky to get to work with amazing people for that session.

What bass gear did you use for the EastWest session?

I played my Mustang bass on two of the songs. That bass has Seymour Duncan pickups and Ernie Ball flatwound strings. I also used my Music Man StingRay for Drive Complaining. It’s one of their new short-scale basses.

Did you experiment with any effects pedals?

For the melody of Misunderstood, the bass plays the hook, but I put it through a bunch of effects. I don’t even know how to explain that approach yet, but it just felt like the right thing to do!

I wanted to create a bass sound for more melodic lines, so I experimented with different combinations until I found the sound I used for Misunderstood, Funk Karma, and Damage.

I’ve been using my Phase 90 a lot. I love how trippy it is, and it still sits well in the mix. I also love my Vintage Microtubes by Darkglass Electronics, my EBS Octaver and my Boss OC-2.

Is there a similar dynamic in your approach to session work and what you’re doing now?

The foundation is the same. The need for discipline and versatility, and the focus on serving the music never changes. The difference now is that I get to follow my instincts a lot more, and shape the whole vibe instead of just being a part of it.

What were some of the highlights from your session career?

I got the gig with Adam Lambert when I moved to L.A. We’ve played some incredible shows at places like Wembley Stadium, and Brian May was in the audience when we played the Royal Albert Hall.

I’ve also worked with Larry Braggs from Tower of Power, and Monte Moir from The Time. I produced Artur Menezes latest EP, I’ve been on the The Late Late Show With James Corden, and I was the resident bassist for Adnight Show when I was in Brazil. There have been so many gigs!

You used a 5-string bass with Adam Lambert, but on Damage you stuck purely to a 4-string. Why?

For all of my session work I would usually play a 5-string, just for the extended range, but for my own shows I prefer a 4-string. Playing a 5-string bass is a different world, but I feel way more funky with just four strings.

Who is your favourite bass player?

Larry Graham is a huge inspiration. I love how experimental and ahead of his time he was.

If you could pass on one bit of advice to aspiring bassists, what would it be?

Maybe it’s my Brazilian background, but I would advise any bass player to practice playing as many different styles of music as possible. You’ve got to be able to adapt and be flexible, which is something I’ve always worked on.

• Damage is out now.

Hello, and welcome to Guitar World’s sparkly new gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.

From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay abreast of every new launch that may be of interest to you.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.

Fender American Professional Classic

As far as launches go, the all-new American Professional Classic series is a pretty big deal for Fender. Superseding the outgoing American Performer range, this new lineup now serves as the company’s entry point into its USA-made guitar catalog, sitting above the Mexican-made Player II models and just below the American Professional II lineup.

Since this new series ushers in a significant restructuring of Fender’s US operations – and becomes the gateway to its California-made instruments – the American Professional Classic electrics and bass guitars represent a particularly interesting build proposition.

The objective here is that age-old ‘vintage-meets-modern’ approach, but it’s something Fender has tailored especially for its most affordable US models on the market.

Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters and Jags, as well as Precision, Jazz and Mustang basses, head up the line, which introduces new neck profiles, enhanced hardware, all-new pickups, and other modern refinements that have been strapped to classic-looking Fenders.

The Coastline pickups – an overwound version of the Pure Vintage sets from the high-end American Vintage II lineup – will steal the headlines, but the staggered tuners, rounded fretboards, and streamlined control layouts (which, in the instances of the offsets, can be reversed for more traditional setups) are also worthy of a shoutout.

A worthy successor to the American Performer range? That certainly looks to be the case – and the Strat impressed us in our early review…

Gretsch Electromatic and Streamliner Jet

A Gretsch guitar for just $189?! Yes please. Ever since I came across Gretsch's Class of 2025 Jet lineup back at Guitar Summit last month, I've been eagerly awaiting its official arrival. Now, the no-nonsense, frills-free, raw-and-raucous Electromatic and Streamliner Jets are here – and they are beautiful.

The highlight for me, naturally, is that $189 Streamliner Jet Club 1 Pickup. As a recent convert to the single-pickup hype, I find it an incredibly tempting proposition, and at that price point it looks to be something of a no-brainer (especially for someone like me, who doesn't yet have a Gretsch in their collection).

But the charm of the new range extends far beyond affordability. Take the top-priced Electromatic Jet (yours for $579), it has the bound body, the chambered construction with mahogany back and sides, the maple top, and a pair of PureVolt Twin Six humbuckers to put a hot, fresh twist on That Great Gretsch Sound.

Strymon Olivera

Having already cemented itself as one the gear world’s foremost effects pedal specialists with an array of hugely sophisticated and highly acclaimed medium-sized stompboxes – reverbs, modulations, and delays among them – Strymon has spent the past few years with its attentions firmly on the compact pedal market… and, shock, horror, they’ve all been brilliant.

The Olivera Vintage Oil Can Echo looks to be no exception. It’s been described by its maker as a faithful recreation of oil-can echoes, which were developed in 1959 by Tel-Ray as an alternative to tape.

Effectively, these effects were created by using a rotating can filled with a conductive oil. They delivered everything from dark and modulated repeats, to bright and spanky spring-style reverbs, and the Olivera does exactly the same.

There’s plenty of scope to curate some kaleidoscopic sounds here, it seems, with the Olivera offering space for up to 300 presets via MIDI or USB.

Harley Benton CLF-50E

We continue to be stunned by Harley Benton's ability to package borderline top-tier specs into downright absurd price points, and the CLF-50E – which is available in a bevy of contemporary colorways – is certainly no exception.

For just $250, you get a solid Canadian Sitka spruce top, which has been paired with something called sonokeling mahogany for the back and sides. It looks like a lot of acoustic guitar for not a lot of money, with plenty of additional appointments – including body and fretboard binding, and a slotted headstock among them – making them even more appealing.

Oh, and there's some onboard electronics, too, meaning it won't just sound solid unplugged, it can also be gigged. Very nice...

MXR Jail Guitar Doors Overdrive

This MC5-inspired pedal was designed by MXR in collaboration with Johnny Wator of Daredevil Pedals, and was originally released as a Reverb exclusive. Basically, it’s Wayne Kramer’s sound in a compact overdrive pedal with a control surface so simple that any punk-rock primitive could work it. One dial, crank it up, and you have the effect of two cranked 100-watt heads running in tandem.

What is going on circuit-wise is very clever, combining Daredevil’s Drive-Bi Dual Gain Distortion with the MXR Micro Amp in one housing. Turn up the dial and the gain cascades into the other with a wide-open EQ range, rich in harmonics, and all that good stuff. Just what you need to kick out the jams, mofos.

Also, it’s for charity, with proceeds from the sales going to the Jail Guitar Doors USA – a nonprofit founded by Kramer and his wife, Margaret, with Billy Bragg, that helps incarcerated individuals “heal and grow” through music.

Guild M-40 and M-50 Standard

We brought you news of some cheap acoustic guitars from Harley Benton, now here’s some news of a storied US brand expanding their lineup of high-end acoustic guitars, as Guild unveils the M-40 and M-50 Standard, a pair of concert-sized acoustics for pros and serious players.

We’re talking circa $2,699 street here. But we’re also talking all-solid builds, made in the USA. L.R. Baggs Element VTC acoustic guitar pickup systems are available as an option on what many players might consider the Goldilocks shape and size for acoustics.

More compact than a dread’, these are nonetheless powerful instruments, with forward-shifted Adirondack spruce bracing making notes spring off that solid spruce soundboard.

The tone wood recipe is classic. Spruce, mahogany, Indian rosewood fingerboards and bridge. The design skews classic, leaning into Guild’s heritage, with deluxe 18:1 open-gear tuners with cream buttons. There’s a C profile mahogany neck, a 12” radius fingerboard, the 24.75” scale, and everything you need for the home, stage, or studio.

D’Addario Players Choice Custom String Shop

You’ve heard of guitar custom shops, but how about string custom shops? It’s certainly more niche – in fact, D’Addario has launched what it is calling “a first-of-its-kind” online platform for custom string sets.

It sounds like a great idea, especially for those who aren’t content with regular 10-46 sets. Through the Custom String Shop, players can create their own custom string set, using any of D’Addario’s gauges and alloys, with no minimum order required.

Not only that, sets can be saved and reordered for smoother restocks. It’s something we can’t quite believe hasn’t happened before, but we’re thoroughly pleased it’s finally here.

Positive Grid Spark LINK XLR

Positive Grid's well-received guitar wireless system, the Spark LINK, has now been joined by an XLR version for singer-guitarists who want to take their performance completely wireless.

Admittedly, it might be rather hard to carry around a mic when you're busy strumming away, but hey, at least the Spark LINK XLR now gives you the option. And since it's the same tech behind the flagship Spark LINK, you just know it's going to deliver the goods.

IK Multimedia ARC ON•EAR

Mixing on headphones can be a lottery but IK Multimedia has unveiled a new piece of portable hardware that promises to take some of the guesswork out. The ARC ON•EAR “corrects” your headphone’s response and gives you a virtual monitoring solution that allows you to continue mixing your record any time, any place.

Helpful, for when you’ve been holed up in your home studio for months on end finishing difficult album number three, and you need fresh air, daylight, the sight of others to restore you to humanity. The idea behind the ARC ON•EAR is that you can head down to the coffee shop (or ale house) and fine-tune your mix, “virtually audition” mixes. This transforms your headphones into studio monitors.

The tech supports hundreds of popular headphone models, so unless your cans are particularly niche they should be supported.

“Finally hear the truth in your headphones,” reads the tagline.

MXR has launched the latest iteration of Randy Rhoads’ signature distortion pedal, which this time takes its aesthetic cues from another of the late guitar god’s iconic electric guitars.

For its previous Rhoads-honoring stompbox – the eagerly awaited, limited-edition Randy Rhoads Distortion+ – MXR elected to give it an appropriate polka dot chassis in the style of the former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist’s Polka Dot V.

That pedal, first teased in 2022, had been in the works for quite some time, eventually overcoming lengthy production delays that pushed the final release date back an entire year. A collaboration between MXR and Rhoads’ family, the pedal was produced after the latter unveiled Randy’s pedalboard for the firm’s design team to inspect.

The result was a Rhoads-honoring drive pedal, built with the exact replication of parts, which promised the distinct tone of the guitarist’s own MXR Distortion box. It launched to much fanfare, though swiftly sold out.

Now, the pedal is back, but with a new look, this time taking on the appearance of Rhoads’ iconic Jackson Concorde V – a sleek, angular, asymmetric build inspired by a shark fin design that was first produced as a custom model in 1980.

“I’m always working on something, though I don’t talk about it,” Rhoads’ sister, Kathy, had teased to Guitar World a few weeks back. “We’re about to release a second MXR pedal.

“I met with Jimmy Dunlop about two years ago, and we took Randy’s pedalboard out for the first time and did the first pedal with the polka dots. In September we’re releasing a second one designed after the Jackson Concorde.”

Rhoads’ Concorde is up there as one of the most iconic metal guitars ever made. As the story goes, it was designed in direct collaboration with Grover Jackson, after Rhoads paid him a visit at his workshop in Charvel HQ during some time off after the Blizzard of Ozz tour.

It launched the Jackson brand, ushered in a new era of pointy metal axes, and became Rhoads’ go-to guitar on the road, and would later receive a few tweaks following rigorous road-testing.

That guitar – and its master – has been honored with the new MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+, which ups the ante with gold knurled control knobs for its Output and Distortion parameters.

As per Dunlop, it has been "painstakingly spec'd from Randy's own MXR Distortion+", and comes accompanied by an exclusive collector's booklet.

The Randy Rhoads MXR Special Edition Distortion+ is available now for $189. Pre-order from Guitar Center (US) and Thomann (UK/Europe).

For more, head over to Dunlop.

What is it?

The synthesizer has undoubtedly made its mark on the lower frequencies of popular music, through decades of hit songs with iconic processed tones – a filtered, rhythmic gurgle here, a growling, distorted maelstrom there, and generations of bass guitar players have sought out the creative freedom that comes with a great synth tone.

Now, MXR has jumped into the market with its own bass synth, called… the Bass Synth.

Developed with session bassist, content creator and educator Ian Martin Allison, the Bass Synth is designed to circumvent the flaws Allison found in existing bass guitar-oriented synthesizer pedals.

Specs

• Price: £289/$269/€329
• Type: Bass synthesizer pedal
• Controls: Mix, Sub Mix, Cutoff, Resonance, Envelope, Mod rotary controls. Buttons for Voice and Shape. Preset selector button. On/off footswitch
• Features: Additional parameters for all rotary controls - Voice Mix, Noise Mix, Filter Envelope Amount, Glide, Amp Envelope, Mod Blend, Compression, Output Gain, Gate Sensitivity, Tracking, Dry Thru FX, Output Mode. Eight preset slots (pre-loaded with factory presets)
• Connectivity: Instrument Input/Output, external footswitch/expression pedal input, power jack
• Bypass: Switchable dependent on output mode
• Power: 9V DC, centre negative (330mA)
• Dimensions: 57x108x50mm
• Options: N/A
• Contact: Jim Dunlop

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

The pedal sits in a standard-sized, typically sturdy and well-finished MXR enclosure, a boon for anyone with a tight pedalboard.

A flotilla of six knobs control various labelled parameters, with two buttons along the top (for adjusting waveform shape, and bringing in additional voices), plus another at the bottom, next to the footswitch, for scrolling presets.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★☆

Here’s the kicker though - besides those marked on the control panel, each of the six pots has two further functions, accessed by turning said knob while pressing one or other of the buttons along the top. In total, then, there are eighteen different parameters hidden in the rotary controls - some serious adjustment. It’s hard to conceive of a synth sound you couldn’t find in here - given enough time to dial it in.

Helpfully, though, MXR has provided eight factory-loaded presets to get users started – and they’re all carefully-dialled emulations of classic synth bass tones through the ages. We’ve Thriller, we’ve Stevie Wonder, Nine Inch Nails, and modern EDM sidechaining. There’s even an emulation of Tony Levin’s iconic octave-down groove on Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer. Overall, there’s a good balance between mind-boggling tweaking potential and instant, plug-and-play gratification.

I ran my passive Yamaha BB five-string into the pedal then straight into a power amp, uncoloured by preamps or external effects - though I’m sure a huge amount of fun can be had in experimenting with the Bass Synth alongside various combinations of other pedals.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

Turning the Cutoff up from zero brings in the signal - from a cleaner and more traditional synth bass tone to an angry, distorted blare. Envelope and Resonance adjust the attack and tonality of the synth signal, while Mix blends the processed and dry signals and, importantly, Sub Mix brings in a punchy, lower-octave growl. The Mod control can mix between chorus and LFO to taste.

Above, the Voice button brings in a chiming upper octave. The other button, Shape, controls the oscillator waveform - dramatically changing the sound. Triangle is subdued, requiring careful dialling in order to be as impactful as the other settings. Sawtooth is far more aggressive, with a punchy, snarling edge, and Square can provide a huge, room-filling, distorted roar.

The extra parameters for each knob unlock masses of utility. A particularly important one for many players will be Amp Env., found by pressing the Voice button and turning the Envelope knob.

This adjusts the attack time of each note, and anyone seeking immediate, touch-responsive punch will want to back this off to zero, letting the note burst in immediately. Meanwhile, turning it up can be very useful for EDM-esque ‘ducking’ sounds, as heard in one of the pre-loaded settings.

Yes, those presets are useful, giving newcomers a starting point for tweaking, or even some ready-made tones to use straight away.

However, not all of them sound exact for the tones they’re replicating - cross-referencing with Allison’s excellent full-length demo (and performing a factory reset as a precaution), there are notable differences in some of the pre-loaded tones, including the much-vaunted ‘Thrillenganes’ setting modelled after Greg Phillinganes’s work on Thriller. This necessitated properly learning the way around those controls, though, so it’s not all doom and gloom.

Verdict

I’ll confess – my head span on numerous occasions when first attempting to bring the Bass Synth to heel, but it didn’t take forever to feel as though I was able to work productively with it.

Once set up and learned, the sounds are world-class. Most players seeking this sort of pedal, in this relatively serious price bracket, will want detailed adjustment over multitudes of parameters – it certainly offers that.

By its very nature, it’s a complicated beast, but MXR and Allison have clearly given thought to making it as intuitive as possible too. For those seeking truly in-depth control over their synth bass tones, it’s something of a one-stop shop.

Guitar World verdict: It's difficult to think of a synth bass sound that couldn't be achieved with the new MXR Bass Synth. It requires some dedication to truly master the art of dialling in your desired tone, but that's to be expected from something that provides such depth in such a small package.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Jim Dunlop

Bass The World

American Musical Supply

• Best bass effects pedals 2025: 11 of the best pedals for every type of bassist

Hello, and welcome to Guitar World’s sparkly new gear round-up, your one-stop-shop for keeping up to date with what’s been happening in the big wide world of guitar gear over the past seven days.

From new electric guitars to amp modeler updates, the guitar industry is never short of fresh releases, and it can sometimes be hard to stay abreast of every new launch that may be of interest to you.

To make things a little easier, we’ve put together an essential must-read guide that will cover the major releases, the boutique drops, and everything in between.

While the first week of July arguably didn't quite reach the heights of the June – which boasted the Line 6 Helix Stadium, Herman Li's first PRS signature and a load of new Squiers – that's not to say it's been entirely without some key product launches.

Laney, for example, revived Tony Iommi's 2012 signature amp to coincide with Black Sabbath's last live show, while DiMarzio released a Muscle T single-coil that could actually make you like Telecaster neck pickups.

Elsewhere, Hotone dropped a convolution reverb pedal, Dunlop re-engineered some picks that could potentially make you a better player, and Ibanez showed some love to the RG range. All that, and more, can be found below...

Laney Tony Iommi TI100 Limited Edition

Back to the Beginning (the title given to Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath's last live show) is set to kick off in a matter of hours, and to mark the occasion, Laney rekindled its partnership with Tony Iommi this week for the TI100 Limited Edition – a reissue of the pair's acclaimed signature amp from 2012.

Although 'limited edition' doesn't quite do it justice – only 50 will be made – it's nice to see the return of such an influential and beloved amp, especially as it has served as Iommi's go-to amp of choice for the past decade.

Iommi forged the sound of heavy metal on Black Sabbath back in the 1970s with a Laney amp. It seems only fitting that he should bring the curtain down on an epic live carer with the firm still by his side.

For more: Laney

Ibanez RGA Premium Series

Sure, Ibanez rolled out some new signatures for Lari Basilio, Joe Satriani and Josh Smith this week, but you'll forgive us for saying that the launch of the all-new RGA Premium series overshadowed them somewhat.

It's been some time since the RG catalog saw some love, but Ibanez has made the wait worth it with a set of exotically styled six- and seven-strings that look absolutely killer. Ibanez fans are falling head over heels for the RGA Premium axes, and for good reason: just look at them.

Expect elegant tonewoods, high-end specs, DiMarzio pickups and expansive switching options. The best RG drop in recent years? Probably.

For more: Ibanez

DiMarzio Muscle T pickups

The best guitar gear launches are often the ones that help solve a problem, and with its Muscle T set, DiMarzio is trying to do just that. According to the brand, the Muscle T neck pickup is looking to make Telecaster neck pickups popular, and remedy the perception that traditional alternatives are muddy, dull and lacking in clarity.

Yes, there will be some out there who love the Tele neck sound as it is, but for those who have been deterred from trying a T-type guitar for fear of a sub-par neck pickup, this will be for you.

DiMarzio says this one "retains all the dynamic response of a good early '60s Tele pickup but adds more of the glassy sparkle that Tele neck pickups always lacked". As a Tele player myself, I'm listening...

For more: DiMarzio

Hotone Verbera

The pedal market certainly isn't short of world-class reverb pedals, and while the Hotone Verbera may at first seem like just another addition to that ever-growing corner of the market, it's actually something different altogether.

Why? Well, while digital reverb pedals are most commonly algorithmic, the Verbera is a convolution stompbox: comparatively, it uses Impulse Responses, rather than algorithms, to generate reverb tones.

The Verbera ships with 120 reverb IRs (aerospace domes and cathedrals among them) with space for up to 1024 (so you'll never, ever run out of reverbs on this thing), and it can even be used to clone and capture user-generated reverbs.

To make things even better, it does still offer an algorithm reverb approach thanks to its dual-engine design, meaning you get the best of both worlds. The fact all of the above is packaged into such a compact chassis is mind-boggling as well.

The jury is still out this early on, but the Verbera looks like a huge shake-up in the reverb world. I didn't even know I needed another reverb pedal, but I'm now convinced the Verbera is the reverb machine of my dreams.

For more: Hotone

Crazy Tube Circuits Mirage Dual-Engine Reverb Workstation

Speaking of reverbs, Crazy Tube Circuits has launched a dual-engine reverb of its own. Like most classic pedals, it relies on a bunch of varied 'verb algorithms – 16 per engine – which can be layered, split, morphed, tweaked, and edited to create "deeply atmospheric soundscapes".

Here, it's all about stacking: the Mirage was designed specifically to tap into reverb layering, something that lends itself to some truly otherworldly ambient tones.

For more: Crazy Tube Circuits

MXR Synth Bass

MXR helped kickstart this pedal-heavy week with its Bass Synth stompbox – a pedal that, as its name suggests, offers a bevy of synth tones curated specifically for bassists.

Monophonic synth tones that hark back to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Parliament-Funkadelic are the order of business here, with the pedal offering analog-style sounds inspired by vintage funk hits by way of three different waveforms, additional oscillators, eight presets, modulation and more.

For more: MXR

Dunlop Flow Nylon Picks

The importance of choosing the correct guitar pick for your own individual playing style and preferences should not be underestimated, even if the humble accessory can sometimes be overlooked. Now, Dunlop has added another plecturm to the conversation with the Flow Nylon picks, which have been developed for "enhanced technique and performance".

Can something as simple as a pick switch make you a better player? Dunlop certainly thinks so: "We started with a custom blend of nylon that enhances the high-performance design of the Flow Pick shape. Its sharp tip will hold its shape when you dig in," it says, "allowing you to hit every note with precision while delivering the round warmth and smooth, quiet attack that nylon is famous for."

Not only that, the beveled edges have been re-engineered for enhanced grip and more fluid playing. I'd like to think I'd be shredding in no time with one of these...

For more: Dunlop

When the MC5's Wayne Kramer passed in February 2024, punk lost one of its greatest icons. Idolized for his explosive fretwork, gritty, defiant guitar tones and long-running commitment to activism, Kramer’s legacy can now live on in MXR’s new, limited edition Jail Guitar Doors Drive pedal.

The drive unit was designed by Kramer, Jimi Dunlop, and Daredevil Pedals owner Johnny Wator before the MC5 man’s death, and now finally sees the light of day.

The overdrive pedal is named after the late musician’s charity, which uses instruments as tools for inmate rehabilitation and “aims to capture all of the high-voltage energy of Wayne Kramer's sound.”

Built with two uniquely voiced gain circuits, the two can “cascade” together under a singular pot control that holds dominion over their collective output level and the distortion’s saturation. It’s no-nonsense – but that doesn’t mean it won’t bite your head off.

“This is the MC5's roaring distortion sound in a box,” says Tom Morello, a longterm Kramer fan and one of his closest friends. “What they've [also] tried to bake into the pedal is Wayne's attitude, and the grit and the rawness of Detroit, and of the MC5.”

For a super-charged example of what the pedal can do, check out MC5’s 2024 track Heavy Lifting, which featured Morello’s superlative, whammy-loving talents, and a healthy dollop of the Jail Guitar Doors Drive.

“The MC5, with him at the guitar helm along with Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, invented the template that became punk rock music,” Morello explains. “They played in an unapologetic way, from the heart with their radical politics at the forefront and their radical music going head-to-head with it.”

“The rawest moment in the history of rock and roll is that live recording of Kick Out the Jams [Tartar Field, 1970]. It unleashes itself like the four horses of the apocalypse running wild in a Beverly Hills crystal shop.”

That sound became the template for this pedal. The stompbox comes in two forms, each featuring artwork from artist Shepard Fairey, a well-known figure in the skateboarding scene, and the artist responsible for the Barack Obama 'Hope' poster.

It is not the first time that MXR and Daredevil have linked up, however. In 2023 the partnership instilled a gnarly fuzz circuit into the guts of Dunlop's legendary wah pedal, and the results were wild.

Priced at $199, the MXR Jail Guitar Doors Drive pedal is available exclusively from MXR’s official Reverb store.

Check out Reverb for more.

What is it?

As the founding guitarist in American AOR heroes Boston, Tom Scholz ended up penning some of the biggest melodic rock anthems of the mid-to-late 70s and 80s, etching his name in history with world-conquering hits like More Than A Feeling, Don’t Look Back and Amanda.

On top of that, he also trained at MIT as a sound engineer and ended up building the studios his band used to record, so it’s easy to see why the word ‘genius’ often winds up in the sentences describing him.

Following on from the success of the group’s first two albums, he founded Scholz Research & Development Inc. to market his bold inventions, which included the Rockman headphone guitar amplifier, designed to simulate the roar of his old Marshall heads at much quieter levels. It made history in 1982 as one of the first ‘amp in a box’ units to go into production.

Sometimes, however, things don’t always go as planned. Guitarists and producers quickly realised that the little black box could be plugged in direct to the board to produce crystal cleans and a mid-focussed kind of distortion, with its accentuated compression coloured by a glorious 3D stereo chorus effect.

It ended up becoming the secret ingredient for a lot of the arena rock dominating the charts at the time, most notably Def Leppard’s hit-laden Hysteria masterpiece. All these years later, MXR has reimagined the unit as a standalone all-analog pedal, bringing those legendary '80s tones into the modern age via our feet.

Specs

• PRICE: $229 / £249 / €279
• TYPE: Preamp and chorus
• MADE: USA
• CONTROLS: Mode, Volume, Input Gain, Chorus
• FEATURES: The same classic MN3007 bucket brigade chip found in the original headphone amp, plus chorus
• CONNECTIVITY: Input, output, power, foot controller
• BYPASS: Buffered
• POWER: 9 volts DC, 120 mA
• DIMENSIONS: (W x D x H) 60 x 111 x 32mm
• WEIGHT: 0.52lbs/0.234kg
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★☆

As you’d expect from MXR, there’s a robustness to the build that will ensure years, if not decades, of wear and tear on the road. With one area of caution…

The plastic faders to control the Volume and Input Gain could snap if dropped onto a hard surface or crushed underneath heavier items – but with enough due diligence, situations like this are unlikely to arise.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★★

It only takes a quick glance to see that the Rockman X100 is very user-friendly in design. There’s a button on the left to click through its four modes – CLN1, CLN2, EDGE and DIST – and then another on the right to engage the chorus effect.

There’s an additional footswitch input for anyone wanting to control the modes by their feet and also a stereo option when using a TRS splitter cable, meaning that the chorus will be spread left and right for a more expansive and wide-sweeping kind of modulation.

For our testing I plugged my Gibson Les Paul Standard 1958 VOS reissue into a Marshall Silver Jubilee combo amp and it really didn’t take much tweaking to end up in the same ballpark as Scholz himself, given that the early Boston albums were recorded with his modded 1968 Les Paul Goldtop Deluxe and a 100-Watt Marshall Super Lead.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★½

A lot of guitar players were experimenting with the Rockman in the '80s and '90s, from Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine and Judas Priest’s K.K. Downing to Symphony X mastermind Michael Romeo and even ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons.

Joe Satriani went as far as appearing in an advert for the Rockman Sustainor while supporting his Flying In A Blue Dream release, admitting that “the development of the Scholz Rockman has been a blessing for me”.

That said, one of the most obvious places to start when testing out a device of this nature would probably be the evergreen ideas from Def Leppard’s Hysteria bestseller. The CLN1 mode with chorus absolutely nails the spanky crystal cleans of the album’s arpeggiated title track, while CLN2 gives a more rounded tone closer to songs like Love Bites.

As for the higher gain modes, EDGE is perfect for hard rock riffing – there’s a certain mid-focus that’s very specific to the sound Scholz was dialing in on Boston’s earliest albums, even if the Rockman wasn’t invented until a few years later.

The DIST mode, unsurprisingly, is where the real tonal meat lies and packs no shortage of sustain and oomph, though it’s still very much voiced in a hard rock style than anything too scooped or metallic.

The amount of compression, tuned for slow release on clean modes and fast release on dirty modes, is controlled by the Input Gain level – which definitely adds to the overall versatility. You can cover a lot of ground here.

Verdict

It would be fair to say the X100 is very good at what it does – some might say even too good. Part of this can be attributed to the same classic MN3007 bucket brigade chip found in the original headphone amp.

It’s very much the real deal in that sense and while there are certain breeds of players who delight in highly processed and compressed 80s tones, there are also many others who dismay at the lack of dynamics in these distinctly rack-style sounds.

A classic blues purist, for example, is not going to have much use for a pedal like this – it doesn’t have the warmth or earthiness typical of that genre. Running the Input Gain at max will be a bit too bright for some – though, as stated in the manual) running the pedal in your amp’s effects loop can provide a “subtler high-end response”.

In that sense, the pedal’s USP also doubles up as its biggest curse, but it’s worth remembering MXR, who bought the Rockman brand from Scholz in 1995, have made this specifically for all the 80s purists wanting those world-famous tones on their pedalboard rather than the market as a whole.

The chorus is also very true to its era, though unfortunately there’s no way of controlling the amount – even something fiddly like a mini knob would have been a welcome inclusion here. There’s also some unwanted hiss and noise when running at high volumes, less so than the original units, but still enough to be noticeable.

Guitar World verdict: There’s no sitting on the fence with a pedal like this. It has more of a Marmite factor than arguably any other pedal you’ll find in your local music shop. Eighties rock fans, however, will be thrilled to finally have these tones in pedal form with a (comparatively) lower noise floor. For them, it’s the Holy Grail. For others, maybe not so much.

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• “MXR’s claim that Layers will ‘extend the creative potential of your instrument’ is absolutely right”: MXR Layers review

NAMM 2025: No need to be hunched over the Klondike, sieve in hand, scraping around in the sub-zero mud – there’s now an easier way to get your hands on some precious metal. Yep, MXR is launching the 50th Anniversary Phase 90, giving the iconic phaser pedal, beloved by Eddie Van Halen and countless others, a gold makeover.

We’re not sure how pure the gold is that MXR has used in the engineering of this super-shiny gold finish, but if electric guitar tones were measured in carats the Phase 90’s chewy swirl would be 24 – and then some.

This 50th Anniversary special edition might have a new look but the tone is very much early to mid ‘70s. You have one knob (Speed) that does everything you need. Just stick it on your pedalboard and you are good to go for the phase-shifting sounds that EVH used on Van Halen’s Atomic Punk, Eruption, etc. David Gilmour used one on Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, and this one will, quite literally, shine on....

It's set to drop on March 18 and they are limited edition, so you’ll want be quick if you plan to scoop one up. MXR isn’t saying how limited but you know what it is like with special run pedals, scalpers, and the eye-watering prices on the used market... Speed is of the essence.

If you are wondering where you have seen this before, in 2022 MXR did officially release a super-rare 50th Anniversary edition of the Phase 90 in gold. This, however, was only for its “closest friends in the industry”. Now, the Jim Dunlop-owned guitar effects pedal company has said, “it was too good to keep to ourselves”.

Script Logo, Block Logo... redesigned by Auric Goldfinger, we at Guitar World are huge fans of the Phase 90 in all its guises – our own Chris Gill even wrote a love letter to the Phase 90 and its impact on guitar culture.

It is compact. It couldn’t not be simpler to use. Its four-stage phase-shifting is one of those elemental modulation sounds that can be use in all kinds of different styles, and it has. Besides EVH and Gilmour, you might find it on the pedalboards of John Frusciante, Robin Trower, John Petrucci, Tom Morello, and many more.

If you have always wanted one but for whatever reason did not like the color orange, your ship has officially come in. The 50th Anniversary Phase 90 is available from March 18, priced at $200.

Don’t sleep on it; these gold anniversary editions don’t last long – EHX’s Big Muff Double Anniversary Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal sold out within hours of its release.

Keep an eye on Jim Dunlop for more details.

NAMM 2025: Earlier this month, MXR caused a stir when it all-but-confirmed it would be reviving the Rockman – the legendary headphone amp designed by Tom Scholz, which helped define the sounds of 1980s rock.

Now, with NAMM officially underway, MXR has lifted the curtain on its Rockman X100 Analog Tone Processor – a compact stompbox that hopes to channel the OG unit’s unmistakable tone into a pedalboard-friendly form factor for the first time.

News of the Rockman’s imminent return was met with much fanfare. After all, no other headphone amps were able to influence and shape the sound of 1980s rock guitar in the way Scholz’s revered gadget did.

First developed at the onset of the decade, the Rockman – created by Scholz of Boston fame – revolutionized the process of recording guitars directly into a mixing board, and was hailed for its unique sonic character.

Defined by its crystal cleans, harmonics, nuanced modulation and gritty drive tones, the Rockman was quickly picked up by a swathe of big-name players who put it to work on countless big hits.

While Scholz himself famously used it on numerous Boston cuts, the Rockman has also been utilized over the years by Phil Collen, Steve Clark, Joe Satriani, John Mayer and more.

“It was more than just a headphone amp,” asserts MXR. “With recording console connectivity and several tone tweaking features and built-in effects, the X100 became the secret weapon in the studio that would go on to define the polished, chorus-laden sound of 1980s arena rock.

“The MXR Rockman X100 Analog Tone Processor revives the signature sonic character of that headphone amp in stompbox form. Aided by veteran MXR engineer and SR&D alum Bob Cedro, the MXR design team captured the same crystalline cleans, crunchy harmonics, and shimmering modulation as the original.”

To do so, the Rockman features the same complex compression circuit found in the original, as well as four presets selectable via a mode button for a quartet of tones. These span crystal clear cleans to high-energy overdrive “perfect for easy, fluid lead tones”.

Under the hood, it also comes equipped with a MN3007 bucket brigade chip – again, the same that can be found in the original – while Input Gain and Volume sliders are in place for tone tweaking.

Some modern upgrades can be found, too, chiefly in the expanded connectivity: an off-board switch can be linked to the MXR for Mode switch – saving you from bending down and manually switching the Mode mid-song – as well as stereo configuration for varied and spacious chorus effects.

“The MXR Rockman X100 Analog Tone Processor brings the same rig-in-a-box tones that the original did – but this time, it’ll fit right onto your pedalboard,” MXR adds. “There’s never been a better way to capture the big tones and texture of the arena rock era.”

The Rockman X100 Analog Tone Processor is available now for $229.

Visit MXR for more.

NAMM 2025: In perhaps the biggest gear release tease of the year so far, MXR has confirmed it will be reviving the cult classic Rockman headphone amp in a new pedalboard-friendly form factor later this month.

The news was officially announced in a not-so-cryptic Instagram post from MXR, which gave fans an early look at the forthcoming stompbox. There was no direct mention of the word “Rockman”, but commenters – having been shown the unit's unmistakable blue slider-equipped control panel and iconic font – were quick to put two and two together.

The original Rockman was innovated by Tom Scholz of Boston fame in the early 1980s, and was hailed for its unique sonic character – one that became beloved for its crystal cleans, harmonics, nuanced modulation and gritty crunch tones.

The OG Rockman was released in 1982 and would help revolutionize the process of recording guitars directly into a mixing board.

“In 1982 there was no way to practice high-power rock guitar quietly,” Scholz once explained in a 2020 Facebook post (via Guitar Player). “What I needed was a way to get that maxed-out overdrive sound in headphones.”

Scholz’s resulting Rockman quickly found its way onto countless records, and was championed by names such as Phil Collen, Steve Clark and Joe Satriani, all of whom recognized its potential as a game-changing recording device. As MXR notes, it was “the sound of a thousand hits”, and was used by Scholz himself on numerous Boston cuts.

It is widely considered to be the first commercial amp simulator, a precursor to today’s multi-effects pedals, and still carries something of a cult status to this day. John Mayer, for example, dabbled with one to record Sob Rock.

MXR most recently reissued the Rockman template for a range of faithful headphone amps a few years back, but now the effects specialist has completely overhauled the unit in effects pedal form for the first time ever.

As such, the Rockman’s return as a conveniently sized stompbox that can be easily integrated into existing rigs has been met with much fanfare.

No concrete details have been released at the time of writing, but judging from the Insta clip – and an MXR Rockman manual that has apparently found its way online – the pedal will revive “the signature sonic character of Tom Scholz’s celebrated headphone amp and signal processor in pedal form”.

It will have four tonal presets, a calibrated compression for clean and distorted tones, and the same bucket bridge chorus effects as the original. It will also reportedly feature both mono and stereo modes, and sliders for Volume and Input Gain.

The official launch date for the MXR Rockman pedal has been slated for January 23, at the start of NAMM.

Head over to MXR’s Instagram page in the meantime for updates.

What is it?

MXR’s Layers pedal can freeze and sustain a note or chord, creating a sustained ‘layer’ that can be used to enhance and bolster notes or act as a pad that you can play over.

Pressing the footswitch takes a sample of your playing at that point, which will sustain until you release the footswitch. Alternatively, there’s auto-triggering via playing dynamics, with the Trig knob setting a threshold above which a layer can be triggered.

A Mix knob sets the level of the layer in relation to your dry sound, and you also get knobs to set the Attack (fade-in time) of the layer, and the Decay, which can be turned up full for infinite sustain.

Usability and sounds

The pedal supports three simultaneous layers that overlap with each other and their status is indicated by three glowing LEDs that fade in and out. Each subsequent layer replaces the oldest after the third layer has been captured.

A press of the Single button, however, keeps things simpler by limiting the sustain effect to a single layer – this mode works great in conjunction with the Trig knob to add an underlying or parallel layer of interest to each note you pick.

At its most basic, the pedal sustains your straight sound, but you can transform the sustained sound with its onboard effects, all accessed as secondary knob functions while pressing and holding the Single or Sub Oct buttons. You can set up delay, modulation (chorus, tremolo or a blend) and a diffusion amount that adds texture to the layer(s).

There’s also the possibility of adding a sub-octave to either the whole layer or just to its lowest frequencies for more clarity. All of this offers plenty of scope for building ethereal, ambient pads or delivering a creative twist to those single notes.

Besides standard mono you can run the pedal in stereo with three layers panned left, centre and right, or you can have a Dry/Wet split. You can also connect external switches to trigger layers, or an expression pedal to blend between two setting configurations.

Verdict

Whether you wish to thicken single notes or create drones and ambient textures (perhaps with three-note chords that your fingers could never stretch to), MXR’s claim that Layers will “extend the creative potential of your instrument” is absolutely right.

Specs

Launch price: $229/£249
Origin: USA
Type: Sustain pedal
Features: , tap tempo, dry kill, mono or stereo operation, dry/wet split, sub-octave, FX
Controls: Mix, Trig, Attack, Decay, Single button, Sub Oct button, Tap/Exp-CTR-Audio switch, internal mono/stereo switch, Bypass footswitch
Connectivity: Standard input, standard output, CTR input
Bypass: Buffered
Power: 9V DC adaptor (supplied) 300mA
Dimensions: 62 (w) x 110 (d) x 47mm (h
Contact: Jim Dunlop

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Let's face it – whether you're just dipping your toes into the bass and guitar world (pun intended), or you're a veteran with decades upon decades of experience, one category that doesn't discriminate is guitar accessories. Essentially, they're the cornerstone of every guitarist and bassist's toolkit.

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Every piece of quality gear means you can rest assured that – whether you're holed up in your studio writing and recording some sick tunes, on tour, or even just jamming with your bandmates in the rehearsal room – you can do your job without worrying about what's going to break in the next few minutes.

With the abundance of choices out there, it's sometimes hard to know which accessories to go for – and, most importantly, which ones are reliable and will last.

So, to save you the hassle of scouring for deals yourself, we've rounded up some of the best guitar accessories deals for Cyber Week – keeping quality top of mind.

Bonus!

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

The preceding quote is the introduction to Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Tale of Two Cities, set in Paris and London around the time of the French Revolution, but it’s also a pretty damn accurate description of the state of the guitar industry during the ’70s.

That decade is commonly disparaged as a depressing era when the industry’s leading manufacturers produced some of their worst guitar models, which is not entirely untrue, but it also was an auspicious period when exciting new guitar companies emerged and amp and effect technology rapidly advanced.

The decline of America’s biggest guitar companies during the ’70s was essentially a hangover from the over-ambitious reaction to the Beatlemania-inspired guitar boom of the ’60s. Hoping to cash in on the phenomenon, major corporations purchased America’s biggest guitar companies, with CBS buying Fender, Norlin purchasing Gibson and Baldwin taking over Gretsch.

Although the electric guitar remained massively popular during the ’70s, sales dropped rather steeply from the staggering heights of the ’60s peak. In typical corporate fashion, management typically believed that the accounting department’s cost-cutting measures were a more effective means of maximizing profits than investments in better materials, tools and craftsmanship, and quality took a hit as a result.

That isn’t to say that the instruments Fender, Gibson, Gretsch and others were making during the ’70s were actually bad. Many players who own ’70s guitars from these companies can attest that the majority are decent, playable instruments.

The problem was that distinctly superior instruments from the Fifties and ’60s preceded them by only a few years, so the quality drop-off was much more dramatic and noticeable in comparison. The much higher cost of a new instrument during the ’70s (even when adjusted for inflation) further increased musicians’ frustrations.

The silver lining of the backlash to corporate mass-produced ’70s guitars is that it opened up and nurtured numerous other avenues that offered players compelling alternatives to the status quo. Smaller independent companies emerged that proved that you still could make a guitar like they used to and even improve it.

Japanese manufacturers progressed rapidly from building quirky oddball guitars during the ’60s to producing affordable copies of classic guitars that were surprisingly good during the early and mid ’70s and developing their own original models built with passion and pride in the late ’70s.

The vintage-guitar market rapidly blossomed as guitarists became more knowledgeable and discerning, and replacement pickup, body, neck and parts manufacturers offered convenient and affordable means for players to upgrade their instrument or even build one themselves.

For the most part, the only products that experienced dramatic drops in quality were guitars. Electronic gear like amps and effects improved in general, and most innovations in these areas were developed with players’ wants and needs predominantly in mind.

Rapid advancements in integrated circuit technology led to inexpensive, compact effects like flangers and analog delays, and amp designers finally accepted overdrive and distortion as qualities to embrace rather than eradicate.

Thanks to the abundance of guitar-dominated music that prevailed during the ’70s, gear from that era continues to hold a special place in the hearts of guitarists today. Here is a look at some of the finest examples along with a few admittedly flawed specimens that still manage to charm us after all these years.

Guitars

Major-Manufacturer Beauties and Blunders

Gibson’s age-old motto was “Only a Gibson is good enough,” but during the ’70s that seemed to change to, “It’s good enough, ship it anyway.” The downsides of the corporate takeover of the industry’s leading guitar companies during the ’60s went into full effect during the ’70s as shareholders and cost-cutting took precedence over players and quality.

Some factors were beyond the companies’ control, like the scarcity of Brazilian rosewood after Brazil ceased export of the tone wood in 1967, which caused the price to increase and supply to dwindle, making less-costly Indian rosewood a new standard tone wood.

But the big companies also tended not to leave well enough alone, making many design and construction changes that were often unnecessary, puzzling and unwelcome – features like multi-layered or patchwork multi-piece bodies that seemed to be as much glue as wood, overall weights that tipped the scales at 10 lbs. or more, low-quality or non-optimal electronics, cheap cast hardware, inferior tuners that slipped, heavily applied polyester finishes and so on.

Many bolt-on-neck Fenders suffered from haphazardly cut neck pockets with gaps that were large enough to easily slide a heavy gauge pick into. Gibson guitars often had useful features that guitarists generally didn’t want or understand, like neck volutes, the TP-6 stop tailpiece with fine tuners and the oversized “harmonica” bridge, which weren’t actually bad but were just different.

At the same time, a sort of if-you-can’t-beat-’em-join-’em mentality inspired Fender to offer guitars with humbuckers and Gibson to start producing instruments with bolt-on necks and 25 ½-inch scale lengths.

Meanwhile, Gretsch decided to completely change the design of every guitar they made, which ranged from the decent (the 7594 and 7593 White Falcons, the 7670 Country Gentleman) to the hideous (the Roc Jet, TK300 and Committee, which actually seemed to be designed by a committee).

But like the winner of an ugly-dog contest, many of these models have found loving homes today. Some designs, like the Gibson RD Artist and Fender Lead series, were ahead of their time or simply too different from the classics to make an impression on players with staunchly conservative tastes.

Although luminaries like Ted McCarty and Leo Fender had left Gibson and Fender, respectively, before the ’70s, talented, visionary inventors were still employed by these companies, like electronics whiz Bob Moog at Gibson and legendary pickup designer Seth Lover at Fender.

Rise of the Vintage Guitar Market

In collector vernacular, a vintage item is usually something that is at least 20 years old. The irony of the vintage guitar market is that when it started to gain momentum in the early ’70s, the most highly coveted electric guitar models from the Fifties were barely in their mid-teens and technically were “used” guitars.

But thanks to high-profile dealers like GTR and Gruhn Guitars in Nashville, Norman’s Rare Guitars in Los Angeles and Mandolin Brothers, Matt Umanov Guitars and We Buy Guitars in New York, as well as a growing number of smaller dealers across the United States, the word “vintage” that they used to market classic instruments resonated with guitarists (although does anybody today refer to instruments from the ’90s as vintage?).

Numerous factors influenced a growing demand for vintage guitars during the ’70s, but the main driving force was the comparative decline in quality of new instruments as described above.

Ian Hunter’s entertaining and illuminating book Diary of a Rock’n’Roll Star also helped spark the vintage guitar fire during the early ’70s through his accounts of roaming pawn shops across the U.S. in search of classic American guitars and oddities while on tour with Mott the Hoople.

Rick Nielsen played a similar outsize role in stimulating vintage hoarding lust during the late ’70s, appearing on stage with Cheap Trick with row upon row of dazzling vintage and custom guitars on stands perched in front of his amp stacks.

In fact, vintage guitars were a common sight for concert goers during the ’70s. Jimmy Page, Billy Gibbons, Joe Walsh, Joe Perry, Gary Rossington, Ronnie Montrose, Charlie Daniels and Gary Richrath were just a few of the main players who fanned the fire for flame-top 1958-60 Gibson Les Paul Standards.

Peter Frampton’s triple-humbucker 1954 Les Paul Custom, Neil Young’s “Old Black” and Jeff Beck’s “Oxblood” Les Pauls may have been heavily modified, but they inspired lust for black Gibsons. Clapton with his trusty Fifties “Brownie” and “Blackie” Strats and Rory Gallagher with his battered rosewood neck 1961 Strat helped make “pre-CBS” a household word with guitarists.

Although 1958-60 sunburst Les Paul Standards soared to prices starting at $2,000 and up during the ’70s, most classic Fender, Gibson and Gretsch guitars from the ’50s and ’60s, including Les Paul Specials and Juniors, SGs, non-reverse Firebirds, Strats, Teles, Jazzmasters, Jaguars, Duo-Jets and 6120s, cost about the same or even less than a comparable brand-new guitar.

Custom Competition

The less-than-stellar reputations of factory guitars from major manufacturers during the ’70s opened up an opportunity for a new breed of custom guitar builders who could provide a higher standard of quality for customers willing to spend a little more for an instrument.

B.C. Rich, Dean and Hamer were the most prominent and successful small companies that emerged during this time to fill that void. All three companies shared high standards of craftsmanship and attention to detail while also offering bold, aggressive designs that appealed to hard rock players.

Located in the greater Chicago area only a few hours drive from Gibson’s factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Hamer and Dean both built guitars that were essentially copies of Gibson’s Explorer (Hamer Standard/Dean Z) and Flying V (Hamer Vector/Dean V) models but using higher-quality materials.

Hamer also made the Sunburst model, which essentially was a double cutaway Les Paul with a flat top, while Dean also produced the ML and Cadillac, which were like a hybrid of an Explorer and a V or an Explorer and a Les Paul, respectively.

B.C. Rich offered original designs such as the Eagle, Mockingbird and Bich with features like neck-thru-body construction, built-in preamps and advanced switching options.

All three companies built instruments for an impressive roster of high-profile artists, and the exposure and ensuing demand helped them expand their offerings to include less expensive production models by the late ’70s.

Japanese Imports

A growing influx of affordable electric guitars built in Japan arrived in the United States where they were promptly welcomed by players looking for alternative instruments. Manufacturers like FujiGen Gakki, Matsumoku and Tokai Gakki gained a foothold by offering models that were copies of vintage and current Fender, Gibson and other popular American guitar models, sold under various brand names like Aria, Ibanez and Tokai.

The irony was that some of these companies like Matsumoku were also making budget models for American brands like Epiphone at the same time, which were not as highly regarded as their copy models.

Ibanez was the biggest success story of this development. The quality of Ibanez-brand copies increased each year as their craftsmen meticulously studied every fine detail of vintage examples. Fujigen’s Les Paul copies quickly progressed from clunky bolt-on neck designs to set-in necks with long tenons like Gibson made during the ’50s.

Ibanez’s mid-’70s “korina” trio (actually made from Japanese Sen and finished with yellow hue that resembled korina) of Destroyer (Explorer), Rocket Roll Sr. (Flying V) and Future (their rendition of the mythical Moderne) looked cool, played well and sounded great, and – best of all – cost about the same as Gibson’s homely entry-level models.

These Japanese copies had gotten so good that the American companies pushed back by filing copyright infringement lawsuits, but Ibanez in particular was already one step ahead of them and was transitioning to their own original models by then. Ibanez’s Artist, Iceman and Musician models produced during the late ’70s were quite impressive thanks to all the knowhow they absorbed from studying the classics.

Acoustic Avenues

Although the C.F. Martin guitar company did not get snapped up by corporate ownership like most other large guitar companies during this era, they also experienced similar lapses in quality control during the ’70s.

More than any other company, Martin suffered the most when Brazil stopped exporting Brazilian rosewood in 1967 and they were forced to transition to Indian rosewood by 1969 when their supply ran out. However, the change to Indian rosewood was less of a problem than the increasingly heavy-handed building processes that Martin was using at the time.

Martin’s management determined that they were losing too much money from warranty claims, so they began building guitars with thicker braces and tops, heavier, more durable finishes and clunky necks.

The guitars were so overbuilt that you could probably use them as baseball bats without damaging them, but the sound quality was adversely affected. Just like with the electric guitar market, this led to increased interest in vintage Martins as well as an influx of low-cost Japanese copies.

Takamine made a huge splash with low-priced copies of Martin’s D-18 and D-28 dreadnoughts, and Alvarez-Yairi made higher-end copies for players who didn’t mind spending a little more. Yamaha also increased its market share significantly during this time thanks to aggressive distribution efforts.

It wasn’t all bad news for American-made acoustics though. Guild continued to make good instruments throughout the decade, and their 12-string models from the ’70s in particular are highly regarded.

Ovation introduced its first models during the ’60s, but the brand truly came to prominence during the ’70s as Ovation and their offshoot Adamas brand acoustic-electrics became common fixtures on concert stages.

Parts Is Parts

If you couldn’t afford a custom guitar from Hamer or B.C. Rich and didn’t want a Japanese import, another appealing alternative for guitarists was to build their own instruments using pre-made bodies and necks and upgraded replacement parts that had started appearing on the market.

This approach got a huge boost when Eddie Van Halen burst onto the scene in 1978 playing a black and white striped custom Strat that he cobbled together from scrapped parts and a neck and body that cost him less than $200. Boogie Bodies, Charvel, DiMarzio and Schecter were the leading sources for DIY guitar builders who wanted to make their own custom hot rods or upgrade their factory instruments.

Amps

High-Gain Heroes

Randall Smith’s Mesa Boogie amps featuring a revolutionary cascaded high-gain preamp design forever changed the guitar amp industry. The Mesa Boogie Mark I amp introduced during the early ’70s gave guitarists greatly expanded control of overdrive and saturation over a wide range of volume levels ideal for small venues and recording studios to large concert stages.

The tones of the Mark I were thick, luscious and sweet, providing a vast tonal palette, thanks to its reactive tone controls and optional 5-band graphic EQ and delivering a musical expressiveness that slayed the competition. The Mark II model introduced during the late ’70s was the first production amp to offer channel switching, paving the path for today’s multi-channel high-gain amps.

Master of Volume

By the dawn of the ’70s, Marshall’s 50- and 100-watt heads had become the standard for distorted hard rock guitar tone. The problem was that these amps could only achieve those desirable tones with the volume turned up to excruciating levels.

The introduction of the 100-watt Marshall 2203 and 50-watt Marshall 2204 heads featuring master volume controls provided a very attractive solution to this dilemma.

Although the quality of the distorted tone wasn’t quite the same as that of a fully cranked non-master volume Marshall, it still sounded very good and some players even preferred it. Hard rock got a lot crunchier and grittier during the late ’70s, and these Marshall master volume amps played a big role in that.

Solid-State Survivors

Solid-state amps had a bad reputation during the ’70s mainly due to the failures of early models developed by Fender, Standel and a few other companies during the ’60s. However, amp engineers persevered and by the ’70s a variety of solid-state amps that actually sounded good made their way to the market.

Standouts from this period include Gibson/Norlin’s Lab Series, which Dan Pearce designed with help from synth pioneer Bob Moog (who also developed the active electronics for Gibson’s RD guitars and various Maestro pedals). A Lab Series L5 became B.B. King’s amp of choice from the late ’70s though the end of his career, and a Lab Series was Elliot Easton’s main amp on the Cars’ debut album.

The Roland JC-120 came out in 1975 and still remains in production today. Its crystalline clean tone and hypnotic “stereo” chorus effects set a standard for solid-state tone that no competitor has ever really matched. Another noteworthy solid-state amp from the ’70s is the Acoustic 270, which was used by Frank Zappa and Pete Townshend.

Pignose 7-100

Although walls of stacked amplifiers ruled the concert stage during the ’70s, many guitarists used much smaller amps in the recording studio. One favorite secret weapon during this period was the tiny Pignose 7-100, powered by six AA batteries and delivering five watts of output to its five-inch speaker.

The Pignose can be heard on classic tunes that include Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way and Eric Clapton’s Motherless Children, and Michael Schenker prominently used a Pignose to record crunchy rhythm tracks and brassy, horn-like lead tones on several of UFO’s late-’70s albums.

Effects

Pedal Mania

Some cool stuff was happening during the ’70s in guitar and amp design, but the real action was taking place in the realm of stomp box effects.

Whereas pedal effects during the ’60s were mostly limited to fuzz boxes, treble boosters, wah pedals and the Uni-Vibe, a vast new range of effects became available during the ’70s, including phase shifters, flangers, chorus, analog delay, compression, EQ, envelope filters, octave dividers, ring modulators and more.

Dozens of new companies dedicated to building effects devices were established during this period, which greatly expanded the growth of the musical instrument industry.

Leading companies from this period included Coloursound, DOD, Electro-Harmonix, Foxx, Ibanez, Maestro, Morley, Mu-Tron, MXR, Roland/Boss, Ross, Seamoon-A/DA and Tycobrahe.

There are too many standouts to list completely here, but products of note include distortion boxes like the EHX Big Muff Pi and MXR Distortion +, early flangers (A/DA, MXR and EHX Electric Mistress), the Mu-Tron III envelope filter and mammoth Bi-Phase, the Boss CE-1 and CE-2 Chorus and the first Boss compact pedals (OD-1 Overdrive, PH-1 Phaser and SP-1 Spectrum), the MXR Phase 90 and Dyna Comp, Foxx Tone Machine... too much good stuff.

Talk Ain’t Cheap

Any discussion of guitar effects during the ’70s would be remiss to omit the talk box. The sound of guitarists bleating and barfing through their talk box tubes was heard on countless hits during this era, from Joe Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way in 1973 through Jeff Beck’s She’s a Woman, Frampton Comes Alive!, Aerosmith’s Sweet Emotion and Nazareth’s Hair of the Dog in the mid ’70s, full circle to Joe Walsh with the Eagles on Those Shoes in 1979.

Devices like Kustom’s “The Bag,” the Heil Talk Box, Dean Markley Voice Box and Electro-Harmonix Golden Throat made this effect accessible to the masses, but it didn’t really catch on beyond professional stages and studios due to the complex setup and requisite commitment.

Tape Echo

Stand-alone tape echo units were available throughout the ’60s, but the effect really didn’t catch on until the ’70s as the capabilities of units produced then had greatly expanded. The game-changer was the Maestro EP-3 Echoplex, a solid-state unit that offered a sound-on-sound mode that provided cool looping and layering effects, such as the effects created by Brian May on Queen’s Brighton Rock. The EP-3 was relatively road-worthy and reliable, and soon it became a fixture in many performing guitarists’ rigs.

Roland offered worthy competition to the Echoplex with its Space Echo series tape delay units. Many players found the sound quality of the Space Echo delay effects more refined and polished, and Space Echo models with built-in reverb became a de rigueur studio tool for dub producers in Jamaica. The Space Echo can also create trippy psychedelic pitch bend effects when the speed control is manipulated.

EBow

In 1976 Heet Sound introduced the EBow, an unusual hand-held magnetic string driver that produces infinite string vibration (at least until the battery wears down or the user’s wrist goes numb) to mimic bowed strings, horns, woodwinds, synths, elephants, seagulls and angry wives.

In some ways it’s an instrument all unto itself, which explains why Heet Sound never stopped making the things. The EBow is a cheap, fun and creatively inspiring device – something that all guitarists can use more often than not. Buck Dharma used one on (Don’t Fear) The Reaper, and you really can’t get more ’70s than that without a mustache and white satin jumpsuit.

Accessories

Replacement Pickups

One of guitarists’ biggest beefs about guitars made by Fender and Gibson during the ’70s was that the pickups either didn’t have the sonic richness and expressiveness of vintage pickups or the output was too weak.

DiMarzio was one of the first companies to address this concern by offering their vintage-voiced PAF and high-output Super Distortion humbuckers and Fat Strat, SDS-1 and Pre-BS Tele single coils. Seymour Duncan made pickups for Mighty Mite before setting up shop under his own name, and Bill Lawrence made pickups that were used by Joe Perry and Brad Whitford with Aerosmith.

Red Rhodes’ Velvet Hammer pickups also enjoyed a devoted cult following. These pickups offered an inexpensive and effective means for significantly improving a guitar’s tone, something guitarists truly needed during the ’70s.

Strobe Tuners

In this day and age where one can download a chromatic tuner for free as a phone app, it’s hard to imagine how guitarists coped with primitive devices like tuning forks and pitch pipes to tune their instruments. Strobe tuners existed before the ’70s, but they were bulky, expensive tube-driven beasts that weren’t especially convenient for bands playing at Mom’s Beer and Boobs Emporium.

Compact strobe tuners like the Conn StroboTuner ST-11 and Peterson Model 420 (heyyy, maaaan!) may have still been a bit too costly for the average garage band, but they quickly proliferated in recording studios and touring rigs, paving the way for affordable tuners that emerged during the ’80s.

MXR has continued its signature stompbox hot streak by releasing a Yngwie Malmsteen overdrive pedal.

The effects firm’s latest drive pedal is the result of a close collaboration with the Swedish guitar maestro, and has been “perfectly tailored” to enhance the full throttle neoclassical shred skills that Malmsteen is known for.

Given the sheer volume of notes that the Fender Stratocaster loyalist barrels his way through every time he plays the electric guitar, top-tier clarity and dynamics – especially at high gain – are imperative to prevent a slurry of indistinguishable notes.

To that end, the MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive utilizes a circuit that promises clarity, expressive dynamics and rich harmonics, which are optimized for fast arpeggios and dense vibratos.

It’s a fairly simple pedal, with just Level and Gain parameters, a single bypass footswitch and a red finish. If anything, at first glance, it looks awfully similar to his old Fender signature overdrive pedal, which, until as recently as 2022, has been the only overdrive that featured on the neoclassical shredder’s pedalboard.

As such, it seems this MXR variant will usurp the Fender pedal as Malmsteen’s overdrive of choice and, as someone who’s not known for his enthusiastic and comprehensive usage of drive pedals, will use the MXR as the foundation of his tone.

All in all, it looks like a pedal that will cater to not just Ynwgie fans, but also those who are hunting for an especially dynamic drive. For Malmsteen, the broader appeal of his newest signature product is clear.

“This pedal is the culmination of 45-plus years developing a sound that’s perfect in every possible way,” he says. “I present to you: the MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Overdrive. Prepare to be amazed.”

The Yngwie Malmsteen overdrive pedal is available now for $129, and is available in an exclusive yellow finish from Sweetwater.

Head over to MXR to find out more.

In other MXR news, the company recently launched its long-delayed Randy Rhoads Distortion+ and unveiled its wild Layers soundscaping pedal.

MXR’s much-anticipated Randy Rhoads Distortion+ pedal may have finally arrived after numerous delays, but now the pedal firm is showcasing a different side of its tonal repertoire with the new Layers pedal – a wide-ranging soundscaping multi-tool.

Described as an open-ended creative tool that will “expand your instrument’s creative potential”, it promises a “fresh perspective on sustain” through its host of customizable sounds, laying everything from ambient pads to interstellar chord voicings and stacked harmonies at the feet of pedal-loving players.

The pedal is capable of stacking three layers of sustain, with each coming with its own status LED light. Pressing the Single button does away with the dense layering for a simpler output, while engaging the footswitch will create a new layer.

The nifty creation will sustain the last note or chord played before the footswitch is pressed down. Double-tapping the footswitch will turn off the blanketing effect.

A Trig knob adjusts the auto-trigger sensitivity of the pedal. Rotating the knob increases its sensitivity to a player's attack, and the mode can be used in conjuction with the footswitch layering feature.

Located at the top left of the pedal, the Mix knob controls the volume of the layer effect, with the dry signal present even if the setting is maxed out. The fade-in time of each layer can be adjusted via the Attack control for an instant hit or a dramatic swell, while a Decay feature rounds out the quartet of knobs.

Here, players can adjust the length of each layer from short to infinite. High frequencies will decay faster than low frequencies, with a layer sustained for as long as the footswitch is pressed. The decaying will begin once the footswitch is released, as per the dialed-in setting.

Lastly, a Sub Oct button bestows each subsequent layer with a sub-octave effect once it has been pushed. When disengaged, it will persist on the affected layers.

Mono, stereo, and wet/dry modes are available, and its offerings can be further diversified with the addition of external tap tempo, keyboard sustain, and expression pedals.

With its brand new Layers pedal, which comes in the firm’s usual pedalboard-friendly-sized housing, MXR encourages users to “build richly detailed soundscapes that elevate musical expression to new heights.

“Pull off chord voicings you never thought possible, compose transcendent melodies, orchestrate harmonic ensembles, create lively stereo pads, and more,” it continues.

We imagine it would be easy to get lost in the ethereal possibilities presented by the pedal, which, for all intents and purposes, looks to be a worthy spiritual successor to the fan favorite Freeze pedal.

Other recent and notable MXR releases include the Joshua Ambient Echo, a delay pedal that makes a not-so-subtle nod to The Edge's classic Joshua Tree tones.

The MXR Layers pedal is available now and costs $219.99.

Head to MXR to explore the pedal in greater detail.

The highly anticipated MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+ has finally been released, and it pays tribute to the revolutionary electric guitar player who merged classical-inspired pieces with super-saturated riffs.

The distortion pedal finally arrives after months of anticipation and a series of lengthy delays that pushed back its originally forecasted release date by a year.

First teased in December 2022, the Distortion+ fell into obscurity until January this year, when it was announced the pedal was still in the pipeline. A further development earlier this month finally gave it its long-awaited release date.

At the time, Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio – Randy’s sister, who was closely involved in the project – called the process “a long journey and a labor of love”, with the stompbox now finally coming to fruition after years of development.

The pedal was crafted after the late guitarist's family unveiled Randy’s pedalboard for the MXR design team to inspect. This in-depth analysis took place at the Musonia School of Music – the family’s music school in Los Angeles – and lead to the exact replication of the parts that could be found in Rhoads' original Distortion+.

It was there that “the engineers painstakingly spec'd Randy’s vintage Distortion+” to reproduce Rhoads' signature tone, collaborating with Rhoads' sister on the design.

In terms of the specs, the small-footprint pedal features two knobs – output and distortion – and a true bypass footswitch.

Despite its outward simplicity, it promises to recreate “the overdriven tube-like tones” associated with Rhoads. As fitting for such a pedal, the custom finish is inspired by the guitarist's black and white polka dot Flying V.

“I was really blown away by how Randy Rhoads' guitar sounded, how great of a guitar player was. [With Ozzy] I was expecting someone like Tony Iommi, more traditional, more like Black Sabbath,” comments Kirk Hammett in a Dunlop interview accompanying the release.

“But he had had this classically-influenced style that wasn't overtly classical. He was using all the latest guitar techniques, and he was able to incorporate all this into his sound and really just make it his own.”

The Ozzy Osbourne guitarist's “chip pan” pedalboard was stored in a flight case and featured at least eight switches and nine control knobs, but what they exactly controlled remained an enigma. However, the MXR Distortion+ was key to his tone and remained one of his staples throughout his career.

42 years after his passing, the MXR team was granted access to the pedalboard, after which it was returned to a secure location. These extra measures were taken because Musonia was broken into in 2019, with several of Rhoads' instruments and memorabilia stolen.

MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+ is now available for $169.99.

For more information, head to Dunlop.

An August 20 release date has been set for the eagerly awaited release of the new Randy Rhoads signature MXR Distortion+ pedal.

The pedal, created after Rhoads' legendary “chip pan” pedalboard was opened for the first time in 40 years and dissected by the MXR boffins, has faced a series of delays since it was announced in December '22.

It was in January this year, after an initial 2023 launch date was slated, that we got a further update. Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio, Randy’s sister, had asked fans to “hang on tight”, with the pedal delayed until late spring, which has since come and gone.

At long last, then, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

“I am so excited about this project from Dunlop,” Kathy says in a fresh Instagram post. “It was a ‘hands-on’ project for me as I was able to personally help [the] design. It’s been a long journey and a labor of love. I can’t wait to hear everyone’s reaction. I think you will all be amazed.”

She added that there will be “some surprises as well”, with a pedal that former Machine head guitarist and Rhoads devotee Phil Demmel also had a hand in crafting.

In terms of new information beyond the release date, there isn’t anything to get too excited about – save the tease of surprises – but having that alone feels triumphant.

How long the project has been in the works by this point is hard to say, with Kathy saying she'd been collaborating with MXR "for quite some time" back in 2022. But if the MXR tone gurus have been able to carefully prise the secrets out of Rhoads' mystical pedalboard and recreate it for a production pedal, it will be worth the wait.

The Ozzy Osbourne guitarist is known for his signature Jackson V and love of Marshall amps, but his chip pan ’board is arguably just as notorious.

An MXR Distortion+ sat at the heart of the chip pan’s signal chain and was a key player in sculpting his hugely influential guitar tone.

The ’board was stored in a flight case and featured, at the very least, eight switches and nine control knobs, but what exactly they all operated has forever been a mystery.

Four decades after the guitarist’s passing, MXR was granted a peek behind the tonal iron curtain to aid the genesis of the new pedal.

Rhoads D’Argenzio says the pedalboard was returned to a "secured location," after its scrupulous inspection, rather than its former Musonia home.

Musonia, the North Hollywood, California music school, and Randy Rhoads museum founded by the guitarist's mother, Delores, was broken into in 2019. Several of Rhoads' instruments, plus photos and memorabilia were stolen, prompting the pedalboard’s new, hush-hush location.

Thankfully, all the missing items were eventually retrieved and returned to Rhoads' family.

Stay tuned for more updates about the long-awaited MXR Distortion+ over the next few weeks.

The period between 1973 and 1975 was a significant phase for pedal effects as numerous phase shifters ideal for gigging guitarists emerged on the market.

A handful of great-sounding but bulky units were introduced previously, like the Uni-Vibe and Maestro PS-1A, but this era saw the introduction of numerous guitar-friendly devices.

These included the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone, the Maestro MPS-2 Mini-Phase and its identical counterpart the Oberheim P-100 Phasor, the dazzling, sophisticated Mu-Tron Bi-Phase and scaled-down Mu-Tron Phasor, the Ace Tone LH-100 Stereo Phasor, Roland’s terrifying trio of the AP-2 Phase II, AP-5 Phase Five and AP-7 Jet Phaser and possibly a few others.

Most of these effects have come and gone, with the exception of the EHX Small Stone and this article’s topic of discussion – the legendary MXR Phase 90. 

Introduced in 1974, the MXR Phase 90 was certainly the smallest and arguably the simplest phaser pedal of its time, which accounted for much of its success and subsequent longevity. 

Housed in a small diecast Bud box that easily fitted into a guitar case’s accessory compartment, the Phase 90 could easily withstand nightly abuse from stacked-heel platform boots without tripping up the guitarist’s snazzy dance steps.

Getting a good sound was easy: just dial the pedal’s solitary control (Speed) to the desired sweep rate and kick out the jams.

Like the Small Stone, the Phase 90 features four-stage phase shifting, but because they each used different methods and circuits for varying resistance to create the phase-shifting effect they sound quite different, with the Phase 90’s effect being subtler.

The Small Stone also offered a wider speed range and a Color switch, but many players out there prefer the Phase 90’s “less is more” functionality and its highly musical personality. 

Most vintage pedal collectors note that there is a difference between the early “script logo” and later “block logo” Phase 90s, which is partially true, although there was a crossover period where some block logo pedals got script logo circuit boards and vice versa, so a later script logo pedal may actually not be what it’s hoped to be.

The phase effect tends to be thicker, brighter and more pronounced on the block logo versions, but both versions deliver desirable Uni-Vibe/rotary-style effects at faster speeds and highly expressive shifting textures at slower speeds. Placing an overdrive or distortion box in front of a Phase 90 can also make the phasing effect more pronounced, if desired.

The list of MXR Phase 90 users over the last five decades is long and quite illustrious. It was, of course, a vital element of Eddie Van Halen’s sound, particularly on many of his solos including Eruption, but also as a sound effect on songs like the intro to Atomic Punk. 

Steve Hackett was one of the earliest users as heard on mid-’70s albums by Genesis, and David Gilmour famously plugged into a Phase 90 on Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album, most notably on Shine On You Crazy Diamond (either in tandem with a rotating speaker effect or without, as heard around the 7:30 mark) and Have a Cigar. 

Robin Trower used one on stage for a while to replace his aging Uni-Vibe, and Steve Jones recorded tandem rhythm tracks each processed with Phase 90 to provide the snotty, snarling power chords of Anarchy in the UK.

More recent users include Muse’s Matt Bellamy, John Frusciante, Dave Grohl, Josh Homme, John Petrucci and dozens of others.

Suggested settings

EVH solo
Speed: Between 2 to 3 (or 9 to 10 o’clock)
Tip: Ed’s original Phase 90 was a script version from 1974 with a subtler effect than later block logo versions. If you have an EVH Phase 90 pedal, use the script setting. 

Hendrix/Trower Uni-Vibe
Speed: 7 (or 2 o’clock)
Tip: Use an overdrive or distortion pedal in front of the Phase 90 to thicken the texture; a block logo version is best if you like extra-chewy, vocal-like growl. A Strat’s neck single-coil pickup sounds particularly gnarly.

NAMM 2024: MXR has announced its plans to revive and reboot its popular Il Torino overdrive pedal in the form of its latest no-nonsense pedalboard workhorse – the newly revised Gran Torino.

As far as drive pedals go, the Gran Torino is relatively modest in its operation, though the effects pedal specialist does stress that this humble stompbox is enough to “enrich the natural sound of your rig with the warm, organic sound of classic tube amps”.

Now, it’s not been confirmed whether this is a like-for-like recreation of the now-discontinued Il Torino, and while there is a slightly reformed control layout (and a snazzy new chassis), the under-the-hood similarities suggest the Gran Torino is indeed a revival of the beloved drive box.

At its core, the Gran Torino once again recruits MOSFET tech in an attempt to harness tube preamp gain structures, which in turn aim to deliver greater dynamic response and touch sensitivity.

The controls have been tweaked, though, if only for appearances. While the Il Torino – which was designed by guest Custom Shop engineer Carlos Sorasio in 2014 – had Treble, Mid and Bass knobs, the Gran Torino instead opts for Hi, Mid and Lo.

This time out, there are also Volume and Gain parameters, which have been drafted in to replace the Il Torino’s own Master and Gain knobs.

Of course, these can all be expected to perform identical functions, and as such the parameter name change looks to be nothing more than a rudimentary refresh. In other words, it looks like the Gran Torino will still steer players to those cherished Il Torino tones.

That much will be aided by the return of the OD/Boost switch, which accesses the pedal's two distinct modes. The first offers “smooth, mellow overdrive”, while the latter is all about cleaner notes and richer sustain.

Other appointments worth noting include the Class A low impedance output driver to preserve signal chain integrity.

Of its latest release, MXR says, “The Gran Torino Boost Overdrive amplifies and enriches the natural sound of your rig with the warm, organic sound of classic tube amps, from clean boosting with rich sustain to smooth, mellow overdrive.

“Get the MXR Gran Torino Boost Overdrive for organic boosting and goosing that you can tweak to match any rig.”

It looks to be a pretty savvy release from MXR, which is clearly catering to those who have been clamoring for the Il Torino’s return over the past few years. However, here comes the catch: the Gran Torino is also limited edition.

That means, if you’ve been waiting for its return, you’ll have to be quick off the line to avoid missing out again.

The MXR Gran Torino will be available for $150 on May 1.

Head over to Dunlop to find out more in the meantime. To catch up with all the latest gear releases, head over to our NAMM 2024 news hub and live blog.

Tuned by Jeorge Tripps to deliver the sort of iconic soundscapes created by vintage rack-style processing, so says MXR, the Joshua Ambient Echo features rhythmic delays with an optional second echo, modulation, octave voicing on the repeats and tap tempo.

Its name, of course, is a not-so-subtle nod to U2 classic The Joshua Tree, so Edge-esque ambience is very much on the cards.

The new pedal is set up by default as mono in/mono out, but it can be switched to stereo output.

While there is the expected trio of Delay Time, Regen (Feedback) and Mix knobs, you can also set the delay time via tap tempo from the pedal itself or an external tap footswitch. 

A Division knob sets the rhythmic tap value of the repeats so you can have a straight quarter-note, dotted eighth note, eighth note, eighth-note triplet or a double delay with an eighth note and a dotted eighth.

Things get more complex if you engage the front-panel button that brings in a second set of repeats (Echo 2), set by default to a quarter-note but changeable to another value along with other adjustable parameters.

The upshot of all this is that there’s a great selection of multitap patterns to be found onboard, which can be used as prominent Edge-style rhythmic delays or as a diffuse trail of spacey, ethereal ambience.

Adding further to the sonic stew is a Modulation knob that moves from subtly dusting the repeats to rich pitch vibrato, while the Voice knob progressively mixes in a blend of three octaves – one down and one and two up – that thickens the texture of the repeats and can sound like a shimmery organ pad embedded in the trail. There’s also reverb that’s adjustable as a secondary parameter.

For performance scenarios, you can plug in an expression pedal to control all parameters simultaneously, or there’s also the possibility of using an external tap switch to freeze the delay lines at maximum feedback, giving you a bed to play over.

Verdict

The M309 Joshua Ambient Echo is a feature-packed pedal that belies its compact size. At its most basic, you can set the Joshua to its quarter-note division and use it like any traditional delay pedal, with the 50 millisecond to one-second delay times covering all your standard applications. 

While that confirms it as a practical purchase, it’s all the other features that make it an especially creative pedal, encouraging you to dive in and explore with a set of controls that will dial in an outstanding range of atmospheric, textural delays – all with onstage adjustment on the fly.  

Specs

• PRICE: $239/£269
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Delay pedal 
• FEATURES: True or Buffered (Trails) bypass, 50ms to 1000ms delay time,Atap tempo, stereo output (with TRS cable), adjustable low pass filter in the delay feedback
• CONTROLS: Delay, Mod, Voice, Regen, Division, Mix, Echo 2 switch, Trails switch, CTR mode switch, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard TRS output, CTR input
• POWER: Supplied 9V DC adaptor 250mA 
• DIMENSIONS: 64 (w) x 110 (d) x 50mm (h)
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

The eagerly awaited release of the new Randy Rhoads signature MXR Distortion+ pedal has been delayed until mid-spring. That means the pedal won’t be present at NAMM 2024, but Kathy Rhoads assures fans it will “be worth the wait.”

News of the delay was revealed by Rhoads' sister via an Instagram post, but she's softened the blow by offering our first glimpse at the pedal. It sees the iconic black and white polka dot design synonymous with the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist making a return on both the pedal's enclosure and box, while his signature appears on the pedal itself.

It was revealed in 2022 that Kathy Rhoads and MXR had been working together on the pedal "for quite some time". The project has seen MXR's pedal surgeons dissecting the guitarist's legendary "chip pan" pedalboard for the first time in 40 years as part of the pedal's research and development. 

Now Kathy has unveiled the design of the distortion pedal for the first time. Posting on Instagram, she says: “I personally got to design and choose every detail alongside Jimi Dunlop. I can honestly say how proud I am of the finished results!

“I am sad it wasn’t released at NAMM this year,” she adds, “but know it will be worth the wait.”

Her post also includes a statement from Jim Dunlop on the pedal’s delay, which reads: “Due to unforeseen circumstances the MXR Distribution+ is delayed until mid-spring. We know a lot of you are excited about this release and wanted to keep you updated. We want to dial it in just right, and we appreciate your patience for just a bit longer.”

Of MXR’s time with the pedalboard, a post from Kathy Rhoads on back in December 2022 stated: “Jimmy [Dunlop] and his team recently came down to check out Randy’s pedalboard. For the first time in over 40 years it was intricately examined, filmed, recorded and documented at Musonia. They have patiently awaited its return from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Randy always referred to it as 'the chip pan!')"

Central to the freshly-inspected pedalboard was an MXR Distortion+ pedal, which played a pivotal role in shaping his iconic sound, heard across Randy's much-too-short Ozzy Osbourne discography.

Much about the 'board has been shrouded in mystery. After it was ogled by MXR's researchers, Kathy Rhoads said it was returned to a "secured location," and not the music school and Randy Rhoads museum, Musonia, located in North Hollywood, California. Musonia was founded by the guitarist's mother, Delores. 

The change of tact is likely to have been made in light of a 2019 robbery, when thieves broke into Musonia and stole several instruments, photos and memorabilia. Thankfully, all the missing items were eventually retrieved and returned to the Rhoads family. 

A nosey in the comments section of Kathy Rhoads’ latest post also reveals that former Machine Head guitarist and Randy Rhoads fanatic Phil Demmel was involved in the pedal’s creation. His comment reads: “Proud to have played a very small part in this. So happy to see it happening.”

It’s unknown what role exactly he played, but we’ll now have to wait until mid-spring to find out the full story, as well as finally getting to see what footage of the 'board was captured on the day.

NAMM 2024: MXR has ushered in the New Year by debuting the Joshua Ambient Echo – a delay pedal that is said to deliver “atmospheric brilliance right out of the box”.

Though no bigger than some of MXR’s existing delay units, the Joshua Ambient Echo promises to offer a seriously impressive assortment of echo tones, from “psychedelic tonal trips to ethereal ambient rock”.

Indeed, the pedal’s mastermind has said the Joshua Ambient is so much more than just a delay pedal: “it’s a tonal recipe expertly concocted for those who seek atmospheric perfection”.

Whether the ‘Joshua’ in the pedal’s name has anything to do with  U2's The Joshua Tree – and, specifically, the Edge’s hallowed delay tones from that album – is unclear, but MXR does admit its latest stompbox seeks to recreate vintage rack-style units, as favored by the sonic architect.

With that in mind, it would be safe to assume these rack units are the same ones involved in The Edge’s pre-Universal Audio FX-heavy rig – especially when one considers (and listens to) the multitude of tones on tap.

As per MXR, the Joshua Ambient Echo provides a foundation of formative delay tones and textures, which can be navigated by way of Delay, Mod, Voice, Regen, Division and Mix parameter knobs. The above are joined by Echo 2 and Trail buttons.

In practice, the above gives you complete control over tempo and the number of delays, which can be pushed into ‘80s-era ethereal ambience thanks to Mod and Regen – parameters that in turn dial in modulation and adjust the echo decay, respectively.

The Division control navigates between five distinct delay divisions – 1/4 note, dotted 1/8 note, 1/8 note, 1/8 note triplet, and 1/8 note and dotted 1/8 note – while Delay dictates the tempo of echoes, from 50ms to 1000ms.

Other controls include the self-explanatory Mix, and Voice, which sweeps a blend of polyphonic octave signals, from -1 to +2. As for the buttons, tap tempo Echo 2 adds a second echo to the signal, while Trails allows echoes to gradually fade out after the pedal has been switched off.

The Joshua Ambient Echo also offers stereo functionality, expression pedal connectivity, customizable parameters and off-board tap potential. This all results in a pedal said to be capable of reaching “celestial heights”.

The MXR Joshua is available now for $240.

Keep your eyes peeled on Dunlop to find out more.

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of Zakk Wylde’s partnership with MXR, and as such, the pair have rekindled their partnership for a run of celebratory stompboxes.

In total, the drop is made up of five pedals – three of which have been released to spearhead the range – which each bring to the table a flashy new-look chassis to house some of Wylde’s go-to MXR effects.

In MXR’s own words: “Each of the five pedals in the series captures all the glory and hellfire that Wylde is famous for, from his legendary recordings and performances with Ozzy Osbourne and as part of his own band Black Label Society to his current run with Pantera.”

And it's true: in our complete rundown of Wylde's current gear list, every pedal that has been reissued as part of this series was accounted for.

It’s a rather select and exclusive lineup, which has been curated with the intention of providing players a broad spectrum of Wylde’s main sounds, spanning his Ozzy Osbourne, Black Label Society and, now, Pantera repertoire.

New-look versions of the MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive, Chorus and Phase pedals have been released first, with Wylde himself saying of this new launch, “They’ve been on my pedalboard forever. This is definitely all the ingredients I needed to make the soup.”

Each pedal pays homage to their predecessors with expanded throwback aesthetics. The Phase, for example, extrapolates the red-and-black buzzsaw design to cover the whole face. It’s a similar case for the bullseye-style Overdrive and psychedelic Chorus.

Aside from the new cosmetics, the pedals are identical to their forebears. That means the Phase has a sole control knob for Speed, while the Overdrive offers parameters for Output, Tone and Gain.

The Chorus is slightly more comprehensive – but still intuitive – with the presence of Low, High, Level, Rate and Depth knobs.

The pedals are yet to make their way onto Dunlop’s website, but they have cropped up on a handful of retailers, such as Sweetwater.

Price-wise, the Chorus is the most expensive new release, weighing in at $149. The Overdrive and Phase, meanwhile, have price tags of $129 and $119, respectively.

As we mentioned above, there are two more Wylde Audio Series MXR pedals on the way. What are they, you ask? The MXR Wylde Audio Rotovibe, and Zakk’s custom Cry Baby Wah.

Keep your eyes peeled on Dunlop for future Wylde Audio Series updates.

And now this: it is the overdrive pedal that has had more comebacks than Sinatra, the one that captures Billie Joe Armstrong’s fierce, effervescent pop-punk rhythm guitar tone in a compact, pedalboard-friendly housing, and it is officially back, again… Yes, it’s the MXR Dookie Drive.

This really was a surprise announcement from MXR/Jim Dunlop, or was it? After all, by our counting, this is the fourth edition of the BJA signature drive pedal. 

The first came in 2019, released to mark the 25th anniversary of the California punk institution’s landmark album, Dookie, and voiced to capture the electric guitar sounds on the recording. Then there was version 2 and version 3, each with revised artwork. And now, by popular demand, we have another.

Once again, version 4, if we are really calling it that, has a new design on the front, with an enclosure repainted in red. The controls – and the circuit – remain unchanged.

There are dials for Output, Gain, Tone and Blend, with a Scoop button for hollowing out some of the mids – a very popular move in the ‘90s, not least among the metal guitar crowd, but also for Armstrong. In his two-amp rig, one Marshall was scooped with the gain cranked, the other with more mids dialed in.

What made, or makes, the Dookie Drive so interesting is not just how easy you can dial in a tone – it is a bit like playing through two big guitar amps, running hot – but the versatility that comes by way of its Blend control, allowing you to mix the signal between the stack running at full throttle high-gain, and the other as crunch.

Now, by this point you might be asking yourselves, how many more times is MXR going to reissue this? Why not just add the Dookie Drive to the lineup and have at it? And you’d be forgiven for asking the question. 

But technically speaking, if you are not someone who did it all for the Dookie, so to speak, you could get the same sounds – the same pedal, essentially – in MXR’s FOD Drive.

Getting the sound of modified Marshall amp stacks and housing them in a compact pedal was quite the achievement. Little wonder MXR wants to get it on as many pedalboards as possible. And if you’re a Green Day fan, this new paint job is pretty killer.

The street price for this v4 edition is $199 / £219. For more details on the current MXR lineup, head over to Jim Dunlop.

MXR has unveiled the Hybrid Fuzz, which combines two classic Fuzz Face circuits in one pedal.

Fuzz Faces come in many varieties, but the biggest differentiator is which transistor crops up on the famed fuzz pedal’s circuit board. Germanium transistors are considered warmer and found in the first Fuzz Faces produced between 1966 and 1968, while silicon transistors featured after this point, and are considered spikier and higher gain – both variants are currently available to purchase from MXR parent company Dunlop.

The Hybrid Fuzz includes both transistors, and promises to span tones from ’60s psychedelia to stoner riffage. And boy, does MXR lean into the psychedelia in its trippy promo video above. We need a coffee after that to sober up.

Although the pedal only has controls for Volume and Fuzz, it retains the Fuzz Face’s sought-after ability to clean right up with a guitar’s volume knob.

Now, MXR isn’t the first company to combine germanium and silicon circuits – a number of boutique pedal firms have done the double in the past, including Spaceman and Wren and Cuff, but these all-encompassing efforts tend to veer towards the upper pedal price bracket.

Where the Hybrid differs is in its billing as a Fuzz Face variant, specifically – and its price tag comes in at a reasonable $169.

Decked out in a far-out finish from design studio One Horse Town, the Hybrid Fuzz is available to preorder now ahead of its release on June 26. Hit up Jim Dunlop for more info.

This pedal is the fifth from MXR with ‘Badass’ in its name, and the third of the compay’s ‘Super Badass’ pedals, completing a trilogy of dirt alongside the Super Badass Distortion and Super Badass Variac Fuzz. Based around MOSFET clipping diodes, it’s a basic three-knob overdrive pedal with Output Volume, Gain and Tone knobs plus a two-way toggle switch that gives you Cut or Boost. 

The Dynamic OD pedal sounds tonally most neutral and transparent in the Cut position with the Tone knob set close to midway. With the Gain knob set at minimum, you’ll get unity gain and clean sound around 11 o’clock, leaving plenty of knob travel for dialling in some clean boost that you can liven up by turning the tone knob clockwise from the neutral point, adding some crisp note definition. 

If you really want more emphatic tonal sharpening, then setting the toggle switch to Boost actually adds some gain and pushes the upper mids forward for plenty of extra bite.

Lots of boost options, then, with adjustable tonal flavour that will push an amp nicely into drive or add an extra layer to another drive pedal. But getting the Gain knob involved opens up loads more possibilities because there’s a wide range of drive available, from the light crunch of an amp just starting to break up, to well beyond that. 

The pedal actually responds very much like a driven tube amp and lives up to its name as a Dynamic OD. There’s a superb response to playing dynamics and the pedal offers really great clean-up with some guitar volume roll-back; you can (and may wish to) keep this pedal on all the time, controlling things with your volume knob.

At the top end of the Gain knob’s range, there’s quite a full-on sound, especially in Boost mode, with lots of harmonics and a touch of fuzz on the bottom-end. It can be as aggressive as you’d like it to be (it is a Badass, after all!), but the Tone knob works brilliantly in dialling back any unwanted fizz and adjusting the overall output EQ to sit with the rest of your chain.

Specs

• PRICE: $129 / £149
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Drive pedal 
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Output, Tone, Gain, Boost/Cut switch, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 6mA 
• DIMENSIONS: 64 (w) x 110 (d) x 50mm (h)

When a stompbox has Jack White’s Third Man Hardware logo emblazoned on its front, you know you’re in for a treat. Ditto storied effect pedal brand MXR. Now, the two companies have teamed up to produce a truly novel effect – the Double Down.

The new pedal, explains Guitar World Tech Editor Paul Riario, is “an inspired take on the original MXR Micro Amp, which incidentally is an absolute favorite of White‘s and is also an essential part of his guitar rig.” 

So what, exactly, is the Double Down? 

Effectively, the pedal is two Micro Amp pedals in one unit, with two outputs allowing you to use it as a one-into-two signal splitter. And since the Double Down is loaded with a pair of Micro Amp circuits, you get two independent channels of “classic MXR preamp gain.”

The unit features two outputs to connect the pedal to two separate amps, as well as two individual controls that can be used to dial in amp-specific levels of gain. “You can balance the volumes of two amps or push up to 26dB of signal boosting power,” Paul points out. There’s also a Phase switch for a stereophonic effect and a Buffer switch to select between true and buffered bypass.

But how does the Double Down sound? To demonstrate, Paul runs the pedal through two Supro amps, one with a fuzz and a chorus and the other with a reverb, and lets the sparks fly. You can hear for yourself in the demo above.

Paul’s verdict? “If you’re a gigging guitar player who uses a dual amp setup, the Double Down does wonders as both a signal splitter and a dual boost pedal.” 

What’s more, he adds, “Having two separate MXR Micro Amp circuits in a single box gives you twice the fire power to light up two separate signal chains with just the right amount of supercharged Micro Amp boost.” 

You can order the limited-edition yellow edition of the Double Down exclusively on Third Man Hardware’s Reverb store. Order the standard edition black pedal on TMH’s Reverb store and at Third Man Records’ webstore.

Jack White’s Third Man Hardware pedal company has unveiled its newest effects pedal – the Double Down, which was made in partnership with MXR.

Available in a standard and Reverb-exclusive iteration, the humble functional unit was inspired by the MXR Micro Amp – a favorite of White’s – and has been dubbed effectively two Micro Amp pedals in one unit.

Specifically, the Double Down is loaded with a pair of Micro Amp circuits, which grants users two independent channels of “classic MXR preamp gain”.

In an in-depth demo video, which also charts White’s previous Third Man Hardware exploits, the White Stripes legend says the Double Down was crafted in an effort to give musicians of all types a stereo version of the prized pedal.

“We want to make things that appeal to people from all kinds of genres, and a Micro Amp like that has a vast appeal to people for all kinds of applications," White noted. ”You could see people using this for vocals or some kind of stereo effect for instruments.”

The Double Down was also born out of White's own personal affinity for the original Micro Amp, which he estimates he switched to in 1997 after a hardware update meant the DigiTech Whammy pedal he'd been using as a de facto boost pedal no longer granted him his go-to sound.

In practice, the Double Down features two outputs to connect the pedal to two separate amps, as well as two individual controls that can be used to dial in amp-specific levels of gain. There’s also a Phase switch for a stereophonic effect and a Buffer switch to select between true and buffered bypass.

The Double Down is quite literally two Micro Amps in one, with the original featuring a sole output, gain level control and single bypass footswitch. Interestingly, the Double Down hasn’t doubled up on the footswitches, meaning the gain boost is either applied to two amps or it isn’t: there’s no option to boost one amp while the other stays neutral.

Ever the effects craftsman, White puts the pedal through various test rigs in the demo video, in which he can be heard sending one signal through a Bumble Buzz and Triplegraph to a Fender Vibroverb, and the second through a Plasma Coil and Flex to a Silvertone.

In another clip, White keeps one amp clean while boosting another through the Bumble Fuzz pedal. The results, as you can imagine, are quintessential White.

“I'm not big on the, 'This is the Jack White distortion pedal: get that Jack White sound,’” White went on to say. “I don't really want to sell that concept. I'd rather try to make something useful that other people can get their sound out of.”

Two different iterations of the Double Down are available. The standard version will be joined by a limited-edition yellow variant, which is exclusive to Third Man Hardware’s official Reverb store.

To find out more, head over to Reverb.

Ever since its introduction, the Analog Man King of Tone has been one of the most sought-after overdrive pedals on the market, so much so that if you want a new one you have to get on a waiting list – which, by some current estimates, is about five years long! 

The King of Tone is a double-channel pedal based on heavily modded circuitry from the Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal, each channel having internal DIP switches for a choice of Overdrive, Clean and Distortion modes. 

It also spawned a single-channel version, the Prince Of Tone, which has a top-panel switch for the modes. That pedal’s control surface is echoed in this new Duke Of Tone unit, which is an Analog Man collaboration with MXR, designed to give guitarists some of that King and Prince Of Tone mojo without having to get in line and queue.

The Boost mode is the equivalent of the King of Tone’s Clean mode and uses op-amp clipping rather than diodes. Here, unity gain with the Drive knob at minimum is around two o’clock, leaving some Volume knob travel for dialling in a clean boost. 

This mode is great for taking a clean amp just that little bit further because the Drive knob adds grit around the edges, all with great touch sensitivity and an open transparency that lets your core guitar/amp tone breathe. It’s also really potent for stacking with other dirt pedals. There’s plenty of nuance to be dialled in with the knobs, but if you want some extra headroom then the Duke can be run at 18 volts.

OD mode utilises diode clipping and brings in a natural, airy low-level drive sound, while Distortion mode, with its harder clipping, takes things that little bit further with more compression going on.

The big question for many will be whether it sounds identical to a single King Of Tone channel, and from A/B tests with our own pedal we can say that, although it took slightly different knob positioning, we were able to match the two pedals up to a point where any perceived disparities were so subtle as to make no difference when playing. In short, it can do the job.

Specs

• PRICE: $149 / £179
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Drive pedal 
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Volume, Drive, Tone, OD/Boost/Dist switch, internal treble trimmer, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 6mA but can be run safely at 18V
• DIMENSIONS: 40 (w) x 91 (d) x 55mm (h) 
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

A new Randy Rhoads signature MXR Distortion+ pedal will be released next year, according to the late electric guitar legend's family.

In a new Instagram post, Rhoads' sister, Kathy Rhoads D’Argenzio, revealed that – for the first time in 40 years – the guitarist's legendary “chip pan” pedalboard was opened and dissected by the MXR team as part of the pedal's research and development.

"We’ve been working with Jimi Dunlap [Jimmy Dunlop] and his team for quite some time now and we are happy to officially announce a future Randy Rhoads Distortion Plus pedal,” Rhoads D’Argenzio wrote on Instagram earlier this week (December 6.)

"Jimmy and his team recently came down to check out Randy’s pedalboard. For the first time in over 40 years it was intricately examined, filmed, recorded and documented at Musonia. They have patiently awaited its return from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Randy always referred to it as 'the chip pan!')

"Today [December 6, Rhoads' birthday]," she continued, "seemed like the perfect day to celebrate all Randy did for rock 'n' roll and guitar players around the world. Be on the lookout for this pedal, upcoming in 2023! His music lives on."

Dubbed, as Rhoads D’Argenzio pointed out, "the chip pan," Rhoads' pedalboard is almost as legendary as any of his Gibson, Jackson, and Sandoval guitars or Marshall guitar amps.

An MXR Distortion+ was a central feature of the pedalboard, and played a significant role in the guitarist's hugely influential sound.

Stored in a flight case, the 'board featured at least eight switches and nine control knobs, and has long been shrouded in mystery. 

Rhoads D’Argenzio also said that after the MXR team completed its examination of the pedalboard, it was returned to a "secured location," not Musonia, the North Hollywood, California music school and Randy Rhoads museum founded by the guitarist's mother, Delores.  

In 2019, thieves broke into Musonia and stole a number of Rhoads' instruments, plus photos and memorabilia. All the missing items were eventually retrieved, and returned to Rhoads' family.

The MXR Dyna Comp wasn’t the first compressor pedal on the market – the Maestro SS-1 Sustainer and Electro-Harmonix Black Finger preceded it by a few years – but it was certainly the first to be embraced by a wide variety of professional players who helped it become a standard, essential item in many guitarists’ rigs for nearly five decades.

Designed to provide live performers with a low-cost alternative to the expensive and bulky rack-mount compressors used in the studio, the Dyna Comp can provide a smooth, professional polish to one’s sound, but it also can deliver special effects with their own distinctive “squashed” sonic fingerprint.

The Dyna Comp’s relatively simple circuit employs Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA) compression, which provides a fast attack and relatively slow decay and release that works particularly well for many guitar playing styles. 

Actually the pedal operates more like a limiter than a true compressor as it mediates volume differences between notes to provide more consistent note-to-note output primarily by reducing the gain of attack transients, although it also amplifies weak signals slightly to improve sustain. 

As a result, the percussive “pop” of the pick (or finger) striking the string is reduced to the same general volume level as the initial note. The Dyna Comp’s circuit also rolls off some of the high harmonics and bass, delivering a perceived midrange boost.

During the ’70s, country guitarists embraced the Dyna Comp because its fast attack accentuates the pluck and cluck of chicken pickin’ licks, and its long release adds body to sustained notes in pedal steel bends. 

The box also nicely evens out the levels of strings played with a pick and fingers as well as open strings and harmonics. Funk rhythm players appreciated the consistency maintained between pick attack “chuks”, chords and single-note lines as well as the even balance of each note in chords. 

The Dyna Comp also works very well with slide playing (Lowell George, Sonny Landreth and Bonnie Raitt all have used Dyna Comps), 12-string guitar and sweep picking techniques – Yngwie Malmsteen’s pedalboard has had a Dyna Comp pretty much since day one

The Dyna Comp is also famous for its use by David Gilmour on numerous Pink Floyd tracks recorded during the late ’70s, as the pedal was a key element of his Strat’s sweet, singing sustain when used in conjunction with a Big Muff or other distortion/overdrive pedal. 

The effect’s distinctive “squish” gave character to Andy Summers’ percussive chords, heard to great effect on the Police’s Walking on the Moon. David Byrne often used a Dyna Comp at extremely compressed settings for his rhythmic and melodic lines with Talking Heads, with the effect being particularly notable during the outro of Drugs. Since the late ’70s, Pete Townshend has often used a Dyna Comp on stage with the Output control maxed as a clean boost for his solos.

Suggested settings

Country chicken pickin’ – Output: 8, Sensitivity: 3

Tip: This is the classic “snake eyes” setting where the control knob lines are pointing straight at each other. Use a Telecaster at the bridge pickup setting.

Andy Summers rhythm – Output: 6, Sensitivity: 6

Tip: The harder you strike a chord, the more “squishy” it becomes. Single-coil pickups (Tele or Strat) are also the way to go here.

MXR has debuted the latest addition to its highly praised Super Badass family of effects pedals, the Super Badass Dynamic O.D. overdrive pedal.

Joining the existing Super Badass and Custom Badass range – which comprises the Distortion, Variac Fuzz, ‘78 Distortion and Modified O.D. – the Dynamic O.D. is yet to be posted on MXR’s website, but was surprise-announced on the brand’s YouTube channel.

As such, there’s not much info direct from MXR save the video’s description, which revealed the Dynamic O.D. to be a MOSFET clipping diode-loaded overdrive that vows to grant ample amounts of bite while maintaining tonal dynamics.

The versatile overdrive tones are said to be suitable for “smooth purrs” that can either be pulled back for a pristine clean boost or cranked up for a vintage high-gain grind.

The topography of the pedal is as simple as its fellow Super Badass units. Three self-explanatory control knobs – Output, Tone and Gain – are joined by a Boost/Cut toggle switch that bumps up the overall level with a little extra midrange. A true bypass footswitch completes the control list.

In practice, the Super Badass Dynamic O.D. aims to color your tone with a range of vintage and hot rodded gain sounds without compromising your pick attack and dynamic control.

“This pedal sounds killer on its own,” claims MXR, “but we think it sounds simply sublime when used to rev up a tube amp that’s just about to cross the line.”

Guitarists have been quick to speculate this is MXR’s take on a Fulltone OCD-style overdrive pedal, owing to the fact the latter also utilizes MOSFET clipping devices and a similar control layout. It’s a sensible theory, given that Fulltone recently announced it would stop production of all pedals in the near future.

Like we said, the Super Badass Dynamic O.D. isn’t on the MXR website just yet, but it has made its way onto retailer sites for $129.

To keep up to date, head over to MXR.

MXR recently partnered with revered boutique builder Analog Man for one of the hottest pedal releases of the year, the Duke of Tone overdrive pedal.

Pedal powerhouse MXR has joined forces with independent effects builder Analog Man for the super-streamlined Duke of Tone overdrive pedal.

Dubbed a “vintage connoisseur’s dream come true”, the Duke is a reimagined version of Analog Man’s single-channel Prince of Tone pedal, which in turn was modeled after the flagship King of Tone dual-channel overdrive.

The King of Tone itself is a highly regarded classic among pedal purists, and was first conceived back in the early '90s when Analog Man’s Mike Piera began modding a Marshall Bluesbreaker and subsequently designed his own version of the classic pedal.

In fact, the resulting pedal has become so coveted in recent years that the waiting list for an Analog Man King of Tone regularly reaches the five-year mark. 

Order an original King of Tone now, and you might get it before the turn of the decade. With MXR’s latest offering, though, the two pedal brands aim to bring an identical-sounding, premium built pedal to the masses – one that has a reasonable shipping time.

As such, the Duke promises to add that same touch of warmth and grit to your existing rig, while allowing the “natural tone and feel” of “high-end” gear to shine.

Piera, who was approached by Dunlop for the collaboration, personally and rigorously tested the Duke of Tone to ensure identical thru-hole components were present.

In operation, the Duke sports a simple control layout comprising a trio of control knobs and a three-way clipping toggle switch. The parameters are all self-explanatory: Volume for output, Drive for gain and Tone for fine-tuning the sound.

The toggle switch, meanwhile, grants access to Boost, OD and Distortion modes. As the names would imply, Boost is said to deliver a “clean-yet-vigorous” bump, OD adds grit and compression and Distortion layers on more of each.

There’s also a true bypass footswitch – as is the case for all Analog Man pedals – employed in an effort to keep your signal as pure as possible.

It’s worth noting the quality of the components, too. Not only does the Duke boast the same thru-hole components as found on the King – as opposed to surface mount alternatives – it also comes loaded with boutique WIMA capacitors for premium signal path performance.

As a result, MXR vows the Duke of Tone will deliver “a warm-yet-clear-and-open sound that allows all of the nuances of your signal chain to come through, from your individual guitar strings to the dynamics of your amp’s tubes”.

Of the partnership, Piera commented, “I was very happy working with [MXR], the reason being to get these out to the stores. We don’t really have our pedals, especially these two – the King of Tone and Prince of Tone – in any stores because we can’t make them fast enough.

“I thought it would be great to get these in dealers all over the world with the same basic sounds and nice, small compact size,” he continued. “And the tones are all there. You don’t need to have something big to have good tone.”

The pedal itself isn’t currently on the Dunlop site, but is available to preorder for $149, and looks set to ship on October 1.

It won’t be long before it makes its way onto the official Dunlop website, though, so keep your eyes peeled there for updates.

It's not the first time MXR has joined forces with an indie builder. Back in 2020, the brand collaborated with Paul Cochrane for a reissue of the much prized transparent Timmy drive pedal.

Playing guitar is an expensive hobby. Even the most basic of electric guitar rigs will set you back a few hundred bucks, with intermediate and high-end gear costing anywhere from $500 to well into five figures. This top-tier guitar gear is out of reach for most of us, unless a killer sale comes around – and that's what we've found. At Musician's Friend, you can save up to 40% on electric guitars and up to 60% on accessories, as part of Electric Guitar Month.

Musician's Friend isn't a stranger to a huge sale, but this Electric Guitar Month promotion is proving to be one of their best to date. Whether you're shopping for a brand new electric guitar, guitar tuner, distortion pedal or guitar amp, there's a saving here for you to make – and at a time when we're all looking for ways to continue our hobbies without spending too much money, that's highly appreciated.

With such huge savings to be had on gear from the biggest brands in the business, it's nigh-on impossible to cover it all. That being said, we've got to share some of our favorites with you. These include a sweet saving of $500 off this Gibson Les Paul Traditional in Blueberry Burst – which is down from $3,099 to $2,599 and will give you those iconic tones for a little less, as well as a massive $400 off this gorgeous limited edition Hagstrom 67 Viking II in Vintage Sunburst – which is now only $999. If you're into the semi-hollow guitar vibe, but want to spend even less, then there's $200 to be saved on the Gretsch Electromatic G5627T-P90 – a super cool, P90-equipped rock 'n' roll machine.

If you're in the market for a great tube amp, then it doesn't get much better than the Blues Junior. There's $50 off this limited edition Fender Blues Junior IV in Sonic Blue, which means that you can now buy one of the best combo amps for only $749. 

It's also possible to refresh and spruce up your rig without needing to spend the whole bag. It sounds basic, but getting your hands on a great guitar tuner can really make a world of difference - and with $10 off the D'Addario Planet Waves NS Micro Tuner, which is now only $24.99, you can keep your tuning in check for less. There's also $40 off the Planet Waves CT-20 tuner pedal, which is now only $79.99 and offers ultra-sensitive chromatic tuning in a pedal format, and 10 packs of GHS Boomers Light electric guitar strings for only $49.99, down from $76.99. 

Like we said, something for everyone and every budget.

Related buying guides

• Don't like LPs? Take a look at the best Stratocasters
• Check out some more of the top Gibson Les Pauls
• Here are some more killer guitar amps under $1,000
• Peruse our best high-end electric guitars guide
• And thumb through the best Fender amps too

There was a time when the best chorus pedals were seen as dated, '80s-sounding effects, but they have gradually come back into fashion. It's an essential effect for psych bands, goth, and new wave, while tech metal bands obsessed with shoegaze can't avoid the pervasive use of subtle, or not-so-subtle, stereo chorus in that genre.

Elsewhere, art-metal giants like Deftones have been using the effect tastefully for years, while anybody exposed to studio production knows that it is useful for creating slight stereo movement on rhythm parts, or for creating double-tracking effects. With more and more guitarists also wearing a bedroom-producer hat, it's no surprise that the chorus pedals don’t cause the allergic reaction they once did.

I’ve always loved chorus; in fact, the Boss CE-5 was my first ever pedal. At one point, I had three chorus pedals on my ‘board. Excessive, right? Having worked in music retail for a decade, I can confidently endorse the Boss CE-2W Waza Craft as one of the best. It’s an era-defining sound, and it doesn’t get much better. The TC Electronic June-60 V2, on the other hand, is a simple, budget-friendly option that holds its own against pedals twice the price.

Whether you're looking for a complex modulation workhorse or something simple and compact to spice up a single passage of a song, there are lots of options on the market. If you want to learn more about chorus pedals, have a look at our FAQs section for more info.

Or, if you’re new to chorus pedals, my how to choose section is perfect for you, as I highlight key considerations to make before buying.

Best overall

Overview: The Boss CE-2 Chorus, and its predecessor the CE-1, along with the same effect built into the Roland Jazz Chorus amp, defined the sound of chorus during the late ’70s and ’80s. The CE-2W Waza Craft combines both of these legendary modulation pedals into one, delivering the CE-2 alongside the CE-1’s iconic chorus and vibrato modes.

Build: With the exception of a mini three-way toggle switch for selecting between CE-2, CE-1 chorus, and CE-1 vibrato modes, a second 1/4-inch output jack for stereo effects, and the Waza Craft logo on the footswitch, the CE-2W looks almost identical to the original CE-2. Of course, this is a Boss product, so the metal chassis is built like a tank and incredibly durable. A feature you’ll want on this premium Waza Craft model.

Features: The CE-2W offers three distinct modes, covering the classic CE-2 chorus, the deeper CE-1 chorus, and the CE-1 vibrato. The addition of a second output allows for stereo chorus and vibrato effects, expanding its usability beyond the original pedal’s capabilities.

Tone: Sound-wise, it’s one of the closest matches between an original and a reissue, delivering that unmistakable thick, lush, shimmering Boss chorus heard on countless classic recordings. The CE-2W may offer slightly clearer treble, but the overall character remains intact. The CE-1 chorus mode adds more depth and modulation, while the vibrato setting delivers a warm, musical warble without sounding overdone.

Best budget

Overview: The original June 60 was a bargain with great sounds and high-brow styling, now it's got a V2 with an extra mode, improved stereo outs, and an additional speed setting. Based on the chorus from Roland's legendary Juno 60 synthesizer, it works great on both guitar and bass.

Build: Like the original June 60, it has stereo output, albeit via a TRS jack output, which is more uncommon for guitar. Still, with a BBD chip at its heart, it's an all-analog vintage-voiced stereo chorus for not much more than the price of an unbranded micro pedal. In terms of size, the June 60 is rather large. The two wooden side panels do add a cool aesthetic, but they also add to the overall bulk.

Features: There are three new settings with the V2 - on the front panel, you can access Leslie-like rotating speaker sounds by pressing down both preset buttons. Internally, there's now also a pair of DIP switches that allow you to change the LFO speed between 'slow' and 'fast'. Although it's less exciting, there's also a DIP switch for guitar versus keys input level.

Tone: Taking inspiration from the Juno 60 chorus section, it’s no surprise that the June 60 V2 nails classic ’80s chorus tones. It delivers the signature sounds of the original and pairs beautifully with overdrive or fuzz pedals. Overall, this is a fantastic budget option that offers great value, style, and tone.

Best mini

Overview: For those short on space, the Ibanez Chorus Mini should whet your appetite for ’80s chorus tones, while leaving you plenty of room for more pedals. Whether you just want to dabble or you're a full-blown chorus addict, it's a great choice.

Build: It’s robustly built, with an all-metal enclosure that will handle regular stomping with ease. The footswitch is slightly tilted towards you, which can be handy if it’s placed on the top row of your pedalboard, although the small knobs may feel a little awkward for some.

Features: Despite having just three controls, the Chorus Mini is surprisingly versatile. It can cover everything from subtle thickening to more extreme modulation sounds, making it suitable for a wide range of styles. Plus, the three controls keep things simple. If you’re not a fan of complicated interfaces, this should be your go-to.

Tone: The Chorus Mini delivers classic ’80s chorus tones with ease. You can dial in deep, Seasick-style modulation, Leslie-like rotary effects, or keep things subtle to add a bit of depth and movement to your core tone. There really isn’t much to dislike here, particularly since it is pretty affordable too. Wins all around.

Best stereo

Overview: One of the most-requested reissues in Boss’s history, the DC-2W recreates the DC-2 Dimension C, which strikes the balance between a chorus and a 3D audio expander. Based on the unit used by SRV to thicken his guitar tone in the studio, this is a more subtle form of chorus that works great in stereo rigs.

Build: The Waza Craft series is created in Japan, and the DC-2W is as premium as it gets. The iconic four-button interface is housed in Boss’ classic metallic chassis, a design built to last a lifetime. There is something about the purple casing that fits the chorus effect perfectly, while the Waza Craft emblem provides the finishing touch to a beautiful aesthetic.

Features: You have the ability to select two buttons at once alongside the single-button options which gives you ten tones overall, so there's plenty to dig into here. This reissue also adds a model of Roland’s SDD-320 Dimension D rack effect, which lends its own flavor of spatial widening.

Tone: The DC-2W provides a relatively subtle effect via its four push-buttons but can make any signal sound bigger and richer – especially in stereo. It really widens the spread of your sound through two amps, resulting in a thicker, enriched tone. If you’ve liked the sonic effect and tonal thickening – but not the warble – of traditional chorus pedals, the DC-2W could well be the best choice for you.

Best for bass

Overview: Chorus is a really popular effect on bass guitar, great to use as a thickener or just to add some movement to your tone. The MXR M83 Bass Chorus Deluxe is a great choice for bassists, delivering awesome chorus tones without clouding your core tone.

Build: Housed in a neat blue metallic chassis, the M83 feels reassuringly well-built. MXR pedals have always been solid in my experience, and the slightly higher price tag is reflected in the overall quality here. There are five control knobs, which is more than most, so it can feel a little cramped, but everything remains easy enough to see at a glance.

Features: The flanger mode is really useful, giving you an additional tone option should you need it. You can also access a stereo mode via an internal dip switch located inside the pedal. I found the crossover button to be a little too powerful, killing the sound of the pedal and while it may be a little too subtle for some, for the majority of bassists it'll be just the ticket.

Tones: The variety of controls means you can dial in a huge array of sounds, whether you like your choruses subtle or hitting that full-on warble. All the while it never overpowers your overall sound, instead giving it a nice movement that enhances without going overboard. This level of control and depth comes courtesy of its all-analog bucket-brigade design.

Best features

Overview: The Mako M1 was a complex but deep pedal, with studio-grade sounds crammed into a compact chassis. To this, the MKII edition sees updated rotary and filter algorithms, as well as a new flanger mode.

Build: On the front panel, there's the welcome addition of a 2" OLED display to aid user navigation and control. The main drawback is that despite the screen it's a dense pedal, especially for its size. Without it, it would be almost impossible to navigate, but even so, it's tricky. It's got the feature set of a physically much larger pedal, like a Strymon or BOSS 500 series but a smaller form factor. This saves space but at the slight cost of usability.

Features: Though it's not much larger than a standard-size BOSS pedal, it's got almost every modulation option you could want covered, from chorus to phasers, tremolo, vibrato, rotary pedals, and filters. Each option has three patches, and the sound quality is excellent. Crucially for a pedal of this complexity, it's also stereo, making it not only a one-stop shop for chorus but also for stereo modulation in general.

Tones: Although this is a smorgasbord of modulation effects, Walrus Audio hasn’t dropped the ball on sound quality. There are many breathtaking sounds and the tones on tap are truly wonderful; it’s quite easy to get lost in its wealth of luscious modulated tones. It is a pedal that will keep on giving after hours of use, each time you cycle through the options, something new will take you by surprise.

Also consider

For us, the above pedals should have pretty much every guitarists chorus needs in hand. That said, we do appreciate there's no one size fits all solution, so here are some more great suggestions for you to look at.

How to choose a chorus pedal

Having worked in a guitar store for the best part of 10 years, I’ve helped many players select their first chorus pedal. Here are a few key considerations I would always suggest they think about. By doing so, all the bases are covered, leaving you with a clearer idea of which chorus pedal to go for.

Intensity
Firstly, think about how intense you want your chorus to sound. One of the biggest differences between chorus pedals is how intense or subtle they sound. Pedals like the Boss DC-2W Dimension C or Super Chorus CH-1 are actually on the subtler side, despite the latter offering controls for depth and rate. On the other hand, if you want a bombastic, in-your-face warble, something like the Electro-Harmonix Neo Clone will suit you better.

By considering how you’d like your chorus to sound, it will help you narrow down the options between intense and subtle.

Controls
Next, are you a pedal tweaker who likes having more control over parameters, or is a simple user interface preferred for ease of use? A pedal like the TC Electronic June-60 V2 has two modes, that’s it. This may be ideal if you don’t want to be overwhelmed, but if you want control over depth, rate, and intensity, then it won’t be suitable. Advanced pedals like the Eventide TriceraChorus are much more hands-on, with controls over rate, envelopes, and pitch. There is no right or wrong here, but think about how you typically like to use pedals.

Analog or Digital
Finally, consider whether you want an analog or digital chorus pedal. Analog chorus pedals, typically using bucket-brigade circuitry, are known for their warm, organic, and slightly darker tones. They tend to sit nicely in a mix and are often favoured by players chasing those classic ’70s and ’80s sounds.

Digital chorus pedals, on the other hand, are usually cleaner and more precise. They often come packed with extra features, stereo outputs, and greater control over your sound. If you want versatility and modern functionality, digital may be the way to go, whereas analog is perfect if you’re after simplicity and vintage character.

Again, there’s no right or wrong choice here, it all comes down to the type of sound and feel you prefer.

FAQs

Glossary

Analog: This type of chorus pedal uses analog circuitry internally to create its chorus tones. Most famously, it is Bucket Brigade Device chips that create a rich, warm chorus in analog pedals.

BBD (Bucket Brigade Device): This is a famous type of analog chip that was traditionally used in chorus and other modulation pedals. Although the pedal’s entire circuitry has an effect, these chips were praised for producing a warm, modulated tone.

Buffered Bypass: A buffered bypass keeps an active buffer in your signal path even when your pedal is turned off. Essentially, it converts high-impedance to low-impedance signals to prevent tone suck, a high-frequency loss that sometimes occurs over long cable runs.

Chorus: A classic modulation effect that splits your signal in two, leaving one part ‘dry’ while slightly delaying the other. By using an LFO to subtly wobble the pitch of that delayed signal before blending them back together.

Depth: This is a control found on a chorus pedal that controls how dramatic the wobble is. In other words, how far the modulated signal moves from the original pitch.

Digital: A type of chorus pedal circuitry that utilizes digital signal processing instead of analog chips. This is a more modern option than analog chips and provides more versatility within the pedal.

DIP Switch: A type of switch found on modulation pedals that will instantly change the character of the tone. Not all pedals have one but they can be a handy feature for instant tonal shifts.

Dry Signal: This refers to your unaltered, unprocessed guitar signal, before it hits any effects or amplifiers. Ultimately, it is the direct tone coming straight from the pickups.

Flanger: A type of modulation effect similar to chorus, but has a shorter delay time, producing a more metallic, swooping sound.

LFO (Low-Frequency Oscillator): This is the circuit in a chorus pedal that creates a repeating wave to modulate the delay time of the duplicated signal. As the delay time is constantly shifting, it causes subtle pitch changes up and down, creating the recognizable ‘wobble’ sound of a chorus pedal.

Modulation: This is the category of effects that add movement and depth to your guitar signal by changing parameters like delay, pitch or volume. The most recognizable modulation effects are chorus, flanger and phaser.

Rate (Speed): This is the setting on a chorus pedal that controls how fast the pitch wobbles, think of it as the speed of the shimmer.

Stereo Spread. A term used to describe the separation of audio channels into a dry side and a wet side. The wet side of this spread is the modulated signal, while the dry is your normal guitar tone, unaffected. It creates a wide sound palette.

True Bypass: Opposite of buffered bypass, true bypass removes the pedal’s circuit from your signal chain when switched off, helping preserve your guitar’s natural tone. However, in longer signal chains, some high-end loss can still occur due to cable length.

Wet Signal: This refers to your guitar signal after it has been processed by an effect, in this case chorus. It is the opposite of a dry signal, which remains unaffected.

How we test

Here at Guitar World, we are experts in our field, with many years of playing and product testing between us. We live and breathe everything guitar-related, and we draw on this knowledge and experience of using products in live, recording and rehearsal scenarios when selecting the products for our guides.

When choosing what we believe to be the best chorus pedals available right now, we combine our hands-on experience, user reviews and testimonies and engage in lengthy discussions with our editorial colleagues to reach a consensus about the top products in any given category.

First and foremost, we are guitarists, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best chorus pedals on the market right now.

Read more about our rating system, how we choose the gear we feature, and exactly how we test each product.

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MXR has debuted the M306 Poly Blue Octave pedal – a redeveloped and rebooted fuzz/pitch-shift/modulation pedal that nods to the brand’s flagship Blue Box unit.

The original Blue Box was used by a handful of electric guitar heroes – such as Jimmy Page, who put it to use on Led Zeppelin’s Fool in the Rain – and favored for its fuzz effect and two octave-down pitch-shift powers.

With the M306, MXR has tapped into the DNA of the iconic Blue Box, while simultaneously introducing a number of new-and-improved specifications.

At first glance, it offers a far more comprehensive approach to pitch-shifting. Featuring a polyphonic/monophonic switch, the M306 boasts four separate octave divisions, complete with their own level controls.

As well as letting users shift their signal down two octaves just like the Blue Box, the M306 features a handful of extra pitch-shifting options: one octave down, one octave up and two octaves up, which are controlled via Sub-1, Sub-2, Oct+1 and Oct+2 knobs.

The Blue Box’s influence can specifically be found in the fuzz department, with the M306 coming loaded with an “unruly fuzz” – said to be derived from the Blue Box’s own effect – that is applied to all signals and tamed by way of the Dry knob and fuzz toggle switch.

Other appointments include an expression output, which allows for expression pedal-operated control of various parameters, and a dual-mode modulation effect that aims to tap into Leslie/Phase 90-style effects depending on which pitch-shifting mode is selected.

It's a far cry more feature-packed than the original Blue Box, which only came with Output and Blend knobs, as well as a single bypass switch.

The M306 is yet to crop up on Jim Dunlop’s website, though it’s currently available to preorder over at Guitar Center for $199.

For more information, visit Guitar Center.

Jim Dunlop kicked December off with the launch of the MXR Power 50 Overdrive, a signature Tom Morello overdrive pedal designed to distil the tone of the Rage Against the Machine guitarist’s long-running Marshall JCM800 2205 and Peavey 4x12 amp rig into a pedal. Now the man himself has put the stompbox through its paces in its first official demo.

In the clip, Morello demonstrates his tones from his original rig, before showcasing how the pedal incarnation stacks up through a variety of different combos, including a Vox AC30, Mesa/Boogie Lone Star, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and even his son's 8” Fender Frontman 15-watt bedroom amp.

Utilizing his trademark Arm the Homeless electric and an identical pedalboard for each setup – connected to the Power 50’s onboard effects loop, which emulates the way Morello runs his effects through his Marshall – the results are uncanny.

Of course, there’s always the argument that tone is in the fingers, but even so, the sag and snap of that Morellian crunch is very much in evidence, whatever amp the pedal is plugged into.

The Power 50 utilizes a MOSFET-based circuit to emulate the preamp of Morello’s JCM, ​​and also features its full complement of controls, including Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, Volume, and Presence.

“The Power 50 Overdrive emulates the amp setup that I’ve used since 1988,” Morello says. “I’ve made 21 studio albums, and that amp, that head, and that speaker, and that tone has been on 21 of them. It’s been my signature identifiable sound since Day One of my career.

“If you want to have the sound that has been on those records, you don’t need to find an amp and speaker cabinet from 1988. You can get that sound with the Power 50 Overdrive, no matter what your setup is.”

The MXR Tom Morello Power 50 Overdrive is available to preorder now, priced at $189.99 street.

Morello recently released his second solo record of 2021, The Atlas Underground Flood, which features his long-awaited collaboration with Kirk Hammett and Alex Lifeson.

For someone who spent much of his heyday with Rage Against the Machine avoiding signature gear at all costs, Tom Morello has certainly embraced the concept in recent years. Now, following the launch of his Fender 'Soul Power' Stratocaster and Cry Baby Wah, the six-string firebrand has teamed up with Jim Dunlop once more for the MXR Power 50 Overdrive pedal.

As any self-respecting Morello fan knows, nearly all of the guitarist’s tones have been fueled by the combination of a Marshall JCM800 2205 head and Peavey 4x12 cab, and it’s this setup the Power 50 Overdrive seeks to replicate.

MXR has employed MOSFET technology to ape the JCM’s preamp stages for an amp-like response, and utilized the same control set, too, with Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, Volume, and Presence knobs.

Another quirk of Morello’s rig is the fact he runs all his effects pedals through the amp’s effects loop – again, MXR has included this idiosyncrasy via an in-built effects loop on the Power 50, which runs before the Presence control and gives you extra adjustment for your entire pedal chain at the output.

And, as Dunlop cannily points out, that makes the pedal a perfect pairing with Morello’s signature Cry Baby.

“The Power 50 Overdrive emulates the amp setup that I’ve used since 1988,” Morello says. “I’ve made 21 studio albums, and that amp, that head, and that speaker, and that tone has been on 21 of them. It’s been my signature identifiable sound since Day One of my career.

“If you want to have the sound that has been on those records, you don’t need to find an amp and speaker cabinet from 1988. You can get that sound with the Power 50 Overdrive, no matter what your setup is.”

The MXR Tom Morello Power 50 Overdrive is available to preorder now, priced at $189.99 street.

For more information, check out Jim Dunlop.

Morello is currently gearing up to release his second solo record of 2021, The Atlas Underground Flood, which features collaborations with Kirk Hammett, Alex Lifeson, Ben Harper and Rodrigo y Gabriela among many others.

MXR is synonymous with phaser pedals, thanks to the iconic Phase 90 and its myriad offshoots. But with its latest release, the Deep Phase, the Dunlop brand appears to be shifting its crosshairs to one of its biggest rivals, the Electro-Harmonix Small Stone.

According to MXR, the Deep Phase is based on an “iconic vintage circuit”, with a “pronounced swoosh, scooped midrange, and a dynamic, voice-like response to your attack”.

It features a pair of knobs – Speed and Feedback – plus a Mode II switch, which swaps out smooth four-stage swirls for more extreme – and dare we say, chewier – eight-stage phasing.

Tellingly, MXR notes that the original design suffered from a volume drop, something that’s apparently remedied in the Deep Phase.

You know what else had a volume drop? The original Small Stone. Team that with the inclusion of a second phase mode and MXR’s nod to an “iconic vintage circuit” (rather than a design derived from the Phase 90), and we could have an even smaller Small Stone on our hands.

Of course, the real proof is in the demos, of which there are currently zero, so we’ll have to wait and, um, hear whether the Deep Phase can truly capture the magic of EHX’s finest.

The Deep Phase is available now for $129. Head over to Jim Dunlop for more info.

You know that feeling when you come across an example of stellar electric guitar playing, and you just can’t imagine yourself listening to anything else for the foreseeable future? Well, if you haven’t, chances are you’ll experience it for the first time today, courtesy of Eric Gales.

The blues master recently sat down with Sweetwater for an episode of Raw Riffs to demo his newly announced MXR Raw Dawg overdrive pedal with a series of quick-fire covers of a number of classic tracks from Jimi Hendrix, Billy Gibbons and Robin Trower. The results? Something quite spectacular.

"I'm super-excited to be part of GearFest at Sweetwater for 2021," commented Gales. "Just for a brief moment, I'd like to give some insight on a couple of the riffs that really touched me and really inspired me as a kid and a young guitarist coming up in the world."

There’s a lot to behold in the seven-minute video. Gales’s tone, fueled by the bite-y grit of the Raw Dawg via a PRS McCarty 594, is the quintessential blues sound, dripping with elite clarity, yet blurring into an almost fuzz-y cloud of gain when pushed. 

Take his quick-fire cover of Purple Haze, for example, which opens the video in style. The customary dissonant stabs precede the iconic lick, which Gales decorates with a series of oversized string glides. 

The verse section, while staying true to Hendrix’s original blueprint, sees Gale flex his improvisational prowess, as he successfully curates a blend of string-skipping licks, vibrato-drenched hammer-ons and open-string chord-based constructions.

Billy Gibbons’s Just Got Paid, Robin Trower’s Bridge of Sighs and Hendrix’s Red House all receives similar treatments, and showcase Gales's almost unrivaled command of the fretboard. In reality, words don’t quite do it justice, so make sure you check out the video above to understand what we’re waxing lyrical about.

Of course, we shouldn’t be too surprised by the caliber of Gales’s playing. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that Mark Tremonti was theorizing the blues ace was actually the best guitar player on the earth.

Now the music industry is making its way back after its long Covid-induced hiatus – see Back to Live for everything relating to that – here’s hoping that the long-awaited, hugely anticipated album Gales is making with Joe Bonamassa shows up in the near future. 

In the meantime, we’ll probably be coming back to this video for our daily fix of Gales guitar goodness.

MXR’s Dookie Drive pedal was based on the rig of modified Marshalls that Billie Joe Armstrong used on Green Day’s third album.

It had the basic aim of putting the sound of two amp stacks in a single housing with options for blending the two – and that’s exactly what the new M251 FOD Drive is designed to do, albeit with no artist affiliation and the option of a toggle-switched midrange boost, plus a scoop and a flat setting.

A Blend knob sets the mix between the two sounds. To the right is the High Gain channel, with Gain controlled by a the front-panel knob while to the left is the Crunch Gain channel with internal set-and-forget trimmers for its gain and volume if you want to deviate from the factory settings.

Both sides have the flavour of a nicely cranked stack and each individually has a range of useful tones whether you’re looking for rhythmic graunch or saturated leads. 

It’s the combinations, though, that give the pedal its signature voicing and these are where you can dial in really rich tones that combine saturation and sustain with an extra edge of clarity from the Crunch side. Tailored EQ and extra boost from the Output knob add to the options.

Specs

• PRICE: $169 / £185
• ORIGIN: USA
• TYPE: Overdrive pedal
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Output, Blend, Gain, Tone, Scoop switch, internal Crunch Gain trimmer, internal Crunch Volume trimmer, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 11mA
• DIMENSIONS: 64 (w) x 110 (d) x 47mm (h)
• CONTACT: Dunlop

The M305 Tremolo pedal replaces the discontinued M159 Tremolo model, which launched in 2008 and ran at 18 volts, necessitating the use of two batteries or another arrangement. This new iteration runs more conveniently from a single nine volts power source.

This tremolo can run in mono or stereo and features six different trem types, scrolled through by pushing the Gain knob. 

There are standard Speed and Depth controls and that Gain knob can not only compensate for the perceived volume drop that the effect can engender but can also give you a boost to drive an amp a little harder. 

One tremolo type, called MXR, recreates the pulsing of the previous M159’s sine wave trem, plus, still in the vintage amp-style, you get the softer flavoured Bias and Opto types. 

Revo is an optical tremolo with a reversed waveform for a slightly harder edged attack, something that finds its full expression in the square wave trem’s choppy on/off effects.

Finally, there’s the increasingly popular Harmonic tremolo that recreates the phasey sound of a rarer type of vintage amp trem. A very cool envelope mode allows tremolo speed to be determined by the intensity of your playing, put to great effect with a trem that slows right down as a chord fades out.

Other performance options include connection of a tap tempo footswitch or expression pedal, which is able to blend between two settings to incorporate all three of the front-panel knobs.

Specs

• PRICE: $159 / £169
• ORIGIN: Taiwan
• TYPE: Tremolo pedal
• FEATURES: Selectable True or buffered bypass, 6 tremolo styles (MXR, Bias, Opto,
• Revo, Square, Harmonic), mono or stereo output, external tap tempo, envelope mode, expression pedal control
• CONTROLS: Speed, Depth, Gain (push to cycle through tremolo types), CTR switch, internal stereo/mono switch, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input (TRS), standard output (TRS), CTR
• POWER: 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 190mA
• DIMENSIONS: 64 (w) x 110 (d) x 47mm (h)
• CONTACT: Dunlop

The year is 2021, and the Foo Fighters have made a funky, pop-influenced post-rock album in a haunted mansion... Anything is possible in these crazy times, we suppose! To celebrate the wicked new set of tunes that is Medicine At Midnight, Australian Guitar caught up with shredder extraordinaire Chris Shiflett, chatted all about the gear, grooves and ghosts that led to it, and immortalised the yarn in an epic six-page feature for the cover of our 142nd issue!

Of course, there's much more in Australian Guitar #142 that'll have your inner rockstar going mental – like the ultimate guide to mastering the style of Led Zeppelin's legendary lead riffer Jimmy Page. Or for the history buffs out there, a loving look back on the history of Fender to celebrate the Californian legends' 75th birthday. And for those with a soft spot for true crime, we take a deep dive into the vexing story behind the most iconic stolen guitar of all time, Eric Clapton's "Beano". 

Once you've learned how to play it like Page, try punching it like Perry with the full tablature to Aerosmith and Run DMC's classic "Walk This Way". And we know what you're thinking – "Man, how wild would that track sound if you threw a loop pedal in the mix?" Well, what a coincidence – flip to page 74 and you'll find a shootout of all the biggest and best loopers on shelves right now! Flip back a few pages, and you'll find our DIY special on how to add a killswitch to your guitar – y'know, just in case you wanna make your cover of "Walk This Way" extra crazy.

But what if simply playing the song is not enough? Why not record it and share your virtuoso shredding skills with the world? Don't worry if you're green to the world of guitar vlogging – Australian Guitar #142 features a special on the best new camera to commit your jam sessions to memory. And speaking of recording guitars, we got down to the wire with one of the most storied producers in the world of Australian heavy music, Shane Edwards. 

You can read all about how Shane's making punk and hardcore history in this issue's Producer Profile column, then suss the Fresh Frets column to find your new favourite local band, and the Spotlight column to catch up with some of the buzziest names on the scene right now. There's also the Hot Gear column hated by wallets everywhere – and once you've drooled over all the goodies in that, head to the last pages of the magazine for a stack of reviews for the latest and greatest gear on the market.

That just about covers all the biggest features in Australian Guitar #142 – that is, aside from over 20 one-on-one interviews with such red-hot acts as Greta Van Fleet, Chrissie Hynde, Adrian Smith and Richie Kotzen, Tomahawk, NOFX, Cheap Trick, Evanescence, Yvette Young, Mogwai, The Pretty Reckless... Honestly, we're starting to run out of breath – there's too many top-shelf names for us to fire off in the one sentence!

Australian Guitar #142 is available now from newsagents all around the country, and online via techmags.com.au or iSubscribe.

Artist interviews in this issue:

• A Day To Remember
• Adrian Smith & Richie Kotzen
• Carla Geneve
• Cheap Trick
• Chrissie Hynde
• DZ Deathrays
• Epica
• Evanescence
• Foo Fighters
• Greta Van Fleet
• Lande Hekt
• Melvins
• Middle Kids
• Miss Grit
• Mogwai
• NOFX
• The Pretty Reckless
• The Rubens
• Tigers Jaw
• Tomahawk
• Yvette Young
• Shane Edwards (Producer Profile)
• Axel Carrington of New Talk (Spotlight)
• Jack Gray (Spotlight)
• Kai Cult (Spotlight)
• Marie Ulven Ringheim, a.k.a. Girl In Red (Spotlight)

All the hottest gear reviews:

• Empress Effects ZOIA
• Blackstar Live Logic
• MXR Timmy Overdrive Pedal
• Boss Acoustic Singer Live LT Amp
• Ernie Ball Music Man Jason Richardson 7-String Cutlass
• Godin Radiator
• Vox Valvenergy Pedals
• Fender American Professional II Stratocaster + Telecaster Deluxe
• Fender Play
• EVH Striped Series Frankie
• Epiphone Prophecy Flying V
• Epiphone Joe Bonamassa Black Beauty Les Paul Custom
• Electro-Harmonix 1440 Stereo Looper
• Eventide PowerMax + PowerMini
• Orange Crest Edition Wireless Headphones

Subscribe to the print edition of Australian Guitar, and you'll enjoy each new issue on the day it's published, delivered straight to your door. Click here for all the details, including how to get 12 issues delivered for under a hundred bucks and win a ZOOM G6 Multi-Effects Modelling Floorboard valued at $799!

MXR has partnered with electric guitar great Eric Gales to release the new signature Raw Dawg overdrive pedal.

While it is yet to be listed on Dunlop's website, a number of online retailers are already giving guitarists a glimpse of the blues man's new pedal.

Designed to give Gales the necessary spice for when he turns up the heat, the Raw Dawg boasts a new custom circuit, simplistic control layout and mini housing for “ultimate pedalboard convenience”.

The circuit itself – based on a classic overdrive famous for grit and crunch – has been tweaked to deliver a more balanced mid range and souped-up gain sound, resulting in sweeter, more natural tones even when cranked.

Three controls appear on the pedal in the form of output, tone and drive knobs, while the circuit has been fitted into a mini chassis, meaning it can squeeze seamlessly into more crowded pedalboards. 

The result is said to be a ‘board-friendly mini pedal that offers up tons of versatile sonic flavors worthy of the blues wizard’s high-gain lead lines.

This isn‘t Gales‘ first piece of signature gear under the Raw Dawg banner – DV Mark has an existing amp range with the same moniker.

The MXR Eric Gales Raw Dawg signature overdrive pedal is available now for $119.

If you’ve never heard of Paul Cochrane or his cult Tim and Timmy drive pedals, it's not necessarily surprising. Paul Cochrane has no website and a minimal presence on social media. Obtaining obtaining one of his Timmy overdrive pedals is a bit of a challenge, with Cochrane building them one at a time. 

But habitual denizens of guitar forums will tell you that the Timmy pedal is a perennial on lists of best overdrive pedals – including ours – and it's because it is a super-transparent, amp-like overdrive that's been constant demand for armchair tone chasers. And also a pedalboard essential for the likes of Aerosmith’s Brad Whitford and L.A. studio hound Lyle Workman. 

Now that Cochrane has partnered with MXR to bring his legendary pedal to more guitarists, you no longer have to wait to get one. Better still, the MXR Timmy Overdrive is housed in a much-in-vogue mini enclosure.

• Find out which drive is right for you with the best overdrive pedals

Features

There are four knobs for Volume, Bass, Gain and Treble, plus a three-way Clip switch. The Bass and Treble controls are configured as cut-only, which won't be to everyone's liking but is faithful to the original designs.

But it is clever. The Treble knob cuts high end from the post-overdrive signal while the Bass knob cuts the lows from the pre-overdrive, thus allowing for more precise fine-tuning of those two frequencies and allowing you to match the EQ coming from the amp. 

You have clipping modes to choose from, one asymmetrical and two symmetrical, and each offer varying degrees of saturation, low and high headroom, dynamics and compression.

Cochrane and MXR chose the LF353 op-amp chip, known for its increased output, gain and high fidelity, to maintain the Timmy's sonic integrity in a miniature pedal format.

Performance

Gear-forum players will undoubtedly compare the MXR Timmy to the original. Surely all will agree that the MXR Timmy Overdrive delivers transparency with a capital T. 

Clicking the pedal on and off, the MXR Timmy sounds as seamless as switching from clean to a mild gain channel from a tube amp. It really is quite remarkable. It may not have as much overdrive as you would expect, but it adds a gradual gain-bump to the point of light compression and a very pleasing natural breakup. 

The MXR Timmy has more dynamic presence than your regular overdrive. There is a clear top-end chime and warmth in the midrange. It is a more musical-sounding overdrive that blends in beautifully with amplifier crunch – perfect for when youneed even more harmonic complexity. 

I found the middle position on the switch to be the best sounding of the three clipping stages. It had the most breath and body, and touch-responsiveness, whether you set the Timmy for overdrive or simply as a clean boost.

Specs

• STREET PRICE: $129.99 / £139
• INPUT IMPEDANCE: 400 kΩ
• OUTPUT IMPEDANCE: 1 kΩ
• NOISE FLOOR: -115 dBV
• GAIN: 3 dBV to 43 dBV
• BYPASS: True Hardwire
• CURRENT DRAW: 2.2 mA
• POWER SUPPLY: 9 volts DC
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

For more information, head to Jim Dunlop.

MXR really knows its stuff when it comes to overdrive and distortion pedals, so it’s great to see three of the company’s stompboxes available for insanely low prices this Prime Day.

Over at Guitar Center, you can grab the Classic Overdrive and Classic Distortion for a mere $39 each, while the Prime Distortion is also available for just $49.

The Classic Overdrive is no-messin’ overdrive pedal, which retains your guitar’s core tone while adding sustain and gain.

Upping the ante is the Classic Distortion, which aims to span tones from overdrive right up to amp-style distortion.

Finally, the Prime Distortion delivers nothin’ but hard-clipping distortion sounds, worthy of classic ’80s dirt sounds.

Whichever one you go for, the MXR brand practically guarantees great tone at ridiculously affordable prices.

Head on over to Guitar Center to grab ’em, and be sure to visit our guide to the best Prime Day 2020 guitar deals for more top offers.

• Amazon US | Today’s Amazon US deals
• Amazon guitar deals | Shop all of their guitar deals
• Guitar Center | Check out the HUGE Guitar-a-thon sale
• Sweetwater | Shop their huge home recording event
• Musician's Friend | It's Rocktober! Save up to 25% on guitar gear
• Sam Ash | Take a trip to the Sam Ash outlet
• Zzounds | View all the special offers on guitar gear

In tremolo terms, MXR is best known for its M159 Stereo Tremolo, but now the company has updated the venerable classic with a host of new features and a downsized enclosure – meet the M305 Tremolo pedal.

The M305 boasts six tremolo waveforms, which promise to cover classic tremolo tones and all-new sounds from the MXR team.

These modes include the original M159 Stereo Tremolo; a ’60s tube amp-inspired Bias; Revo, which runs an optical tremolo waveform backwards for more extreme peaks and valleys; a classic Opto photo cell setting; square-wave SQR, inspired by outboard effects; and Harm, which emulates the phaser-like tremolo found in vintage amps from the likes of Magnatone and Supro.

As well as the usual speed and depth controls, the M305 also packs a gain knob to compensate for perceived volume loss. This control doubles as a push mode selector.

Plus, the additional jack on the side of the pedal can function as a tap tempo/expression output, or a stereo output, via a small slider on the side of the pedal. Smart.

The MXR M305 Tremolo is available now for $159. Head over to MXR for more info.

MXR has introduced the FOD Drive, a new overdrive pedal boasting a circuit that allows for blending two hot-rodded amp stacks in a single enclosure.

Each drive circuit is modeled after a heavily-modified guitar amp - one optimized for heavily-scooped high-gain tones and the other for midrange punch.

Each "amp" features its own gain and volume controls, which can be set individually and then balanced via a blend knob.

A global tone knob, meanwhile, tweaks the EQ of the signal and a scoop switch allows for choosing between flat, scooped or boosted midrange.

The FOD Drive is offered at an MSRP of $242.84, and is available for preorder at Sweetwater for $169.99.

For more information, head to Jim Dunlop.

This is not the only Octavio pedal in Jim Dunlop’s roster – there’s currently a mini-sized Jimi Hendrix Octavio fuzz pedal with selectable octave – but it is the only one available as a standard two-knob MXR pedal without any artist connection. 

And while there are no Hendrix graphics as seen in a previous same-sized MXR version, the lineage can be traced back to the vintage pedal used by Jimi to full effect on Purple Haze. This is silicon fuzz with a gritty edge and that upper octave harmonic bedded into it. 

If you turn up the fuzz and try playing standard chords it can sound messy, but doublestops come out sounding really powerful and single-note playing can really take advantage of the singing quality of that upper harmonic overtone, especially in the upper reaches of the neck. 

This is pretty much a pedal you can ‘play’ and there’s plenty there (sitar-like sounds, for example) that will reward experimentation with technique.

Specs

TYPE: Octave fuzz pedal

• PRICE: $129.99 / £139
• ORIGIN: USA
• FEATURES: True bypass
• CONTROLS: Output, Fuzz, Bypass footswitch
• CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output
• POWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 5mA
• DIMENSIONS: 64 (w) x 110 (d) x 48mm (h)
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop