The Ibanez Mostortion pedal is reborn as the Danelectro Roebuck distortion

If you've never tried an Ibanez Mostortion, it's not surprising. The green distortion pedal was only available for a short time in the '90s but its mosfet charms have seen its fame grow in the pedal community since. Now it's back… as the Danelectro Roebuck.

Following the company's 3699 Fuzz bringing back an improved version of the FOXX favourite, the Roebuck resurrects the versatile strengths of the Mostortion with new features.

(Image credit: Danelectro)

Whether it's country, blues or metal, the Roebuck has your back - which explains why the Ibanez original is popular with session players. If they could find one.

Buying guide

The Roebuck’s mosfet circuitry features the same wide bandwidth and touch-sensitive three-band EQ to enable incredible versatility, clarity and string separation.

The Roebuck now expands its potential with two additional clipping modes via a top-loaded mini-toggle switch.

With its Distortion control set low, the Roebuck will tickle crunch tone and boosted breaks from the front of your guitar amp.

Raising the Distortion Level and Mid controls produces upper harmonics and increased drive for classic blues tone and "screaming tube-like overdrive."

Danelectro believe it can deliver the scooped metal sound too; just dial down the Mid and crank the Distortion.

Sounds like the kind of do-it-all distortion that's hard to refuse.  And like the 3699 Fuzz, it's got a vintage-style worn metal casing to make it even more attractive to discerning tonehounds.

The Roebuck will be priced at $199 and we're seeing a European preorder at £168 from Thomann.

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.