From time to time, the MXR design team likes to invite guest designers to collaborate on pedals. It’s one of many things we do to keep a fresh and forward-thinking perspective, serving MXR’s ultimate mission to provide players with innovative, practical stompboxes that will stand up to the rigors of the road. In 2014, we worked with Italian pedal designer Carlo Sorasio to create the Il Torino™ Overdrive, and in 2015, we worked with Fuzzrocious Pedals’ Ryan Ratajski to create the MXR Bass Distortion.
This year, we worked with Shin Suzuki, Japan’s most celebrated pedal designer and the owner of Shin’s Music, where he also builds custom amps and guitars for artists. He leant us his intimate knowledge of a legendary boutique amp to create the Shin-Juku™ Drive, a pedal that provides smooth, wide open overdrive with tons of sustain and incredibly fast response time to every playing detail. The Shin-Juku Drive’s simple three-knob interface allows you to call up a wide range of sounds, from an organic boost to full on grinding overdrive, with a Dark switch to cut high frequencies for a darker, mellower sound.
During a recent visit to the US, Shin sat down to tell us a bit about himself and the Shin-Juku Drive.
Shin Suzuki & Jeorge Tripps
How did you get into the pedal-making business?
I first became interested in building pedals when I was in middle school. By the time I was in high school, I was already building pedals for my musician friends. Basically, I taught myself how to repair and modify equipment as well as build new equipment from scratch, and one day I decided to do it for a living. Today, many Japanese artists and even some famous American artists use equipment that I have made or modified in some way.
What was your goal when you designing this pedal?
I wanted to create a pedal that would match the big, wide open sound, the smooth overdrive, and the fast response of a particularly mythical style of boutique amplifier. I know the style very intimately because I have not only played and listened to them, but also repaired them. I think that the resulting pedal, the Shin-Juku Drive, really nails it. Not only the sound, but also the feel and response to your attack.
It’s not simply an overdrive—it’s like an amp in a pedal box. At certain settings, the Shin-Juku Drive is perfect to use as an “always-on” effect to put the finishing touch on the tone coming straight out of your guitar.
Jeorge & Shin going over a Shin-Juku Drive prototype
How were you able to achieve that sound?
Well, I knew exactly what sound I wanted, and as I said, I am well-acquainted with the inner-workings of the amp that produces that sound. I had a good idea of where to start the design process. I chose a bunch of different parts that I thought would get me close to the sound of that legendary amplifier, and then I made a pedal. I tested the pedal again and again, changing parts as necessary, until I matched the sound I wanted. This is the same process I go through for most of the pedals I design.
What does the Dark switch do, and why did you include it as a feature?
I included the Dark switch to give players the option of a slightly warmer sound. Pushing the switch cuts some of the high end, which is perfect for taming the brightness of silverface or blackface-style amps, or for when you just want a smoother, mellower sound.
The MXR® Custom Shop is all about sonic discovery. In their effort to explore the furthest reaches of tone, the Custom Shop team invites accomplished independent pedal designers from around the world to contribute their unique perspectives and design styles to the cause. The first such collaboration is the Il Torino Overdrive, a highly tweakable overdrive pedal designed with Carlo Sorasio, Italy’s top tone maestro. He works with Italy’s top musical acts, designing amps and pedals to suit their needs on the road and in the studio.
He sat down to talk with us about his entry into the world of pedal designing and the creation of the Il Torino Overdrive, a highly tweakable OD that’s perfect for guitar players who like to fine-tune each part of their signal chain.
When did you first start designing pedals?
Carlo Sorasio: While attending Polytechnic University of Turin, I studied electronics on my own, particularly analog electronics, using old books I found in the school library. I started out just building pedals for myself as a guitar player. The first was a Dallas Rangemaster clone in 2004, and I modded many other pedals, including ones from MXR and Dunlop.
I started my business in 2007 after completing my mechanical engineering degree. In 2008, I released my first amp commercially and continued to perfect the design until 2010 when I deepened my understanding of PCB and transformer design.
Which artists have you worked with?
Carlo: I have worked with some of the finest Italian guitar players. Some of the most important are Mario Schilirò (guitars for Zucchero Fornaciari), Giacomo Castellano (Thomas Lang, Nannini, Elisa, solo), Massimo Varini (Boccelli, Pausini, Ramazzotti), and Water Donatiello (Gerry Mulligan, Stevie Lacy, Bruno Chevillon).
Stevie Salas: I met Carlo when I was playing a concert a few years back in Turin. When I arrived for sound check, he was there working with the opening act. He showed me some pedals as well as some custom amplifiers.
I get approached a lot by gear designers, and usually they don’t impress me, so I wasn’t that excited. But he was a nice guy, so I decided to plug into the amp he had onstage. As soon as I plugged into it, I knew right away that this was something VERY special. After that, he showed me some of his custom pedals, and needless to say, his overdrive blew my mind. I ended up both the amp and the overdrive for my concert that night and for the rest of the tour! In fact, I have used them on every European tour since.
Stef Burns: I also met Carlo at a Turin gig. He had an amp that he built for me to try, and it rocked!
Carlo, what would you say is your specialty as a pedal designer?
Carlo: So far, overdrive and boost pedals. But I am expanding my range of expertise and am currently working on phaser, flanger and delay effects.
I think that, especially for a self-taught guy like me, it’s normal to start with the overdrive and boost. Simple projects that help to learn the basics. Modulation and delay, however, are more complex, and it takes more skill to avoid simply copying other designs. And these skills can only be obtained through experience and mistakes—lots of mistakes!
Stef: He obviously has knowledge and a talent for building amps and pedals but he also has an ear for tone so he can do it right.
Stevie: I meet many guys around the world who do what he does and the difference between good and great can be measured by a micrometer. Carlo has a way of making amps and effects that sound vintage/modern capturing the best of the old with a little something new in there. He has also found a way to use modern techniques to achieve this making the pedals and amps affordable without losing quality.
Which of his products do you own?
Stef: I have the Blues Devil and it works great for adding a singing tone to clean and extra gain to lead.
Stevie: I have his Il Torino Overdrive in a prototype form and some of his prototype amp heads. Over the years, I have had him do some mods to the pedal.
Have you worked with Carlo to develop any custom gear?
Stevie: We have worked closely on his overdrive, and we are messing with old Jet Phase type effects.
Carlo, which circuit designs have inspired you the most?
Carlo: Well, as I said the Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster was the first pedal I ever made. It’s a very simple circuit—just 7 components and one transistor—but it’s a pain to make t play well. When you get it, though, it’s amazing. That circuit taught me the importance of each component and how it contributes to the final result.
Tell us about the MXR Il Torino Overdrive. What sound and functionality were you shooting for?
Carlo: The Il Torino Overdrive is an overdrive pedal for fine-tuners. It’s very versatile and very organic sounding at any of its settings. At first, I was searching for a Zeppelin sounding overdrive with a great touch response and a rough tone. These characteristics are still present in the final product, but we ended up with a broader, more versatile spectrum of overdrive with very nice, natural compression.
How did you achieve that goal?
Carlo: I used MOSFET circuitry to recreate the structure of classic tube preamps and LED diodes for their warm, open sound, and I used both local and global feedback to enhance touch response and introduce a bit of asymmetrical saturation. Rolling back the volume on your guitar will clean up the sound without reducing the overall output too much.
You can I was very careful to choose the right components for this pedal, particularly the LED diodes, which are very critical to the tone of the Il Torino.
I made the pedal much more versatile by adding a simple but powerful three-band EQ section. Each of the knobs is highly responsive across their range, so players will be able to fine-tune their overdrive sound to their liking. The last feature I added was the dual mode OD/BOOST switch, which allows players to toggle between the more aggressive overdrive sound and a cleaner sound that has just the right amount of compression and a lot of sustain.
One of this pedal’s main features is that it has a special type of buffered bypass switching rather than true bypass. The type of buffered bypass in the Il Torino uses a Class A Low Impedance Output Driver to maintain natural tonal warmth when using long signal chains. You can’t prevent that kind of signal loss with true bypass.
What type of player will be most interested in this pedal?
Carlo: Players of any style, from blues to hard rock and even fusion, will find this pedal very useful for both their overdrive and boost needs. Especially those who like the sound of handmade boutique amps and like to customize their tone.
What’s the best way to use this pedal? Any particular guitar (humbucker vs. single-coil) and amp combination?
Carlo: The Il Torino is best used with an amp that is just breaking up. It is a subtle overdrive that doesn’t distort basic sound of your guitar, so you’ll still be able to recognize your own tone. As far as specific amps, the Plexy, JCM800, and Blackface-based circuits are the best for this pedal rather than hi-gain amps. I prefer humbucker pickups for the OD mode. It sounds great with single coils, too, but players may want to roll off the treble to balance out the tone.
Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. For guitarists, that better mousetrap arrived in the early ’70s when Keith Barr gave the world the MXR Phase 90. It was the first of many brightly colored effects pedals that would find their way onto stages and into recording studios worldwide.
Barr and his partner Terry Sherwood owned an audio repair shop in Rochester, New York, where they were shocked by the poor quality of the guitar effects their customers brought in. Barr and Sherwood decided they could give guitar players a better sounding, cooler looking, and more reliable stompbox. MXR was born, and the company gave guitarists access to amazing sounds—some of which were previously available only in high-end studios—delivering those sounds in rugged, roadworthy enclosures.
The response was immediate and overwhelming. Starting with a few dozen Phase 90s constructed in a basement and sold out of a car at gigs, MXR added three more pedals to the core lineup: the Distortion +, the Dyna Comp® Compressor, and the Blue Box ™ Octave Fuzz. Soon, the growing company was cranking out thousands and thousands of stompboxes and distributing them all over the planet. Guitarists everywhere were plugging into MXR pedals, and those chains of multi-colored boxes became synonymous with out-of-this-world sounds and limitless possibilities.
The long list of timeless recordings that feature MXR pedals includes classic tunes by such giants as Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, and many, many others. The vicious distortion on Blizzard of Ozz? MXR Distortion +. Jimmy Page’s “Fool in the Rain” solo? MXR Blue Box. Virtually every song on Van Halen I? Phase 90. Keith Richards’ trippy tone on “Shattered”? Phase 100. The intuitive operation and bullet-proof reliability of MXR pedals ensured that those guitar heroes could reproduce the sounds of their hit records night after night on the road as well as in the recording studio.
The music business can be fickle, however, and MXR’s fortunes would shift in the ’80s as other manufacturers began to catch up. MXR closed its doors, but the core products never fell out of favor. Jim Dunlop recognized this, and acquired and resurrected the MXR brand. Fittingly, Dunlop’s first MXR releases were the Phase 90, the Distortion +, the Dyna Comp Compressor, and the Blue Box Octave Fuzz. Dunlop’s acquisition meant that guitarists could once again get their hands on the classic MXR effects, and it also represented a continuation of Keith Barr’s innovative legacy with the eventual release of many new designs.
What’s more, the MXR roster now includes classic non-MXR effects such as the Talk Box and the Uni-Vibe Chorus/Vibrato—recreated with dead-on accuracy and imbued with all the qualities that made MXR famous—in addition to several signature effects developed in conjunction with guitar players such as Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Zakk Wylde, and Dimebag Darrell.
The 40th anniversary of MXR’s incorporation finds the company more vibrant and exciting than ever, offering dozens of models for guitar players and bass players, with the time-honored effects that got the company started sitting proudly alongside forward-thinking boxes never dreamed of by the founders.
The fact that we can’t remember a time when there weren’t hundreds of stompboxes to choose from is due in large part to MXR. The company’s first print ad, which appeared on the back cover of Rolling Stone and featured the then-unheard-of Phase 90, stated simply, “MXR: We Are Here.” Those words are far truer on the 40th anniversary than they were when they were written. The next 40 years will only bring more incredible sounds in neat little boxes to innovative musicians everywhere as the company that created such a big part of the soundtrack of our past provides the tools to take music into the future. Prepare to be amazed all over again.
In 2014, we’re celebrating MXR’s 40 years of innovation with a series of mini documentary videos covering its history—from being sold out of a suitcase to appearing on the world’s biggest stages—along with numerous artists, engineers, pedal designers, and original MXR personnel telling stories of sonic inspiration and discovery. Start below with the trailer for just a small sample of what’s to come; then watch our inspiring interview with MXR founding employee Ron Wilkerson, who explains the creative, business and technical enthusiasm that drove MXR’s formative years; and then watch as guitar hero Paul Gilbert recounts his first experiences with MXR effects, and explains how the right effects can influence experimentation and inspiration.
