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Price: £149; effects: distortion; controls: volume, frequency, gain, low, mid, high, gate, scoop; connections: input, output, power; power: 9V battery or 9V DC connector
Back to sanity, then, with the FullBore Metal: a chunky little housebrick at which you wouldn’t look twice if it didn’t have those three magic letters - ‘MXR’ - on its chassis. The FX legend is touting “ultimate riff power” and “devastating contemporary metal tones” this time, from a stompbox that will “turbo-charge your guitar with ultra high-gain.”
OK, so the FullBore is ‘just’ a distortion pedal, but it’s done to near-perfection. Fat and full at low gain, pushing the dial makes this pedal turn seriously nasty, with a saturated, jaw-breaking bark that punches holes in the mix and makes its rivals seem just a little polite by comparison.
Tonally, it’s your dream ticket for modern metal, and that’s consolidated by the brilliant trimmings, with a scoop switch that instantly trims the fat from your tone, Metallica-style, and an optional noise gate that kills anything below a set volume (although you’ll need to disable it for more subtle play).
It’s also the only one with a three-band EQ, and the most compact, which matters on the road.
