NAMM 2026: Jim Dunlop has lifted the curtain on first new guitar effects pedals to come from its portfolio of brands this year. and there are some special stompboxes in the lineup – what Iron Maiden fan could resist a special Edition Dunlop Cry Baby wah pedal finished with Derek Riggs’ iconic cover art from Killers?
But we can’t look past the bright red enclosure of the MXR EVH Modern High Gain Pedal, an amp-in-a-box style drive that not only bears the most famous initials in electric guitar but has been co-designed by the man himself, Eddie Van Halen.
This has reportedly been in the works since 2015, and is based on Channel 3, i.e. the high-gain lead channel, from Van Halen’s own 5150 III tube amp head. So yes, not a shrinking violet, and like all self-respecting distortion pedals based on a guitar amp, we have an amp-like set of controls on front, with three-band EQ, Gain and Output.
And lo, there’s more. There’s a bass frequency shift switch, toggling between 55Hz and 80Hz, allowing you to set the low-end response tight or to let it all hang out.
This being an ornery kind of stompbox – harmonically juicy saturation abound – MXR and EVH have had the good sense to take precautions. There is an onboard noise gate, controlled by a mini-dial, to keep unwanted noise to a minimum.
There is also a boost switch which adds an extra splash of gain. And that’s that. It ain’t cheap at £279/$269 but then it is a lot of distortion and for Eddie Van Halen superfans it could well be this year’s pedalboard essential.
Elsewhere we have the Killers Cry Baby wah that was teased in recent days with unboxing vides from the likes of Kirk Hammett and John Petrucci. And while it is just a GCB95 Cry Baby Standard with a fancy paint job, what a paint job (and there is nothing wrong with a straight-up Cry Baby). This is priced £239/$229.
Then there is the reissue of the Cry Baby BB535, a cult mid ‘90s classic with an adjustable switchable boost – taken from the MXR Micro Amp – and a four-way range selector for adjustable throatiness. This retails for £239/$229.
And then we’ve got a fuzz pedal that takes the Way Huge Swollen Pickle format to new extremes, with the XXX, a 30th anniversary release that refinishes the pedal in green-and-white pinstripe enclosure, carnival text, expands its feature set, refreshing its tone stack.
If you like your fuzzes all super-simple with two-knob layout, this is not for you. Loudness, Sustain, Crunch switch, Filter, Lo, and Hi Controls… this is a tweakable, and there are internal switches for adjusting the sweep of the filter. The Swollen Pickle XXX is priced £/$199.
There was also a cornucopia of guitar picks, guitar straps, all kinds of goodies – head over to Jim Dunlop for more details.
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