Shin Suzuki is the most celebrated amp and pedal designer in Japan, renowned by tonechasers the world over for his ability to faithfully recreate some of the most elusive sounds in music history. As proprietor of Shin’s Music in Tokyo, he has cultivated an unfailing ear for incredible tones. In 2016, Shin collaborated with the MXR Custom Shop to create the Shin-Juku™ Drive, a pedal widely praised for the way it captured the raw sonic complexity of a rare amplifier with a legendary reputation.

Shin and the MXR Custom Shop have come together once again to create the MXR Raijin Drive, a pedal that reinvents two iconic Japanese stompboxes—an overdrive and a distortion—with greater tonal range and usability so that those beloved sounds can keep up with the modern tone chase.

We sat down with Shin to talk about this new creation, what inspired him to design pedals, and more.