MXR M300 Reverb Electric Guitar Effect Pedal

Product Information

First and foremost, we are guitarists, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best reverb pedals on the market right now. Shimmer is an ethereal, octave-up reverb effect with a long, sustaining tail that produces a synth-like texture, and the polyphonic reverb applies two programmable pitch shifts to the reverb tail to also generate complex, synth-like sounds. Reverb is, for the most part, a digital effect. This is because for it to be analog, you’d need something physical to play your sound through. Early reverb effects like the plate reverb required huge metal sheets through which the sound was played. Echo chambers had sounds played into them which were then captured by a microphone and added to the dry signal to create a sense of space on the recording. So as you can imagine, it’s pretty inconvenient to use an analog reverb outside of the studio or sound design spaces.

The expression pedal input is really handy for adding swells or controlling the amount of ‘verb on the fly, and the whole thing is in a standard Boss casing that’s rugged and reliable. The spring mode is a little splashy we’ll admit, but considering how good the rest of the reverbs are, it’s a small price to pay. Several of these effects - tremolo, modulated, and dynamic - have three different sets of parameters that can be selected with the mode switch. The mode switch also selects tap tempo divisions for the echo setting and engages either interval or mix edit parameters for the Poly setting. Other controls include an FX level, time (decay), and tone knobs, with the latter two also providing a second set of parameters that are accessible by holding down the mode button for about one second.No one wants a pedal that takes ages to set up. Simplicity is key especially with things like reverb, that is why the MXR just has three simple controls. Mix which sets the dry/wet mix of the effect, Tone sets the feel of the effect rolling in more high end, the Decay control sets how long you want the reverb to last. Nice and simple to set up and get any tone you want. Here's what MXR say about the M300 Reverb Pedal Unless you’ve been marooned on a island, entirely apart from guitar-nerd media, you may have noticed that we are mired in a reverb arms race. Around the globe, pedal weirdoes are tweaking algorithms and stuffing knob upon knob of fine-tuning power to create the most distantly spacy, authentically springy, and perfectly plate-y reverbs. The harder, more right-angled reverberations of the room reverb are less immediately satisfying, but provide a great blank slate for percussive delays and tremolos. Without other effects, short decay and mix settings in room mode tend to evoke the less-than-charming space of an empty apartment. More extreme settings, however, create very big spaces, with a minimum of additional color, for other effects to work within. There are three main modes. Sparse is a tap-delay-based reverb, Dense is more of a plate-style reverb, and Diffuse, as the name implies, is more of an ambient reverb. The tap delay mode can put you in the ballpark of more standard delays as well, further adding to the versatility of the NightSky. In addition to its normal parameters, the MXR Carbon Copy has a small control for modulation which adds more color to the delay trail, bringing the sound even closer to the warble of a vintage tape machine. Under the hood, two trimpots allow adjustment over the width and rate of the modulation effect. For new Carbon Copy users, it's best to adjust these up a bit when first using the modulation as the factory presets can be too subtle. Don't Delay!

Presets are accessible in separate banks of three presets (A, B, and C), which are accessible via the pedal’s three footswitches and/or the rotary value control knob. The large LED displays preset info, including its number and a programmable name. The LEDs surrounding the rotary reverb-type control change color from green to amber to let users know when a preset has been modified. The Light Pedal is GCA’s attempt at redefining what a reverb pedal can be. Combining a real spring tank with an innovative infrared optical sensor system, the Light Pedal can be used to create brand-new sounds we guarantee you’ve never heard before.A reverb pedal simulates a space for the sound of your guitar to occupy. When you clap your hands in a large room, you’ll hear the sound of your clap bouncing off the walls and surfaces of the area around you. A reverb pedal does the exact same thing for your instrument, artificially recreating the sound as it if it were happening in that space. Of the two modulated reverbs—mod and epic—I used the former most. The extra kinetic energy adds a dreamy, drifting layer to spacious chord progressions and lazy, moody lead passages—especially when used a little lower in the mix. The colliding modulated reverbs of the epic setting are less elegant, generating high harmonic tone shards in longer decays that betray a touch of their digital origin. I did notice, however, that this texture is more effective in a band context, where ride cymbals and bass undercurrents help soften the harmonic edges.