MXR Carbon Copy

July 2008 Guitarist 119
MXR PEDALS £159-£219
EFFECTS
than a lot of vintage and some new
build units with a maximum delay
time of about 300ms can do.
Tonally, the repeats have clarity
combined with a dark warmth
and a natural sounding decay that
seems to work well between
guitar and amp.
Now the Carbon Copy has
pretty much the same knob
controls as any other analogue
delay – vintage or new – out there
but the modulation adds more
scope. With modulation engaged
on the stock factory settings the
effect is very subtle indeed, but
with a delve into the innards you
can adjust the trim pots for more
dissipated repeats that recall the
warble of a tape echo.
Stereo Tremolo
The new MXR tremolo is based on
the Dunlop TS-1 and keeps all the
effects and controls of the original
pedal while putting them in a
smaller housing (the size of a
Phase 100), designed to take up
less space on a modern pedal
board. Power is supplied by two
PP3 batteries easily accessed via
a plastic lid on the base.
Alternatively you could invest in
an 18-volt adaptor – Dunlop has a
model called the ECB-004 but
distributor JHS doesn’t actually
stock that. It does, however, have
the DC Brick (£133) multi-power
outlet which will do the job.
This pedal can operate as a
normal mono tremolo pedal but
also has stereo operation, which
opens up the possibility of using
two amps or creating stereo width
in recording. This is accomplished
by having both a standard mono
input and output plus a separate
stereo input and output, each of
which use a single 6.4mm TRS
jack allowing several mono in/
stereo out and stereo in/stereo out
routing possibilities.
Three knobs control the sound:
depth and speed are self-
explanatory while the shape knob
is the one that changes the nature
of the type of tremolo you hear as
it gradually changes the shape of
the waveform. Fully counter-
clockwise you get a sine wave, the
centre position gives a trapezoid
wave, while fully clockwise dials
in a square wave. As well as the
standard effect on/off footswitch
there’s a second footswitch that
turns the pedal into a stereo
panner – it switches the tremolo
modulation phase of the stereo
channel so the sound alternates
between the two outputs.
Sounds – Tremolo
With a single amp this pedal is
capable of lots of classic tremolo
sounds with a huge speed range
from a really slow pulse to a fast
warble. The shape knob takes the
sound from soft Fender amp trem
territory through very subtle
variations on the theme to
something more hard-edged and
stuttery, but never brutal and
always sounding musical.
Connecting the outputs to two
amps for stereo operation
certainly results in a bigger sound.
Of course, that would be the case
using two amps instead of one
regardless of the tremolo but the
effect tends to unify the sound
into something bigger than the
sum of its parts. Kick in the pan
button and the sound ping-pongs
from one amp to the other at the
set tremolo speed. With high
depth and a square wave shape
the ‘one amp on, one amp off’
effect is more obvious and a bit
gimmicky, but perhaps cool for a
special effect somewhere in a set.
At higher tremolo speeds you get
an altogether more spacious effect
where the sound appears to be
chorused with a lovely shimmer
more akin to a Univibe or rotary
speaker. Just as when used in
mono, careful juxtaposition of all
three knobs yields plenty of
variations on this sound.
Vintage 1974 Phase 90
Since its introduction in early
seventies, the MXR Phase 90 has
always been regarded as one of the
classics and there are current
reissues in various forms by the
present Jim Dunlop-owned
brand. This Vintage 1974 model
is a custom shop job and ought to
satisfy demand from purists
seeking an unadulterated clone of
the very first version – the one
with the script logo produced
from 1974 to 1977. What the
company did was to basically
reverse engineer an original pedal
that had been purchased in 1974
by Bob Cedro, a Dunlop engineer.
The result is a hand-wired
circuit board with original
specification 1974 components,
including select resistors paired
with hand-matched FETs that
aim to exactly recreate the
original sound. The pedal is
finished in a similar dull orange
shade as a vintage pedal, printed
with the MXR script logo and
featuring high quality Switchcraft
input and output jacks as well as a
Carling bypass switch. No modern
tweaks have been added which
means no status LED and battery
power only – accessed by
removing four screws and taking
the pedal’s base off. Inside, the
circuitry is protected and
separated from the PP3 battery by
a layer of foam – something that
has inevitably deteriorated in
most vintage units. The only
control available is a single speed
knob that comes with a removable
rubber cap for easier adjustment
by foot.
Sounds – Phase 90
Eddie Van Halen apparently liked
the treble boost quality of his
Phase 90 for solos, and a slight
tonal shift in that direction as part
of the effect is apparent when
kicking the pedal in, but it’s the
The Rivals
Analogue Delay
The Ibanez AD-9 (£149) is a
reissue of an earlier pedal from
the 1980s and offers up to
300ms of delay. E-H Deluxe
Memory Man (£135) is another
classic vintage design with
550ms of delay and the option of
adding chorus/vibrato
modulation to the repeats. The
Toneczar Echoczar ($795) is a
completely analogue delay with
two time-delay settings (100ms
to over a second), footswitchable
feedback, controllable pitch-
shifting between channels, stereo
output and separate pedal jacks
for delay time and repeats.
Tremolo
There are plenty of mono tremolos
around but if we are comparing like
for like it has to be stereo. The
Demeter Tremulator has set a
standard for vintage-style trem
and there’s now a stereo version in
the STRM-1 ($309). The Line 6
Tonecore Tap Tremolo (£91) will
give you stereo tremolo on a tighter
budget. The Gig-FX Pro Chop
(£229) is different from all the
other tremolo stompboxes around
in that it has a treadle to control the
modulation rate. It offers square
and triangle waves that can be
used separately or combined for
radical rhythmic pulses.
Phaser
MXR makes other variations on
the Phase 90, a standard ‘block’
logo model costs £112, plus there
are two other ‘script’ versions for
£115 either with or without status
LED. The Phase 100 (£159)
offers a broader range of sounds.
The E-H Small Stone (£39) was
also a big hit in the seventies and
provides a different flavour of
phasing to the Phase 90. For a
different angle on phasing there’s
the Pigtronix EP-1 Envelope
Phaser (£199) that has touch
sensitive effects plus provision
for connecting an expression
pedal for speed control.
The separate stereo and mono outputs
Phase 90 with rubber capped speed knob
GIT304.rev_mxr 119 16/5/08 13:52:29