At Yngwie’s latest live show, a sneak of his new distortion pedal which is MXR Yngwie Malmsteen Signature!
Also confirming that the Fuzz pedal is just for the looks 
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Yessss and it will be mine when they one day release it! hahaha
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“I like the way it looks, it looks like a landmine” - Yngwie “I don’t like donuts” Malmsteen on why he has a fuzz face he doesn’t use, 2012
So the MXR is just his tired and true DOD 250 to his spec?
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Yep, I bet it is! lol
it’s just weird that he has moved away from Fender and DOD. I know he has been using MXR Compressor but still.
Never the less, another cool pedal too look for
I have an Axe FX3 and don’t understand pedalboards, but it seems like the pedals are always on and the ES-8 connects them appropriately with eight presets?
So most pedals are set one way and are like that for the entire show?
The ES8 routs each pedal into it individually and then you can select any combo of the pedals that are on and select them. It’s like the analog physical version of a modeler effects rig.
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Maybe, maybe not. The fender YJM was more of a voodoo labs overdrive derivative than a straight 250 clone, although the voodoo labs od was a late 90’s reinvention of the dist+/250/ross OD designs in the first place so…
Yes. It’s just controlling switching and placement aspect of it
Not exactly. The ES8 itself has at the very least a digital brain, so not really the analog version of anything by strict definition, and the biggest difference is that it cannot store presets in the form of the actual pedal settings and parameters like a digital/modeler fx rig can, it can only store switching and switching order as a preset - what is in, is out and where everything is in the chain.
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I was thinking that this is probably OK because I assume it will send a MIDI event about the switch being pressed and the few pedals that can understand MIDI might be able to pick it up and switch to their own preset… but if not, I assume a laptop computer could see the switch being pressed and then configure each pedal appropriately. I’m not really familiar with pedals but some seem to be very DSP-heavy and likely can be configured with MIDI.
Anyway, I suspect that some pedals will sound much better than generic pedals in a modeling device, so perhaps the ES-8 type of solution is the “gold standard.”
My buddy has one and its a really neat piece of kit if you have a pretty decent collection of pedals. Boss modelers are nice cause often they 1:1 their physical pedals. Slow Gears are like half a grand used and one of the most coveted Boss vintage effects (basically an auto wah but for volume) but they’ve been perfectly created in most boss modelers for quite some times which guitarists like Anders Nystrom of Katatonia have utilized to great effect for that ethereal almost synthesizer sound on leads. I still think for the touring gigging musician nothing beats Fractal and such devices at the moment.
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I think so, particularly if one is in a cover band playing along with a click track… the laptop could switch every single effect/amp as needed! (I’m not sure if anybody does this, but it would seem like a great idea.)
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Hopefully the MXR pedal is more quiet than the Fender Malmsteen pedal - mine has a lot of noise.
would you have an example of his leads with the slow gear? I am not familiar with their music at all.
He’s said it’s his favorite effect
What were your favourite effects to use for this album?
“One of my favourites is a [BOSS SG-1]
Slow Gear pedal - it´s beautiful and it creates this dream-like keyboard-esque effect. It lands somewhere in the twilight zone between a guitar and a keyboard. Of course I´m a big fan of delay too - I always experiment with it. Analogue delays - even hooking up different delays at the same time with different time signatures - and backwards delays. I´m a real sucker for effects pedals and we just brought in tons of them for this recording. We also used the [Electro-Harmonix chorus]
I’d assume anytime they have lead lines with that ethereal fading in sound its the slow gear, it can be hard to pick out because they have such a multi-layered sound with synths and mellotron in a lot of the mixes on different songs not to mention I don’t think he ever uses it by itself where its very in your face its always mixed with other modulation effects.
This is the standout example on the really high guitar lead line that creeps in and out and I think he’s using an e bow or sustainer pickup with it. His Mayones sigs have a sustainer in them so I’m guessing he’s using that.
there’s bits of it hear where the attack on notes is cut off.
I would guess its an always on effect for a lot of his leads.
They are a band I highly recommend the album run from Last Fair Deal Gone Down, Viva Emptiness, The Great Cold Distance is one of the best three album runs in any bands career.
Aside from limited runs I believe its amongst the most expensive boss pedals as they’ve never reissued it, and it wasn’t a massive seller so there aren’t a lot of units out there. Like an auto wah/envelope filter it doesn’t like chords here’s to hoping Boss makes a Waza version with a chords/poly switch. I think it would do real well in the post Radiohead era of guitarists emulating synth sounds. Mixed with reverb or delay it’s a chefs kiss effect for ambient/shoegaze/ethereal type playing. If auto wahs turn everything into 70s funk music slow gears turn everything into Brian Eno.
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I wouldn’t get your hopes up there.
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@Dissonant_Timbres thanks, these sound amazing, very interesting effect.
@Fossegrim I guess that’s why Yngwie always has a noise suppressor :). If the MXR Yngwie pedal was a lot quieter, I would pick it up for sure.
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Probably not the only reason, but I’m sure it’s one of them. They are all variations on the same theme. The fender one, and probably the MXR one are likely pretty noisy because they add a little bit of amplification after the clipping (voodoo labs topology) in an already noisy circuit which just amplifies the existing noise with the signal, and add its own intrinsic noise to the mix.
The noise floor is just going to go up with DOD 250/MXR Distortion + type circuits cause its boosting everything but as for cutting through I don’t think any overdrive circuit is better. No tone knob to fiddle with, simple.
One of my favorite lead tones of all time is Bruce Springsteen’s lead sound from the Darkness on the Edge of Town Tour in 1978. Two MXR Distortion + pedals in series one always on for the basic tone with a little hair on it and the other for solos into a Fender amp. It just sings. There’s lots of recordings from that tour but this one has been my favorite since I heard it.
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I don’t know if the following schematic of the MRX Distortion+ is accurate, but if so, it’s basically one of the simplest devices imaginable, with only one opamp.
Looks correct. Like many MXR pedals, it’s a basic datasheet non-inverting amplifier circuit with added filtering, clipping, and gain control. That’s not a criticism, though. Circuit tuning is what differentiates one pedal from countless others another in most cases.
Not as simple as a common emitter or common source amplifier, but close. Also less finicky, more tuneable, and capable of more distortion.
It is accurate. They aren’t complicated. A single non inverting gain stage with some frequency shaping, and a basic diode clipping circuit at the end. That’s it.
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