ZZ Top’s guitar and bass tech, Elwood Francis, explains the ins and outs of the newest guitars and basses that Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill have out on the road for 2015.
- The Big 5: Billy F. Gibbons - Premier Guitar ›
- Wild Customs Guitars Unveils the Billy F. Gibbons Special - Premier Guitar ›
- Wild Customs Guitars Unveils the Billy F. Gibbons Special - Premier Guitar ›
- Dusty Hill: 1949–2021 - Premier Guitar ›
- ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons Receives BMI Troubadour Award - Premier Guitar ›
- Chasing Tom Waits: Your Quest for Creative Identity ›
The MXR Layers Pedal blooms with rich, organic sustain that imbues every strum and pluck with resonance and depth. With a versatile suite of controls, this pedal can be as simple or complex as you need. Whether you want to lengthen single notes or generate multi-layered soundscapes rich with ambience, the MXR Layers Pedal will extend the creative potential of your instrument. Pull off chord voicings you never thought possible, compose transcendent melodies, orchestrate harmonic ensembles, create lively stereo pads, and more—all from a standard MXR housing.
MXR Layers Pedal highlights:
- Versatile suite of controls opens new frontiers to plug-and-play maestros and tonal tinkerers alike
- Up to three layers of sustain, each with its own status LED
- Trigger layers with footswitch or playing dynamics
- The Mix knob adjusts the wet signal level; in other words, the volume of your layers
- Trig knob sets the sensitivity of auto-trigger function
- Attack knob adjusts the fade-in time of each layer, while Decay knob sets the fade-out time
- Sub Oct switch adds fat subterranean vibes
- Advanced features such as expression pedal and tap switch control or additional parameter tweaks offer even more intricate customization
- Build richly detailed soundscapes that elevate musical expression to new heights
The MXR Layers Pedal is available now at $219.99 street/$314.27 MSRP from your favorite retailer.
For more information, please visit jimdunlop.com
The plexi-in-a-pedal format won’t work for players that need every amp and effect model under the sun. But if you relish Marshall tones, the Lion ’68 is a brilliant solution for tracking or gigging when the stack can’t make the trip. It offers an expansive tone palette, too. Super Bass and Super Lead models have ample headroom and reproduce the rich, underrated clean sounds of those amps as easily as they kick out Ramones walls of grind or Jimmy Page lead sizzle. The Lion ’68 exhibits lifelike dynamic response. It also reacts to gain devices as hectic as a Super-Fuzz with authenticity. The three amp models, six speaker cabs, and room ambience control offer scads of tone and dynamic variations. You can even jumper the two channels with realistic results. I still think I’d feel weird blasting MC5 riffs through a coffee house PA with the Lion ’68. But I would certainly try it in a bigger room and wouldn’t hesitate to record with this impressive plexi stand-in.
