Like countless guitarists, Peter Frampton sent Slash scurrying to his local guitar store to get a talk box of his own. Now he has a signature MXR version.
With timeless cuts like Baby, I Love Your Way and Do You Feel Like We Do, Frampton made the strange little effect a household name. The unit, which features a plastic tube that players quite literally sing into, rose to prominence in the 1970s, and Jeff Beck and Aerosmith were big fans, too.
Slash’s model is based on the classic Heil circuit, the same one that Frampton preferred for its higher output. Using that as a platform, it’s been duly hot-rodded for even more firepower and offers an upgraded loudspeaker.
The firm also believes it has better articulation than other models, plus a thicker low-end. It’s finished in the Candy Apple Red finish that Slash has stayed loyal to down to the ears, resulting in a pedal that MXR stresses was “built to say something.”
“I’ve had a talk box since I was 16,” Slash says of his new collab. “The first time I heard it was Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do, then Jeff Beck’s She’s a Woman, and Aerosmith’s live Walk This Way.
“To me,” he adds, “it’s right up there with the Cry Baby Wah: a classic effect that transforms your guitar into an extension of your own voice.”
That’s quite the claim from someone who has made the wah pedal such a key part of his arsenal since the Appetite for Destruction days. Maybe we’ll hear it in action on the new Guns N’ Roses album, although don’t expect that to arrive anytime soon.
The MXR Slash Signature Talk Box is available exclusively on Reverb for $499.99.
In other recent Slash news, the top-hatted one has opened up about his surprise Marshall exit.
