If ever there was a pedal that screamed 2026 it is MXR’s Textures, a “Granular Synth Engine” that belies its compact form factor to offer guitar players the capability to turn their electric guitar tone into something ambient and ethereal, to take it off the beaten path.

Somewhere, a few evolutionary steps back, Textures would be a delay pedal. That’s the processing lineage from which it came, taking your sound and playing it back to you – but when it comes back to you expect that sound to be altered. How it is altered is very much up to you.

You can reverse the repeats, freeze them, “feed them back into cascading shimmers”, or embrace chaos with randomisation – and you know what the Joker says about chaos, “it’s fair”.

“With the power of granular synthesis and dynamics processing, this pedal records what you play and reshapes it into a shifting blend of tones and timbres,” explains MXR. “Shimmering pads, glitched-out rhythms, lush reverberations drifting back through themselves, and much more. It’s a sandbox in pedal form, and every grain is yours to shape.”

As one comment under the YouTube demo reads, “We live in times where you need a 37-minute-long video to understand a pedal. That said, it sounds great!”

Needless to say, this is for the adventurist. As MXR/Jim Dunlop suggests, the player who wants to explore guitar ambience, to score films, or the noise-rock player who wants to do something anarchic in high-gain, high-volume scenarios.

Some pedals do the thing you are looking for them to do. Others will do something you haven’t ever thought of until you stick it on your pedalboard and step on the footswitch. Textures is the latter.

The pedal is controlled by six dials for Time, Size, Overlap, Mix, Pitch and Regen, plus Mode and Reverse buttons. If, at this moment in time, you are thinking it’s all a bit bonkers then rest assured there are presets. You can also hook up an external tap tempo control. MXR describes it as “a sandbox with no boundaries”.

Like any self-respecting sandbox without boundaries, you can of course apply reverb, filter, and vibrato to these “grains” that the pedal is playing back to you. It can be run in mono, wet/dry, or true stereo.

Where to start with a pedal like this? It’s daunting. But it comes out of the box pre-loaded with eight presets. And see that video at the top of the page? There is your 37-minute long demo that explains all. Many may already be sold by the time it gets to “Reverse Random.”

Textures is available now, priced £279/$269. See Jim Dunlop for more.

MXR has just launched the coolest distortion pedal since, well, last year when it first released the Randy Rhoads Distortion+, a pedal that came decorated in polka dots as per the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist’s trademark Sandoval V-style electric.

In fact, this special edition run might even be cooler, with the simple two-knob enclosure refinished in white with black pinstripes, with gold knurled metal knobs just like Rhoads’ Concorde, the prototype electric guitar that would be immortalised as one of Jackson's most iconic high-performance models, with a body shape that's instantly recognisable.

Unsurprisingly, Jim Dunlop, which owns and distributes MXR, said the company had been inundated with appeals for a second batch of the Rhoads signature distortion.

“Last year, we released the MXR Randy Rhoads Distortion+. The first run sold out quickly, leaving fans clamouring for another chance at those iconic tones,” says Dunlop. “And now, it’s back. The Randy Rhoads MXR Special Edition Distortion+ features a clean white finish with pinstripe accents, inspired by the iconic Flying V-style guitar that Randy designed after flying on a famous supersonic airliner.”

Yes, the Concorde, the asymmetric V-style electric that came one of the most-popular metal guitars of all time. As the story goes, Rhoads dropped in on Grover Jackson at the Charvel HQ with an idea for a new guitar. This was 1980. Grover Jackson was entertaining and all ideas. No idea too crazy. What if he could make Rhoads a guitar shaped like a shark’s fin?

Overnight, Jackson – inspired by Rhoads – had weaponised the electric guitar. It was the first of Jackson’s guitars to feature his name on the headstock, not Charvel, and with a neck-through body (all maple on the O.G. version), it was the perfect platform for hard rock and metal.

Those who shelled out for the 2010 Custom Shop replica, or any of the RR5 models Jackson has released over the years, will definitely want to get this matching Distortion+ on their pedalboard, pronto.

As ever, it’s a very simple design. Output and Distortion controls and that’s that. But this isn’t your usual Distortion+, which is a mainstay of the MXR catalogue.

These Rhoads signature versions were developed to match the original that was a stalwart on his infamous “chip pan” ‘board, which MXR co-developed the pedal in collaboration with the Rhoads family.

MXR’s product development team were invited down to the Rhoads’ family’s Musonia School of Music in Los Angeles to inspect his pedalboard, which had hitherto been under lock and key for 42 years.

“The engineers painstakingly spec'd Randy’s vintage Distortion+, with the direct involvement of sister Kathy Rhoads, and created this signature model to produce the same overdriven tones heard on Randy’s most beloved hits,” says Dunlop.

“We are very proud of and honoured by this special signature pedal,” said the Rhoads family in a statement. It is a true tribute to Randy’s musical legacy.”

Inside the box you’ll find a certificate of authenticity, and perhaps the missing ingredient for nailing Rhoads’ tone.

Priced £199, the MXR Randy Rhoads Special Edition Distortion+ is available now. See Jim Dunlop for more details.

God might have made you funky, and if so, congratulations. But if not, there is hope for you yet in the shape of a new MXR pedal for bass guitar that puts vintage analogue synth sounds at your feat.

Don’t be fooled by MXR’s typically utilitarian designation, because the MB301 Bass Synth is a seriously radical pedalboard proposition that makes the most of its a small footprint.

Designed in collaboration with bass session ace Ian Martin Allison, MXR says the Bass Synth “serves up intergalactic grooves and vintage analogue-style vibes with a range of monophonic synthesizer tones that call back to hits from Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Parliament Funkadelic, and more” – and it grants you comprehensive control over how you shape those sounds, and how you can manage them.

Players can adjust the oscillator, modulation mix, compression and tracking style. The pedal comes preloaded with eight presets, all designed by Allison, all inspired by classic synth tones. You’ll find Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon, Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer…

And If funk is not your thing then that’s okay because after all this is bass synth pedal first and a funk engine second. One of the presets is based on Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like A Hole; there are all kinds of musical occasions where you can put this to good use. As Allison says in the demo video, it would be a hard-working item on any wedding band bassist’s pedalboard.

Also, accessing these presets is easy. You just hold down the button and cycle through them, or hook up a tap switch and use that to switch them. You can also hook up a volume pedal for performance friendly parameter adjustments.

There are two orange knobs for Mix and Sub Mix. Four blue knobs for Mod, Resonance, Cutoff and Envelope. Sub Mix controls how much of the sub-octave effect is in your sound. As the name suggests, you’ll find some movement behind the Mod knob. Apply this for “shimmering liquid tones, from subtle, musical motion to bold, mind-bending pulses”.

The Envelope dial adjusts the filter response, from fast, bouncy and percussive to a slow psychedelic chewiness. Cutoff sets the filter cutoff frequency. Resonance boosts that frequency. And the all-important Mix knob controls your wet/dry mix.

The Bass Synth needs 9V DC and a minimum of 300mA from a pedalboard power supply. It is available now, priced £289/$269 For more details, head over to Jim Dunlop.

What is it?

Long before the current plethora of ‘rig-in-a-box’ pedals there was the Rockman. Anyone who played electric guitar in the 1980s will be aware of it, and anyone who’s listened to Def Leppard’s Hysteria album will have heard it in action.

In 1982, Tom Scholz of US rock band Boston designed and released the Rockman X100 headphone amp via his electronics company Scholz Research & Development, putting amp sound and effects for silent guitar practice into a portable unit that could also be connected to a recording console.

The distinctive compressed sound, with its integral analogue chorus, soon found its way onto various recordings in the 1980s.

Now, over 40 years on, the range of Rockman units is apparently in demand, so MXR is catering to that with a new addition designed to revive the sonic character of the original headphone amp.

Usability and sounds

The new pedal features four different presets (CLN2, CLN1, Edge, Dist) as found on the original, and has switchable rich, shimmering chorus courtesy of a MN3007 bucket brigade chip.

There’s no sign of the original’s switchable ‘Echo’, which was basically reverb, but that’s not a problem as there are better options these days to partner the X100. The output (mono as shipped) can be switched internally to stereo, which gives you really spacious chorus.

An A/B test with our original unit proves that the new pedal has the vintage sounds down accurately. Overall sonics are very compressed with a bright top-end and some bottom-end roll-off.

The two cleans each have a different EQ contour and offer sparkly clarity. The Edge sound offers crunchy raunch all day long and is sensitive to input gain settings for variation, while the Distortion is full on with loads of sustain – just right for those wailing leads.

We liked the X100 best for DI recording, offering up flavours and textures that are entirely its own, but it could work plugged into an amp for radical tonal shifts.

The two cleans each have a different EQ contour and offer sparkly clarity. The Edge sound offers crunchy raunch all day long and is sensitive to input gain settings for variation, while the Distortion is full on with loads of sustain – just right for those wailing leads.

Verdict

We liked the X100 best for DI recording, offering up flavours and textures that are entirely its own, but it could work plugged into an amp for radical tonal shifts.

Specs

PRICE: $229/£249/€299
ORIGIN: USA
TYPE: Analogue tone processor pedal
FEATURES: Buffered bypass
CONTROLS: Volume, Input Gain, Mode switch, Chorus switch, internal mono/stereo switch, Bypass footswitch
CONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard output, CTRL input
POWER: 9V DC adaptor (supplied)
DIMENSIONS: 62 (w) x 110 (d) x 47mm (h)
CONTACT: Jim Dunlop

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• "The Layers is a subtle and unique pedal, with a lot of expressive depth": MXR Layers review

What is it?

The MXR Layers is a new looper pedal from MXR that focusses on textural pad creation and sound design, creating huge, cascading multi-layered sustain from your guitar. While these are use-cases that can be served with a normal looper pedal, including those in MXR's own line-up, the Layers adds additional features for sound-scaping.

The first of these is three dedicated loops, and the second is a trigger control that allows it to be automatically activated by playing dynamics. On top of this, there's built-in effects, and control of both the attack and delay of captured audio.

: Specs

Launch price: $229.99/£249/€280
Type: Sustain pedal
Made: USA
Controls: Mix, Trig, Attack and Decay pots, Single and Sub Oct buttons, CTR switch, Footswitch
Features: Single or triple layer, mono or stereo, wet/dry, sub octave
Connectivity: In/Out, CTR input
Bypass: Buffered
Power: 9V DC centre-negative, 300mA (supplied)
Dimensions: 62x110x47mm [WXDXH]
Weight: 235g
Contact: Jim Dunlop

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★½

As you'd expect from MXR, and especially for a pedal at this price point, it's a bombproof build. In addition to the standard connectivity in mono there's also the option of running it in 3-layer mode panned left, centre and right, or dry/wet for live use.

Probably the only missing option is an easy stereo-thru option, though that's not surprising with a pedal this size. It is possible to set up the pedal to operate with a TRS cable for input and output, but it is a little fiddly, so be warned.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★☆

There's a lot of functionality crammed into the pedal, which leads to the trade-offs that you'd expect. Some players will have the spare brainpower, and find the triple-layer mode works for them.

Others, like me, admittedly, will gravitate towards the simpler single-layer mode. In this mode the Trig-knob controlled auto sample function is more predictable as a pad generator. The trade-off is that it's less lush, being only a single layer. The Trig function works very well, but for more intricate parts we defaulted to using the footswitch instead.

For power users there's expression pedal blending on offer. If we were in an electronic group or mainly in studio, we'd probably take advantage of this. Connecting a rocker expression pedal, two presets can be registered and then blended between. An unsubtle example could be from square-wave quick attack to an almost sawtooth effect when the pot is maxed.

There's a sensible control layout with intuitive functions. The attack and decay knobs are essential to this being a pad device rather than a simple looper, and the tuning of these allows for a spread from subtle pads to janky, aggressive electronic stabs.

The biggest issue with the pedal is that of many complex single-footswitch pedals. To disengage the pedal, you're required to double-tap the main footswitch, which can lead to accidents when using live. Luckily for the Layers, as it's designed for slower-paced music it's less likely this mistake will be made during a frenetic lead part.

Moreover, as part of the voicing of the pedal, there is in-built delay and modulation. This is controlled by the pots while holding down either the Single or Sub Oct buttons. Getting the most out of the Layers requires tuning these, but a new user who hadn't read the manual would be blissfully unaware of this functionality, which is a shame.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★½

What's interesting about the Layers is that, especially in the triple mode, it doesn't really sound like a looper pedal, or even a pad. Instead it sounds most like a particularly dynamic and responsive reverb such as the Strymon Cloudburst.

Of course, changing the attack and decay settings has a big impact on this, but even in the lighter single mode, it has almost an ambient reverb quality. In fact, using the auto-triggering, we'd see this more as a reverb replacement than a looper on our board, especially with the mix dialled back.

However, it also interacts in unexpected and dynamic ways with other pedals. We set it up to automatically trigger, with a low decay and square-wave (fast) attack, and then ran a gated fuzz into it.

The result was staccato, stop-start sample-hold style madness. Unfortunately, I didn't have an arpeggiator to hand but ballistically ramping with a Whammy Ricochet resulted in wild, almost synth-arp tones.

Verdict

The Layers is a subtle and unique pedal, with a lot of expressive depth. The ability to manually time your captures or rely on the threshold control means that there's several dynamic ways to use the pedal interactively for sound capture, and the end result is something more than the sum of its parts.

MusicRadar verdict: If you're after a pad generator, or even a somewhat twisted ambient reverb, then give the Layers a shot. It's not going to suit every style of music, but that's clear from the get-go. It is, however, very versatile within the niche that it is aimed at, and gently inspirational, too. It lacks the 'wow' factor of some esoteric pedals, like the Hologram line, but makes up for this in being simple, intuitive and stacking unpredictably yet satisfyingly with other pedals.

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MXR has unveiled the Layers Pedal, a stompbox that takes the signal from your electric guitar and allows you to freeze notes and chords indefinitely, adding octave effects to it and creating the platform for some seriously out-there sounds.

Listening to some of the sound clips, the Layers Pedal comes over as a cross between a delay pedal, looper and the Fernandes Sustainer system and yet sounds like something different entirely, and that is pretty exciting.

We are always on the lookout for a pedalboard wildcard and this could be it. Just imagine what David Gilmour would have done with something like this in the ‘70s. Well, whatever you just imagined you can do in the here and now, taking one layer of sustain and adding it to another.

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

It’s a tantalising prospect. The most interesting guitar effects pedals are often the most difficult to describe, those that we have to hear first before beginning to understand them, but ultimately need to spend an afternoon turning knobs and playing around with the sounds to map out its potential. 

Soundscapists are going to have a field day with this, but even in more conventional playing applications we can see the potential for this as a compositional tool, perhaps in allowing you to lay down a chordal part to play over, or to activate the sub-octave switch and play a low drone that sets the table melodically for a riff. All this and more is up for grabs here.

While the Layers Pedal resists easy description, MXR promises that it offers an intuitive user experience, with just four knobs, and a couple of buttons for how you want to arrange the features. 

There’s a Mix knob to control the wet/dry mix. The Trigger knob controls the sensitivity of the auto-trigger function, so you can control when the Layers effect is activated. Thereafter, you dial it in a little bit as you would a reverb, using Attack to adjust the fade-in time of your layers and the Decay dial to adjust how long it takes to fade-out. 

Once you start to get to grips with the sounds you can get, MXR presents you with plenty of ways of customising how you get those sounds, with an expression pedal input to make this more performance friendly – or you could set up an external tap switch to engage the sustain effect. Players can play up to three layers of sustain, each has its own colour-coded LED.

MXR advises players to first think of how many layers they want to use. If just one, press the Single switch. Play a note, hold the footswitch down and it will sustain as long as you are holding the footswitch. 

Upon releasing it, your layer will fade out as per your Decay time settings. Alternatively, get creative with that auto-trigger mode, adjusting the Trigger dial to stack your layers together as you play.

The Layers Pedal is priced £249/$219 and is out now. See Jim Dunlop for more details.

It has been a long time coming, but MXR has finally launched its Randy Rhoads Distortion+, a limited edition signature pedal that has been meticulously engineered from the very same pedal that was on the late Ozzy Osbourne guitarist’s pedalboard. And it looks very much worth the wait.

Just look at it. Even before we consider the flurry of Blizzard Of Ozz tones contained within, this is a treat for Rhoads fans. Finished in black-and-white polka dots, an enclosure finish to match Rhoads’ iconic Sandoval V-style electric guitar, it has the double RR painted in gold at the bottom of the pedal, and “Randy Rhoads Special Edition” emblazoned on the top. You will find a certificate of authenticity and a commemorative booklet inside the box – a box that you should definitely keep.

The Randy Rhoads Distortion+ was designed in collaboration with Rhoads’ sister, Kathy. MXR’s design team were welcomed to the Rhoads’ family’s Los Angeles music school,the Musonia School of Music, whereupon they had access to his “chip pan” pedalboard and the Distortion+ that was such a crucial component in driving his amps.

“Randy harnessed its raw energy to slam his high-gain amplifier with a torrent of harmonics to create the sonic signature that would etch an indelible mark on music history,” says MXR, and you can’t argue with that.

The Rhoads family have given this special edition distortion pedal their sign of approval. 

“We are very proud of and honoured by this special signature pedal,” reads their statement. “It is a true tribute to Randy’s musical legacy.”

Others, such as fellow MXR signature artist Zakk Wylde, Metallica's Kirk Hammett and Phil Demmel – who all appear in MXR’s introductory video, paying tribute to Rhoads – would be of a mind to agree. And with just two knobs to play with there is something straightforward about its design that makes it so appealing. Oh, for a Les Paul Custom and a Marshall stack right now…

So yes, those knobs are as simple as can be. You have got Output controlling output volume and Distortion for dialling in your dirt. The Distortion+ is voiced for the sort of “overdriven tube-like tones” you will hear on Rhoads’ work with Ozzy. It is not the whole story, of course. 

You might also wish to spend some time browsing the MXR catalogue. Its 10-band EQ, M134 Stereo Chorus and Analog Delay pedals would be welcome on any Rhoads acolyte’s 'board. Completists could always spring for an M117R Flanger too, though it’s not essential. 

What is essential is chops, and lots of them. That, as ever, was the secret sauce to Rhoads’ tone. He always played right on the edge of his abilities. That brought an energy to his Ozzy recordings that few, if any, could match.

For a time it was Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen on the frontier. Players such as Paul Gilbert were listening. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2019, Gilbert said Rhoads sounded like “he was battling a dragon”.

“He had the best rock guitar tone I ever heard live and it was huge,” said Gilbert. “I couldn’t believe it. How could this happen!? It sounded hi-fi. It didn’t sound small or harsh; it was good, and big. His playing to me sounded like he was battling a dragon. And he was a little guy, so the guitar was big on him.

“Technically, he was always just one step away from it falling apart, but what we would play would have so much intention, and his compositions were so cool, and his note choice was so cool that technical, barely making it added such a nice drama to it all.”

For more all-star testimony on the greatest of Randy Rhoads, check out MXR’s video above. 

And for some of Rhoads’ gnarly tones on your ‘board, check out the Randy Rhoads MXR Distortion+, which is out now, priced $169 street. See Jim Dunlop for more details.

How time flies. Zakk Wylde has been a Jim Dunlop signature artist for 20 years now, and to make the occasion they are releasing a special anniversary series of guitar effects pedals, with the MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive, Phase and Chorus now available to order.

And there looks like there is more to come with Wylde taking to Instagram to tease the return of his signature Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal and Dunlop Rotovibe. Like the three pedals announced last night (Monday, 2 October), these all have a new look, albeit one that’s similar to the sort of psychedelic finishes that are applied to Wylde Audio electric guitar catalogue. Wylde’s signature shares space with the MXR logo on the bottom of the pedal.

The sounds will be familiar, too. The MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive has a similar configuration to the new out-of-production Zakk Wylde Berzerker overdrive pedal, with dials for Output, Tone, and Gain. 

If you are living your guitar life just like Wylde, splitting the atom with Pantera and Jamming Black Label Society tunes, then you’ll have this as an always-on drive pedal, another stage of gain to make your guitar amp scream.

The Chorus is described as Wylde’s “secret weapon for thickening up walls of distortion and adding liquid dimension and texture to clean passages”, and has your typical  Level, Rate and Depth chorus pedal controls alongside Low and High cut knobs that allow you to fine-tune the EQ of the effect. 

Like the MXR M234 Analog Chorus, from which this MXR Wylde Audio model is based on, or is, given that it’s surely the same bucket brigade-driven circuit – you can run this in stereo or mono.

Finally, for now, is the MXR Wylde Audio Phase, which has the same single-knob setup as the out-of-production ZW90 Zakk Wylde Phase 90, with a single Speed knob on an orange enclosure, black text, no script just a heady swirly pattern that looks like the pedal sounds. 

How does it sound? “Take it from a slow grind to a jack hammering pulse, or use it as Zakk does, at the 9 o’clock position for a slow burning sweep,” explains Dunlop.

After bringing back Wyldes signature overdrive, phaser and chorus with a refreshed design, the 20th Anniversary Series would not be complete without the return of Wylde’s signature Cry Baby or Rotovibe – the latter a treadle-controlled chorus/vibrato, much loved by the likes of Jerry Cantrell. 

Well, there’s nothing official on that score yet, but Zakk Wylde has them on his pedalboard and he has given us an idea of how they’ll look. 

The 20th Anniversary MXR Wylde Audio Overdrive, Phase and Chorus pedals are available to preorder, with a street price of £145, £135 and £169 respectively. They ship from 15 October. 

See Jim Dunlop for more details.

MXR has launched the Hybrid Fuzz, a fuzz pedal for those who want a Fuzz Face but just can’t decide which kind to get, and maybe one for those who would simply like both, because this combines both germanium and silicon transistors to give you the best of both worlds from the one circuit.

Germanium and silicon is the great divide among the fuzz community. The Fuzz Face has been made with both, with the earlier designs featuring germanium in the circuit, offering a warmer, woolier sound, with later silicon Fuzz Faces more aggressive, with a bit more venom in the top end. Both sound superb in the right context, so being able to have all this character in one circuit makes for a versatile fuzz. 

MXR’s tasting notes whet the appetite. The germanium, it says, yields “smooth, shaggy warmth”, while the silicon is where the fuzz gets its “snarling, high-gain aggression”. Nice.

Better yet, the layout and design of the fuzz could not be much more simple. There is a footswitch to engage and bypass the effect. There is a Volume knob. There is a Fuzz knob, to quote/unquote adjust the intensity of the fuzz. You plug your guitar cable in one 1/4” input on the side of the pedal, another on the other side. The red LED lets you know when the effect is engaged and away you go.

Thereafter it is all about where you position those dials – and indeed the type of electric guitar you are playing, and how you work those volume controls. The Hybrid Fuzz is designed to react to your playing, cleaning up as you back the volume off. It can do the super psychedelic sounds of the ‘60s.

You would expect it to with that enclosure, its lysergic artwork courtesy of One Horse Town design studio. It also does “high-desert riffage”, which presumably opens up all kinds of possibilities for Kyuss/QOTSA tones. 

The Hyrid Fuzz can be run off a 9V battery or DC pedalboard power supply, drawing 2.5mA. The Hybrid Fuzz is not the first to run both silicon and germanium in one circuit. The EarthQuaker Devices Hoof offers a similar platform, albeit with an added Shift control that allows you to shape the mids. 

The Vemuram Myriad, with its brass housing and Feel and Tone controls, is a Japanese-made boutique offering, but expect to pay around £399 street for that. At £189 / $169 street, the MXR Hybrid Fuzz looks decent value, and ships from 26 June. For more details, head over to Jim Dunlop.

Jack White’s Third Man Hardware and MXR have collaborated on a special two-in-one boost pedal that combines a pair of Micro Amp circuits in one compact guitar effects pedal – and Reverb is offering it as an early limited edition release in an exclusive yellow-on-black enclosure.

For a player with such a Willy Wonka sensibility when it comes to pedalboard curation and his electric guitars, the Double Down is as simple as it comes – and yet it is a very clever twist on the boost pedal, splitting the incoming signal from your guitar into two and running it between two independent circuits.

It has two dials, both oversized, both yellow, and both controlling Gain, making us think of an alternate universe, a better universe, a happier universe in which all dials on all pedals control gain and gain alone. But what this allows players to do is clever. 

Under each gain dial there likes up to 26dB to hit the front end of a guitar amp and make it sing, while a phase switch on the left-hand side of the pedal gives you a stereophonic effect by inverting the phase of the second output signal. A yellow LED lets you know when the stereophonic phase mojo thingame is active.

With two boost circuits, there are of course two outputs, so you can use this one boost pedal to add oomph and a healthy amount of welly to two separate signal chains – ideal for a dual-amp setup, and the small enclosure format will make it a no-brainer for many players who are running short on ‘board space.

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“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 says. “You could see people using this for vocals or some kind of stereo effect for instruments.”

The Double Down also features switchable bypass, so you can run this buffered or true. And if you miss out on this limited edition run via Reverb, which is priced $169 / £189 and available now, there will be another run, with black text on a yellow-painted enclosure. 

Now, all these specs are great, but what’s better is watching Jack White demonstrate the pedal’s capabilities, playing through his custom blue sparkle Fender Telecaster, and making some seriously gnarly sounds.

For more details, head over to Reverb, or to Third Man Hardware. 

What is it?

If we are truly living in the golden age of guitar effects pedals, then the Timmy overdrive pedal is written into the Arthurian legend of the moment – it's a sort of drive pedal Excalibur, a vaunted circuit that does things that none other can.

One of the original boutique overdrives, the Timmy Legend begins in the late 90s with pedal-designer Paul Cochrane. His Tim overdrive offered a two-stage drive sound that didn't interfere with the all-important relationship between your guitar and your amp's tone. 

Where the TS-style pedals produced a midrange hump, the Tim was what we'd call transparent. With two footswitches, it could be used as a clean boost or as an overdrive. It had four controls for gain, level, bass and treble and an effects loop. 

But Cochrane refined his creation, giving it a smaller footprint. The Timmy was introduced in 2004, slimmed down to a single footswitch for bypassing/engaging the effect, its four-knob setup remaining in situ. It became one of the most sought-after overdrive pedals. Not to mention one of the most talked about. 

It's interesting to see the evolution of pedalboard culture with that of social media and internet forums – fertile ground for seeding gear legends and getting players excited about new toys to enhance their tone. Inevitably, demand outstripped supply. If you look for an original "breadboard" Timmy online you should expect to pay around £400.

Which brings us to this mainstream reissue, which houses a Cochrane-approved overdrive circuit in an MXR mini chassis, with the same four controls and a three-way toggle for selecting your clipping options. Now the Timmy is affordable, distributed globally, and now begs the question: having gone mainstream, does it live up to its cult status?

Performance and verdict

The MXR Timmy operates in a similar fashion to the original units. The two EQ controls for bass and treble are reversed so that you turn them clockwise to cut the frequencies and anticlockwise to enhance them.

You have the choice of three clipping patterns, two symmetrical and one asymmetrical. Under the hood you'll find a F353 op-amp chip to help the Timmy perform similarly in smaller enclosure. 

This is a touch-sensitive overdrive that works with your playing, a neutral dealer of crunch and output between your guitar and amplifier. That, really, is all that's meant by transparent. There's no huge colouration to your tone.

Whether you set the Timmy as a clean boost to hit your amp's front end harder or dial in some heavier crunch, the dynamics are exceptional. Rolling back your guitar's volume control opens up a lovely range of drive that can work for blues through to rock without touching the pedal's settings.

There's something inherently musical about the Timmy's brand of overdrive. It enhances the harmonic response of your amplifier, feeding it some extra juice that you can really lean into and dig in with. 

Sure, having the bass and treble controls as cut only won't be everyone's idea of a good time but it's not difficult to find the sweet spot that makes your amp and guitar sing.

Nor will it be hard to find a spot on your 'board for Timmy. As a more affordable, more compact option, we'd find it difficult to mount a case for shelling out big bucks on an original unit. 

There are so many overdrives on the market right now. There are so many pedals. Some inevitably will get lost in the mix. But not Timmy. This one arrives on the back of a legend and lives up to its reputation as a pedalboard must-have. 

MusicRadar verdict: Smaller, more affordable, more available and just as musical as Paul Cochrane's originals, Timmy remains one of the first names that come to mind when you think of transparent overdrive.

The web says

"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 you need even more harmonic complexity."
Guitar World

Hands-on demos

Sweetwater

Reverb

Premier Guitar

That Pedal Show

Specifications

• TYPE: Boost/Overdrive
• CONTROLS: Bass, treble, gain, volume, clip toggle switch
• SOCKETS: Input, output, power
• BYPASS: True bypass
• POWER: 9v adaptor only (not included)
• CONTACT: Jim Dunlop