artifex_adrift's MXR Pedalboard

That's right, I loved the first MXR M300 Reverb I purchased so much, I bought another. Why? Because running a stereo setup and being able to dial in two different types of reverb that compliment the amp-cab combos they run on allowed me to sculpt dreamy sonic soundscapes. Being able to blend the dry signal (like in some on-amp reverbs) allows you to help pull back on the leash a bit when you're trying to maintain control over the base signal. However, if you're into the whole "lost at sea" thing with really washy reverbs, there are settings you can dial in with this pedal that can create other-worldly sounds. The more conventional plate and spring settings are absolute gold, MXR did an excellent job at capturing the nuances of these tried and true reverb modes. If you're looking for more synth-like sounds, you can leap across the divide and obtain a totally unreal effects that can hardly still be considered "reverb".

If I bought two, you should buy at least one.

I've built several unbuffered ABY pedals and used a few different buffered ones in the past, but this is the best one yet. It's built with that typical Orange tank-like quality, and the buffered aspect doesn't deplete tone for pedals I have running in front of it. I ran some pretty rigorous tests to get measurements off of a Walrus Audio Deep Six v3 compressor pedal, and there was no remarkable change in signal quality. The phase button on this pedal is the perfect compliment, especially when you're splitting your signal between two larger, high-end amps and don't need any signal anomalies diminishing the quality of your sound. If i ever need to do another dual-amp setup, I'll be buying a second one of these for sure.

I actually sold my original full-size Carbon Copy so I could gain some space back on my main pedalboard. This thing has all the features of the original, and takes up far less space.

It's an analog delay, so there are functional limitations to the delay effect itself. One example being you cannot summon up the infinite blackhole looper-like delay that you could with a digital delay, but that's not a downside. That's not why you want to toss one on your board. Those mild, more musical types of delays that guitarists have used throughout history is what this reminds me more of. It makes it so much more desirable for my purposes, because I'm not the kind of guitarist that strings together 19 different pedals to essentially make my guitar play itself.

There's a certain tactile connection with this delay, you can get a really tight, short ricochet effect, or draw out the longer trails and create really interesting soundscape for those lead moments. It just really responds to more of a "guitarist's guitarist" style of playing versus the cosmic arcade drone playground style.

While there are chorus pedals out there that are feature-rich with 20 knobs, 7 jacks, and an array of switches, this pedal is a straight-forward all analog chorus pedal that's easy to use and has some tonal options. Matching the line level of your signal chain and dialing in just the right amount of chorus is easy, plus you can either shave off or boost highs and lows. This allows you to experiment with the chorus effect and given that it's a stereo-out, you can get some really amazing sounds out of this thing. I love MXR's modular effects, and for my purposes this is the perfect chorus pedal when I need to add some icy overtones to my sound.

I was surprised not only by the diverse, punchy-yet-rich sounds this thing was capable of producing, but realistically the simplicity of the circuitry. Built around the LM308 opamp, it's the quality components and overall craftsmanship that makes this pedal so great. The three-position switch that swaps out what diode combo path is used is actually really interesting, you can tell a major difference between all three if you use a lot of dynamic picking with varying levels of pick attack in your playing. The distortion setting will actually over-saturate a higher gain amp really early, but when you can tame some of the unwanted warms that start to blanket the sound with the articulate tone knob on this pedal, you can reach some very unique tonal regions of your amp you didn't think existed.

I've only tried this on lower wattage tube amplifiers (20 watts max), but it has earned a permanent place on my pedalboard, even through amps that are "too good for pedals".

5 stars, no questions asked on this one. It seems too simple to be useful, but the sound is perfect for those syrupy, fuzzy neck pickup solos that I like to play. Not so good for playing chords on the settings I use, but I have noticed I still have the speed and response when playing solos on the higher strings. After I heard George Lynch say something to the effect of "you can still play fast with fuzz if you use it right", I realized this pedal was he only one I had used that made me agree with that. A+, also easily modded, so that's a major win for me.