The MXR Reverb offers players the history of these methods and then some in a standard MXR box, featuring six distinct high end styles exquisitely crafted and tuned by the award-winning MXR design team. It’s got a simple three-knob setup, a hi-fi analog dry path, and a massive 20 volts of headroom thanks to our Constant Headroom Technology™ so that it plays exceptionally well with distortion, modulation, and other effects.

Musicians have a number of utilitarian and creative needs that the MXR Reverb handily addresses. If your recorded signal sounds dull and flat, for example, the MXR Reverb can give it a sense of place and atmosphere, making it sound more natural and alive. The same goes for an acoustically dead venue—adding some reverb can open up a room and breathe some life back into your signal. The MXR Reverb also adds a whole new range of tone-shaping options, whether binding the different elements of your sound together or creating atmospheric, otherworldly environments for your compositions to move and breathe within.

The MXR Reverb’s six different styles can help with all of these uses and more. We encourage you to experiment with all of them, but here’s a quick explanation of what each can bring to your sound.

We sat down with Marcus to talk with him about where his new signature strings fit into the evolution of his musical voice as well as a number of topics, including the importance of tone and finding your own sound. This guy’s a true master, with insights that are valuable to any musician, whether or you play bass or not. Check out the video below for some of the highlights from our conversation—soundtracked by the legend himself. The full interview is packed with even more of Marcus’ masterful insights, so be sure to read that after you watch the video.

How important is tone for a musician?

Marcus: When I started playing bass—I was probably 13 years old, something like that—I wasn’t really at the point where I could tell the difference between the important elements of music: technique, intonation, tone. So I was just going by instinct, just playing the bass. I had a Fender Jazz Bass, and whatever sounded good, even if it was accidentally arrived at, I stuck with it. Later on, I realized that tone is the first thing that impresses people about your sound. That’s the first thing that people are struck by.

All the bass players I admired had a signature sound.

That first note, it makes an impression. I know a lot of great musicians who play some amazing music, but their tone isn’t that great, and you have to get past that as a listener. You have to go, “Ok, my first impression wasn’t that great, but man, he’s playing some great stuff.” But the really, truly great musicians who really make a full impact, to me they have the whole package, and the first element is tone. You hear a guy play that first note and you go, whoa! That’s everything, man. First impressions, right?

All the bass players I admired had a signature sound. Yes, they all had great technique, but you heard one note, two notes, and you knew it was Stanley Clarke, you knew it was Jaco Pastorius, you knew it was James Jamerson. And I really wanted to see if I could find something, maybe not on that level, but something that was easily identifiable as me. Once I got a sound that I liked, I didn’t fool around too much with it. Same bass, same settings, and I just changed the notes, I just changed what I’m playing. But I didn’t really fool around with the sound too much because I felt like I had something that was really identifiable, and that’s so hard to find as a musician. So tone is everything.

When did you first realize you’d found your sound?

Marcus: I was talking to a mentor of mine, a fantastic drummer named Lenny White from my neighborhood in Jamaica, Queens in New York, and I said to him, “Man, I want my own sound, how do I get my own sound?” I was probably 17 at the time, and we had these amazing musicians in the neighborhood who I admired. When we went to these jam sessions, I’d be walking to the club from my car parked two blocks away, and I already knew who was in there because the sounds were so identifiable, even from down the street.

So I’m saying to Lenny White, “Man I really want my own sound, how do you do it?” And he says, “You can’t worry about it, you just keep playing, and keep playing, and then one day, you’re going to hear a recording of yourself and go, ‘Oh that’s me.’” So he gave me some real abstract Karate Kid kind of instructions on how to get your own sound.

Later on, when I’m 21, I get a call from Miles Davis, and he says, “Come to the studio, I’m going to record.” I ran to the studio, and we played, and I’m like, “This is Miles Davis, man, I got to play something good.” And then we heard the playback in the control room, and I remember saying to myself, “Oh wow, that’s me.” I recognized that sound as me. And once you find your own sound, you got to hold on to that, man. You got to hold on tight, because that’s something that a lot of people don’t ever get.

So, I said to myself, now that I have a sound, now I can go to the next level, now I can start to be creative, now I can start to try different techniques, improve my technique, improve my creativity, because I got the first element, the most important element. Sound was really the launching pad for the rest of my playing.

How important is style for a musician?

Marcus: Once when I was talking to Boz Scaggs, he said something that I’ll never forget: “People don’t buy technique. They don’t buy anything but style.” That’s what draws people to an artist—your style, your view of the world, the way you present yourself, but more importantly, the way you see things. You got a lot of great musicians, and then you got artists, and not all great musicians are artists.

I get demos from musicians, and they say, “Check out my demo, I want to make a record.” And the first song is a funk song, the second song is a salsa, and the third song is a bossanova. I say, “Each one is like a completely different player.” And they say, “Well, I want people to know I’m well rounded, that I can do it all.”

You got a lot of great musicians, and then you got artists, and not all great musicians are artists.

That’s really important, but what people want to know is, do you have a unique point of view? And I know the problem, because I was a studio musician for like 25 years. People think they know all the stuff I played on, but I played on hundreds of records that you don’t even know I played on. I’m on Mariah Carey records, Whitney Houston records, where I’m just playing what’s necessary. As a studio musician, you became who you needed to become for each record.

But eventually, I started moving more to an artist mentality where I found my own sound, my own style, and I decided I was going to try to make that sound and that style work in whatever situation I’m in. So, the difference between me 30 years ago and me now is that I have a much clearer point of view about how I want to play and what I think music should sound like. And that’s me really trying to become an artist.

Why work with Dunlop?

Marcus: So the thing about having your own identifiable sound, your own identifiable music, your own identifiable style, is that you still have to grow. You still have to figure out a way, particularly if you’re playing jazz music or any kind of improvisational music to maintain your identity. And it’s a very tricky thing. Because if you stay in the same place, then you’re staying in the same place. And if you change too quickly, you might lose who you are.

You still have to figure out a way to maintain your identity.

Now, everybody has their own version of how to deal with this, but for me, I wanted to continue to evolve. So I’m looking at these Dunlop strings, man, and I’m going, whoa, this maintains what everybody’s known me for, but it has a little bit of my old 17-year-old sound when I was playing more raw, you know what I mean? And I’m already feeling myself wanting to get back to that. This has the best of both worlds.

So it’s a way to grow, by finding this new string. And this is the whole thing: trying to evolve but maintaining who you are at the same time.

Why is it so important to evolve your sound?

Marcus: I always feel like I want to continue to evolve, like I want to push forward. And people ask me, why? Why do you feel like you need to change when you have such a good thing going? But it’s boring otherwise. You know what I mean? I really think that if you’re an artist, your responsibility is to show people the world as it exists today through your eyes. That’s what all artists do. It doesn’t even have to be music, it can be writers, photographers, comedians, they all do the same thing, they all present us with the world as it exists now, but through their own filter, and that’s what makes them interesting.

In the ’8os, everything was really, like, techno, and everything was clean, and everything was very exact because we had just discovered these machines that we could make music with, so we were playing really, like almost in a robotic fashion a lot of times. Because that was where the world was. We had just been introduced to these computers—how do we learn to live with them?

And for a while, computers were dominating. Everything sounded like this, and we found cool ways to do that, but now people are a lot more comfortable with the technology, people are a lot more comfortable with computers. And now things are starting to sound a little bit more natural, at least in a lot of areas of the world and a lot of areas of music.

So for me, I want my sound to sound less high tech. I want to still have a full range of bass and treble, but I want to get a little bit more growl, I want to get a little bit more urgency in my sound. And that’s how I used to play back when I was first starting. In New York, everything was always aggressive, and people didn’t want to hear jazz, so if you were going to play jazz, you had to play with an attitude. We were like 16, 17 years old, and people were like, I don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re really into it, I guess I got to respect them. That’s how we used to hit it. So now, I’m wanting to get back to that.

And in my band, I got like 21, 22, 25 year olds who are feeling like they want to prove themselves, like they want to make a statement, and that’s inspiring me. I want to make sure my sound is in there pushing them.

What is the role of the bass player?

Marcus: A lot of bass players who are solo artists are just sitting there waiting for their solos. But for me, I’m doing just as much work when I’m playing behind you—sometimes more work. It’s a shame that a lot of young bass players don’t recognize how important driving a band is. But that’s what a bass player does, man. You drive the band.

I’m really into that role.—it’s as important to me as playing a great solo. And with these strings, man, with this sound I’m going for, I want to make sure that I’m driving you, that I’m pushing everybody, that I’m pushing the musicians to be creative and reach new heights.

What are you trying to accomplish as an artist?

Marcus: When I first started playing music, I just wanted to be a good musician. My father’s a musician, his father’s a musician—I come from a musical family—so I just wanted to step into the shoes that were laid out for me. And then I’m in my neighborhood in New York, everybody had a band, and I just wanted to be in a good band and just be known as a good musician.

At each step, I just looked to see what else is available from that new step.

And what happens is that, as you get older, you start realizing the possibilities with music. So first, I just wanted to play the bass, I just wanted to be good. Then I saw somebody who had just written a song, he said, “Hey man, here’s a song I wrote.” And I said, “Wow, I would love to write a song on my own.” And that became a goal. And then I saw arrangers making sure that everybody’s part worked together, and I got into that. And then producing. At each step, I just looked to see what else is available from that new step. I’d reach a certain level and go, okay, now what?

And so, for me, at this point, I’m still going, okay, now what? I’m recognizing how powerful music is, how it can communicate things that people have difficulty communicating with words. So we’re playing in Africa, we’re playing in Russia, we’re playing in China, we’re playing all over the world, and we’re able to bring people together who normally wouldn’t come together like that.

So now, what I’m feeling, is how effective, how powerful music can be. That’s my next goal, to take advantage of that, to communicate, try to establish goodwill around the world. It sounds really kind of corny, but when you’re on the stage, man, and you can’t say hello in the audience’s language, but you got like, six, seven thousand people all moving together, all sharing the same emotions, you begin to realize that we all have a lot in common. We just need to establish that first, and then work out the details.

Let’s at least establish that we have a universal commonality, and music is the best example of that.

Setting the Variac control around 12 o’clock gives you what is essentially Super Badass Variac Fuzz’s default 9-volt sound. It’s great with the Gain and Output controls turned up and pushing hard into a somewhat driven tube amp for a very stoner rock or shoegaze vibe, depending on what other effects you’re running.

Players chasing vintage tones will want to turn the Variac control counterclockwise to drop the voltage below 9V for the sound you get from a battery that’s running out of juice. The resulting decrease in headroom will produce a spitty low-fi fuzz reminiscent of psychedelic rock. The only way to get this sound back in the day was to manage a collection of half-dead batteries, but now you can do it with the twist of a knob.

Turning the voltage up past 9V gives you a totally different sound. Going clockwise form 12 o’clock, the Variac control opens up the Super Badass Variac Fuzz to something more like an organic overdrive with fuzzy edges.

That’s just the start of what you can do with the Super Badass Variac Fuzz. Use the Output, Tone, and Gain controls to feel out the range of tones provided by the Variac control. Use your guitar’s volume knob to play with the intensity of the fuzz. Try it with different amps and pickup types. Experiment with other effects—this thing sounds killer with a Cry Baby^® Wah, for example.

Bottom line, the Super Badass Variac Fuzz is an incredibly versatile pedal with a range of textures and timbres that can be dialed in quickly and easily. Now put one on your pedal board and start chasin’ them tones.

It all started with the Phase 90, created by engineer Keith Barr after he decided that he could build a more reliable and better sounding phaser than the bulky and poorly built options on the market at the time. The resulting pedal’s compact size, superior construction, and refined sound put MXR on the map, and it set the standard by which all other phasers are judged.

A couple years after MXR released the Phase 90, the Phase 45 was born. In contrast to the Phase 90’s 4-stage phasing, the Phase 45 was designed with a mellower 2-stage circuit that is favored for its ability to easily blend into a band’s mix.

As MXR transitioned from script logo to block logo housings, MXR’s engineers added a feedback resistor to the Phase 90 circuit. Whereas the first Phase 90 circuit—now called Script—had a subtle and more subdued swoosh, the feedback resistor gave what is now called the Block circuit a dirtier, more pronounced phasing sound. A small number of early Block logo housings contain the original Script circuit, so it’s not always accurate to rely just on the pedal’s housing when identifying a vintage Phase 90.

In the late 1970s, MXR released the Phase 100, which has an altogether different circuit from the Phase 90 and Phase 45, with a different range of sounds. Along with the Speed control, it features a 4-position rotary switch that selects between four different intensities.

MXR went out of business in the early 1980s, but Dunlop resurrected the brand toward the end of the decade. The first pedals to be released under Dunlop’s stewardship were the Distortion+, the Dyna Comp® Compressor, the Blue Box™ Fuzz, and of course the Phase 90, all in Block form with the on/off status LEDs and AC power jacks that MXR eventually added. Since then, Dunlop has re-released each of MXR’s original phasers and has continued to develop new ones along the way.

Our first Phase 90 innovation came in the form of the EVH Phase 90.

When Eddie Van Halen expressed interest in recreating some of his classic MXR pedals, Dunlop engineer Bob Cedro thought of the spacey swirls and hypnotic warbles heard on early Eddie’s early recordings and pulled out his original 1974 script logo Phase 90. Using that as his base, Bob built a prototype Script-style Phase 90 that he hot-rodded for increased headroom and dynamic range. For testing purposes, he included a switch that Eddie could use to toggle between the two sounds for comparison. Eddie loved it, but he wanted to keep the Script/Block switch so that he could have both circuits in hot-rodded form.

The huge success of the EVH Phase 90 led Bob back to his original 1974 Phase 90. He used it to create the ’74 Vintage Phase 90, which features a hand-wired board with select resistors and hand-matched FETs and comes housed in the classic orange finished box with the unmistakable Script logo. For further authenticity, this box has no LED and can only be powered by a battery. For those who wanted a Script version with modern upgrades such as the on/off status LED and an AC power jack, Bob and the MXR team created the Script Phase 90.

To date, Dunlop has only produced one standalone version of the Phase 45: the ’75 Vintage Phase 45, a reissue of the original built to exacting specifications. As with the Vintage Phase 90, it features hand-matched FETs and a hand-wired circuit board.

Now let’s talk about the incredibly versatile Phase 95. First, you get both the mellow two-stage phasing of the Phase 45 and the more intense four-stage phasing of the Phase 90, with a 45/90 switch to toggle between the two. Once you select between those two iconic MXR phasers, you can choose to go with the lush, subdued sound and clarity of the original Script circuit or the light harmonic distortion and accentuated swoosh of the modern Block circuit thanks to the Script switch. As always, the familiar Speed control sets the rate of the effect.

What you’re getting with the Phase 95 is four different pedals in one: a Script Phase 45, a Script Phase 90, a Block Phase 45—which has never been offered before—and a Block Phase 90. Oh, and as we mentioned, it all comes in a mini housing that takes up a fraction of the space occupied by a standard pedal. Here’s how it looks on a mini travel board with a Germanium Fuzz Face® Mini Distortion and a Cry Baby® Mini Wah:

But first, we want to introduce you to the MXR Double-Double Overdrive. It combines a classic Japanese overdrive circuit, famous for its rich, fiery midrange, and a modern American overdrive circuit known for its abundant supply of gain and greater emphasis on high and low frequencies. The result is a versatile array of overdrive tones that are designed to enhance the sound of your guitar and amp setup. Rather than a simple tone control, the this pedal features separate Treble and Bass controls for greater control over the tone of your overdriven sound.

We’ll be using the Double-Double Overdrive to help explain some of our points below.

What do you want your overdrive pedal to do for you?

Boost. Sometimes, all you need is a touch of boost with a little bit of color. In other words, you want to bump up the output of your guitar signal so that it’s mostly clean, but it has just a slight bit of tonal coloration. Like getting the sound of a blackface type amp on “10” but at a lower volume.

Getting this colorful boosted sound would go something like this: Set your amp to your preferred clean setting. Using the Double-Double Overdrive, choose the Hi or Lo setting for your preferred tonal profile and keep the Drive knob nearly fully counterclockwise. Then use the Treble and Bass controls to shape the sound of your signal and the Level control to set how much you want to boost it. Obviously your taste will vary, but that’s a place to start.

Complement. Players often use overdrive pedals to enhance or complement an already overdriven amplifier. One reason might be to boost the signal with a little bit of color. Another reason might be to fill in or focus specific frequencies for a sound that better cuts through the mix. Or maybe you just want a bigger and more intense sound by adding a whole new gain stage to your signal chain.

Set your amp to your preferred level of overdrive. From there, it’s all up to your experimentation with the pedal’s controls. The Double-Double Overdrive provides plenty of options with its two different OD circuits and separate Treble and Bass controls—tweak until you find a sound that works well with your amp’s natural overdrive.

Replace. Sometimes the sound of your overdrive pedal is so good that that’s all you want to hear. This is pretty much the “plug in and go for it” approach, but if you have a tweakable pedal such as the Double-Double Overdrive, you should take some time to figure out the breadth of options available to you. Since you’re starting with a clean amp, you’ve also got a clean slate. Set your amp the way you want it and tweak the pedal to your heart’s content.

Pickup & Amp Considerations

Your overdrive pedal is just a small part of your tonal recipe. A number of other factors can affect your sound depending on how elaborate your setup is, but we’re going to focus on two components that every electric guitar player has in common: pickups and amplifiers.

Pickups. Most players use single-coil pickups or humbucking pickups. Generally speaking, single-coil pickups produce a greater tonal range (more highs and lows) with a lower output, while humbuckers sound more focused in the mids and low mids and produce a higher output. What does this have to do with overdrive pedal settings? Well, a setting configuration that sounds great with single-coil pickups may not sound that great with humbuckers, and vice versa.

Take the Double-Double Overdrive as an example. To get a good baseline, set the Volume at noon, the Drive very low, Bass off, and Treble at noon. Listen to how everything sounds and adjust as necessary. If you need beef up your single-coil signal, choose the Hi setting, you’ll want to turn up the Drive, roll off the Treble, and add some Bass. If you want to tighten up your humbucker signal for a more focused lead tone, try the Lo setting with Bass off, Treble at 2 o’clock, and Drive to taste. Ultimately, it depends on what your goals are: do you want the overdrive sound to complement the tonal profile of your pickups or give it something it may be missing?

Amps. Two of the most popular amp styles are the plexi and the blackface. Plexi-style amps generally have more mid-focused gain, whereas blackface-style amps have a cleaner, more scooped sound. The same question applies here as it does with pickups and any other piece of gear: what sound do you want?

If you’re running a guitar with single-coil pickups through a blackface-style amp and your overdrive signal sounds a bit thin, try turning up the Drive and Bass on the Double-Double Overdrive. If you’re running a guitar with humbuckers through a plexi-style amp, you may want to accentuate and boost the mids for a searing solo that cuts through the cacophony of the band. Try a lower Bass setting and bring the Drive down while letting the amp providing most of the distortion.

A quick note on blackface-style amps: they have a lot of headroom. Cranking them into overdrive territory can result in unusable volume levels. So how do you combine the natural overdrive of a blackface-style amplifier with that of an overdrive pedal? Use the pedal’s volume control—it’ll make the amp work harder than it normally would at usable volume settings, and you’ll get the best of both worlds.

Dialing in Specific Tones

Now let’s look at how all those factors might come into play to create a specific sound.

For a classic rock sound, you’ll want a guitar with low to medium output humbuckers and a plexi-style amp that’s already pushing into overdrive territory. Try the setting the Double-Double Overdrive to its Lo setting with the Treble control around 1 o’clock, the Bass around 11 o’clock, Level around 1 o’clock, and Drive around 12 o’clock.

For a Texas blues rock sound, use a guitar with single-coil pickups and a blackface-style amp turned up loud. Set the Double-Double Overdrive to its Lo setting, with Bass set low, Treble turned up, and Drive to taste (but not too much).

For a classic thrash metal setting, use a guitar with active humbuckers and a high-gain 6L6 blackface-style amp that’s already overdriven. With the Double-Double Overdrive’s Lo setting selected, set the Bass knob low, Treble around 12 o’clock, Level around 2 o’clock, and Drive about 11 o’clock.

Remember, these are just guidelines. Your gear and sonic needs may require different pedal settings, but hopefully you have a better understanding of some of the ways that an overdrive pedal such as the Double-Double Overdrive can interact with your guitar and amplifier. Always use your ears to dial in the sound you want, not your eyes.