The newest member of this growing family is the M75 Super Badass Distortion, a thoughtfully conceived balance of overdrive and modern-metal mega-tonnage with a 3-band EQ and a very dynamic and touch-sensitive circuit.
An EQ for Everyone
In terms of general design sensibility, MXR stompboxes haven’t changed much since the first one rolled off the line in 1972. That’s probably got a lot to do with the fact that MXR’s signature carapace is, for most players, an ideal cross of robust armor and compact footprint. Recently, MXR reduced the box’s thickness one some of their pedals (the Super Badass included) to make them a little lighter than the old dogs, which players who take a full pedalboard on the road will appreciate. Personally, I miss some of that gold-brick heft found in older pieces, but in practical terms, the new enclosure is more than sufficiently sturdy—unless you play in some noise project that involves tossing your pedals into open flame, you should be fine.
Super Badass controls are, for the most part, standard fare for a distortion, but the highly tweakable EQ is an excellent addition and does much to distinguish the M75 from the distortion hordes. The separate bass, mid, and treble knobs are powerful and enable control over a very wide frequency spectrum.
From Blues to Thrash
A lot of distortion pedals are one-trick ponies—even many classics have a certain sweet spot that infuse a glorious and thundering output when you get it right, but go mushy or thin when you don’t. That kind of inflexibility may be okay if you use one type of guitar for a whole set, but if you move between single-coils and humbuckers, it can be a major hassle. The Super Badass and its EQ all but obliterate this hurdle, and while the pedal was named with heavy distortion consumers in mind, there’s an overdriven tone for nearly every taste hiding within.
With a humbucker-equipped DeArmond and the MXR set to lower gain settings, I explored the softer side of the Badass first. With distortion around 10 o’clock and a boost in the mids, I got a brawny overdrive similar to the output from a TS9. However, unlike the Ibanez—which has a rather restrictive EQ curve—the Badass has room to range in the upper and lower frequencies, which enables you to accommodate a greater number of amp and guitar pairings from a single distortion setting. A ’65 Twin Reverb reissue—a fantastic platform for just about any stompbox—was a natural fit for the MXR. The darker 6L6 circuit and open-backed cab generated a smoky, leather-tough overdrive at most of these modest settings. And turning up the bass knob gave the output a more compressed howl akin to a cranked Deluxe. But each note still resonated clearly and responded to picking dynamics.
A lot of overdrives sound great when you turn up the output and kill the gain for a boost-type effect. Thanks to its flexible 3-band EQ, the Super Badass excels at this—especially with a clean, high-headroom amp that’ll let you shape and color the output from mellow to hot and spiky. Using the Badass like a boost is perfect if you want extra kick from a high-gain amp, too.
Ratings
Pros: Powerful, flexible 3-band EQ. Touch-sensitive responsiveness. Can go from modern metal leads to simple lead boosts with aplomb.
Cons: Most available tones have a trace of modern distortion color.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street: $99
jimdunlop.com
With the Super Badass out in front of a 45-watt Dr. Z Antidote and a 4x12 cab loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s, I kicked up the pedal’s distortion to maximum. At this level, you’ll hear a fair amount of white noise from the pedal—especially with single-coils in the mix. Here again, though, the EQ proves invaluable: Rolling off the highs reduces sizzle and helps control unwanted feedback. But nixing most of the mids and pumping up the bass enables you to shape these heavy-duty distortion sounds into a menacing torrent of sludge. With humbuckers driving the pedal at these settings, I could generate something close to Matt Pike’s grim power-chord assault on “Madness of an Architect.” And if the girth of the chords at these settings is massive, the sustain is positively otherworldly—a mile-long red carpet of soaring, singing, searing output that teeters, quite musically, at the edge of feedback, depending on how you ride the volume on your guitar. Single-coils work just as well at these aggressive settings, though they’ll feed back much sooner. Set this combination up right, though, and you have a perfect pairing for nasally metal-punk spittle, especially if you neutralize the bass.
The Verdict
While the Super Badass lives up to its name on the basis of the savage distortion and authoritative overdrive that’s on tap, it’s the powerful EQ that makes this pedal trulybadass. Many of us have blind-ordered a distortion or overdrive only to find out that it’s totally incompatible with our rig or has a limited range of use. But the EQ on the Badass makes the pedal equally at home with single-coils or humbuckers, high-gain amps or high-headroom clean amps, metal leads or roots-rock crunch. There’s a modern color at the root of the MXR’s voice that might scare off some old-school devotees, but if you need a new gain pedal that covers all the bases, it’s worth giving the Super Badass a try—chances are, you’ll easily find a useful and inspiring flavor of growl and have plenty of room left to explore overdrive and distortion realms you hadn’t even considered. And for right around 100 bucks, you’d be hard pressed to find more distortion flavors for the money.
Watch our video demo:
Despite the limited output options, the StompLab’s tonal capabilities are quite extensive. There are a total of 61 effect, amplifier, and cabinet models to choose from, each of which can be stored in one of 20 user programs in any configuration you can dream up (provided that your dreams allow for a maximum of eight effects at one time). Vox also includes 100 pre-programmed patches, which helps in getting started with the pedal right out of the box. Since the StompLab’s LED readout is only able to display two numbers or letters at a time, you’ll most likely be spending some time referring to the manual until you memorize the readouts that correspond to each model.
That said, creating and altering programs is a cinch. The StompLab’s default mode (dubbed “program”) allows you to you start off by selecting the desired musical genre from the category control knob, which will then pipe in an amp that reflects that music’s tonal character. Two conjoining knobs adjust the amp’s gain and volume levels, and stomping on the pedal’s two footswitches allows scrolling up and down through the program banks. Pressing the edit button engages the, yes, edit mode, which reassigns most of the pedal’s controls for secondary functions—such as calling up effects, editing their parameters, and telling the LED screen what values to display. You can also assign the tiny onboard expression pedal to control any parameter of the amps and effects you wish.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse
When taking into consideration the surprisingly
great tones that live within its dainty
enclosure, the StompLab IIB provides a
lot of bang for the buck. With a Fender
American Jazz bass at the helm, Vox’s little
red devil dished out excellent clean tones
with plenty of definition and character. The
amplifier models assigned to each genre
selection lined up perfectly with what one
would expect, be it for warm and smooth
jazz tones, meaty and aggressive hard-rock
swagger, or even some really wild and
strange sounds for modern dance music.
What was even more impressive was how
nicely they tracked into my DAW, demonstrating
how well Vox understands that half
of a great, modeled tone is dependent on
good mic’ing emulation.
Even though each of the effects has just two controllable parameters, they’re surprisingly malleable. The envelope filters in particular have a massive range from subtle to extreme, and they respond to picking dynamics with excellent sensitivity. Phasing and flanging actually sound like they’re performing their duties from within the effect, instead of just careening through the high frequencies with a digital edge that’s common in other modelers in this price range. And the onboard expression pedal is not only handy for volume swelling and wah effects, but also for ramping up modulation rates and filter-frequency ranges for some truly spectacular and bizarre tones. It should be noted that I ran into some issues positioning my foot to fully control its sweep, simply because the expression pedal is so small. With the limited space, I also had to be careful not to accidently hit the volume control knob with the end of my foot, which I ended up doing several times.
Ratings
Pros:
Solid build. Surprisingly great tone for the price. Plenty
of models to work with. Great direct sounds.
Cons:
Small expression pedal is hard to use. Only one 1/4"
output. Overdrives, distortions, and fuzzes can be shrill. Tricky
LED interface.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$89
VOX
voxamps.com
The overdrive and fuzz boxes delivered the only real questionable tones during my time with the StompLab. Mild overdrives were generally rich-sounding and added burlier elements to the midrange—especially with the UK Major and LA Studio models. But as I turned up the gain into heavier territory, the highs had a tendency to get raspier and overbearing. Switching over to distortion models like the Orange Dist or Shred Dist—or the four fuzz models—only compounded this issue. Still, I was pretty impressed at how well the higher-gain models could transform the tone into an industrial-tinged wall of sound. The Techno Fuzz and Crusher models in particular were very effective in achieving wooly industrial-synth-fuzz tones in the vein of Nine Inch Nails and Ministry, but those with a penchant for classic-sounding bass overdrive will probably want to steer clear of the StompLab’s gnarlier distortions.
The Verdict
For a portable, tone workstation that’s
kind to both the back and the wallet, Vox’s
StompLab IIB is hard to topple. There’s
a ton of great sounds living in this little
box, and they’re worth exploring even if
it takes some time to manage the learning
curve. Bassists with larger feet will face a
little frustration with the small expression
pedal (though Vox does offer an expression
pedal-less version with the StompLab
IB for $69). And with just one 1/4" out,
the StompLab could have benefited from
having an XLR direct out or even a USB
output for direct recording. Aside from
those concerns, its versatility, tone, and
portability make it a very solid choice for
the bassist who is looking for a compact
modeling unit that’s ideal for travel and
on-the-fly jam sessions.