MXR Blue Box

Two knobs, not hard.The manual is cool but you won't need it.

I use a 1971 LP Deluxe into the MXR BLUE BOX into Austone Millenium Over Drive into my 1968 Fender Vibrolux. It is not noisy at all like I expected but it swerves a little on tone being that it is new I know they are not built like the days of old.
I have found 1 setting that I really use and others that aren't useable at all.

Yes I would gig without a backup, if it quit working I would toss it and look for a vintage one.

Never dealt with them.

I play anything from blues to Floyd to Satriani to EJ to Jeff Beck and Page.The reason I bought the pedal is because of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.
I wish it had more control over the signal.I wish you could dial out some of the signal and let more of your guitar through.
Definately inspires new ideas and funky riffs.

Output and Blend. That's it. Fairly simple. For some reason, I got a Crybaby manual with it, which has happened to other folks as well judging from the reviews. It's almost a hint to how schizophrenic this effect really is.

Everyone in their family has a relative that's just a little off-kilter, you know? It might be their sense of humor, misuse of common phrases, or personal hygiene...but there's just something about them that isn't right. But sometimes these are the relatives that are the coolest to hang out with...never boring and sterile like your uppity aunt.

Enter the MXR Blue Box to my family circus of guitar effects.

Putting the blend all the way to "10" yields a thick, somewhat complex fuzz. I was very surprised by this. It's definitely usable, and would make a great tone for a backing track to thicken up a chorus or verse. It's a little glitchy, you can't adjust the gain, and it doesn't sustain well, but works great for heavy strumming and creating thick walls of sound. It's got enough character that it would sit very nicely and subtly in a mix of several overdubbed guitars, I think.

Turning down the blend knob is akin to turning up a hippy's acid drip. At about 12'oclock, the two signals, an octave down, are blended pretty nicely...or about as nice as you'll get. Playing around the 12th fret on the lower strings yields cool Atari sounds. The Blue Box seems to track a bit better on this settng, and definitely has sweetspots along the neck where it does very well. Below 12 o'clock your crazy uncle ED wants to come out to play. This is my favorite realm to explore.

Basically, any setting with blend all the way down to about 10 o'clock is characterized with crazy, unpredictable glitching and random low frequency explosions. You can play the same note over and over again, and it will rarely sound the same each time. Rubbing your hands across the strings only adds to the calamity. One second the notes are somewhat distinguishable and the next you might as well have attached some Ernie Ball's to a snow shovel. Pounding the input of the Blue Box with my Ibanez FZ-7 fuzz set for 100% damage (see reviews for this pedal for an explanation of the damage switch) is total mayhem. This is probably what it would sound like if Brian Eno's brain exploded. Unholy low frequency gargles, random cackles of white noise, the occasional high frequency tone sneaking through only to be captured and dismembered in a sonic Tower of London as the built-in "noise suppression circuit" can't decide whether it's on a smoke break or not is sure to upset the neighborhood animals. Using the Blue Box by itself yields enough sludge, but pairing it with other overdrive devices, especially ones that have a lo-fi crappiness option available, is like handing a psychotic monkey drunk on rage and cranberry schnapps the keys to a burning front-end loader parked outside a Nintendo 8 bit super store.

Without a doubt, one of the coolest, unequaled effects of all time.

It's only natural that an effect this unapologetically freakish (and made by MXR) would be indestructable. You can almost hear it laughing in some sub-octave synthesized voice "HA HA HA...you can't control me, and you can't destroy me!". It's like some kind of robot dracula.

Never dealt.

I like shoegaze, blues rock, classic rock, indie...just about everything. I've been playing 14 years, and have a variety of gear (several Boss and Ibanez pedals, a couple of boutique items).

Overall, it's a seriously cool effect. It's relatively cheap, doesn't really sound like anything else, has an unassuming name, and will definitely get people trying to figure out your rig. It's not usuable a lot in full-on sonic meltdown mode, but I think it's one of those effects that benefits from NOT being usable all the time. It definitely freshens up the eardrums a bit, and encourages unorthodox tonal exploration. Might not win a ridership award on most pedalboards, but I could see it being one of those pedals that would be cool to stick on there if you have the room and have it available for audience torture if necessary. A must-for noisier stylings.

Very easy to operate with only two knobs,

The sound is great ,most octaves are to low end for me,this pedal has a good balance between low to high.Also it sustains well with a aother effects (wah,phaser,and a compresser)The octave fuzzes like the MXR Jimi Hendrix octave fuzz,break up at distrotion level,but with a little practice you can get steady sound,this is the first octave that I was able to play a bar cord on.I play with both a Tele ,and Les Paul speical ,threw a Marshall JMC 800 lead ,and a fender Blues Jr,works with all situations with or with out other effects.

Built like tank ,easy to set up for a live gig,and you can run it for hours on a 9 volt ,which is good when you play out ,because of limited power sources.

I never had to use customer service for my Dyna Comp ,dought that I will have to use it for my Blue Box

This was the octave sound I was looking for ,think Melveins ,Sonic Youth,Rage , Sabbath (first five albums) Hendrix (Band of Gypies,Woodstock)I had Boss OC-2 ,but it was to low end for guitar,but this effect will work for both bass and guitar,sounds great threw my amps as said before ,but I ran it direct in a Cakewalk 8 track ,and it sounded great for the bass,and guitar track that I put down.The sound also sounds a little like a pitch shiffer when I run it with a phaser.
If you are looking for an octave to put in to your effects chain this is one of the more dynamic sounding ones on the market

if you have to ask, then put down the guitar and go back to playing nintendo. 2 KNOBS... output (level) and a BLEND knob to find a balance between two fixed effects.

this is the (in)famous blue box. it is meant to completely destroy whatever is run through it. the fuzz end of it is VERY clipped (perfect for what I was looking for), with surprisingly awesome sustain. the octave down side of it is what gives it the reputable twitchy-ness... the tracking for the octaver can only handle so much: as mentioned before, it can't handle bass too well, and you have to be careful how you play guitar with it, because playing chords will give you "splat" noises.
Here are some tricks.
putting this before and into another distorionor modulation will lend itself to some serious freaking out. distortions turn it into white-noise that shakes your bowels...chorus or other modulations will just the slop sound "quivery" if run after it, nut when modulations run before it, it freaks out the octave tracker ==> instant "sound of an atari glitch". dont even try to use pitch shifters anywhere near this thing...but delays and reverbs get FUN.

using it at all fuzz (with both knobs at max) it can actually work quite well for fuzz guitar. when used right after compression, stomp it right at the climax of a bluesy guitar solo that's been climbing into really high notes... it's like spraying mace on someone right in the middle of an orgasm.

using it on a microphone (or other monophonic instrument or microphone can be VERY fun, because the octave lends itself quite well for monohponics. on vocals, the octave down became blurry with any fuzz blended in (...but it was awesome to run a 50/50 blended vocals into another distortion...so that just touching or breathing on the mic produced an ungodly fizzing that dies away evenly). however, used on a trombone player's microphone, it turned the horn into the sonic equivalent of the bastard child of Chewbacca and Jabba the Hutt.

taking the advice of someone else below, I AM going to use this thing to make a battle-bot which I will use to destroy ibanez pedals.

I especially enjoy the rubber rims on the knobs that are meant to let you use your shoe to turn the knobs. on most other MXRs, you can use your feet to get "more" or change rates...but this pedal rubbing your converse all stars across the BLEND knob in the middle of a solo literally mutates the very nature of the pedal and your sound.

the website seems to imply that they still make these things. It won't break, but I've heard the support is good.

I play music that makes people question why they even know me... so I LOVE THIS THING. If I find one used, I may rebuild it into a larger box ...fit it with a positive-tip barrel-style a/c adaptor jack, and add seperate controls for fuzz and octaver...maybe put in a stronger op-amp so it can get LOUDER... (or maybe just build a 3ms noise swash around it...tee hee).

if you don't know and have to ask...then put down the guitar and go back to playing nintendo....

on-off switch, two knobs.. real easy to learn but you have to fool around with it depending on what guitar you use and your amplifier. there is not one perfect setting that works with all guitars/amps

i'm using it with my two guitars and sets of amps, works great with both but you have to "tune it" differently depending on setup.
1. fender tele custom=> bluebox => marshall jcm2000dsl
2. ibanez rg something => bluebox => laney-tf800 (loop with delay and flanger)
one of my worries was that the built-in fuzz would result in massive feedback but the bluebox had some sort of silencer so it got really quiet when I wasn't playing.
I love the sound of this thing, great for softer parts and intros but also for groovy stuff, wouldn't use the clean fuzz alone as a standard sound of a song though, but it's an ok sound.

don't look like it'll break, sturdy metal construction.

haven't dealt with 'em

I've been playing for about 8 years, mostly metal/rock/hardcore stuff. wouldn't recomend it to a person who wants the stereotypic sound of a metal record but i WOULD recomend it to everyone who likes to experiment and fool around with moods and sound. If I would loose it I'd buy a new one, definitely! even though it's pretty expensive here in sweden compared to the states (about 110$). The only thing I miss about this thing is probably a knob for the fuzz, to be able de decrease and increase it, but hey, it's great as it is!

monkeys can learn how to use these pedals. two knobs - output and blend. just move the knob to the desired level and that is it.

i play a 64' fender jaguar through a fender hotrod deville 410 and the pedal sounds great. the sound rages from a indie fuzz to a atari or video game like sounds. this pedal is not for everybody. it is quite a unique pedal. it is nice because you can control the volume of the pedal on the pedal. it has a nice warm feeling and has the ablity to sustain for a long time. i now know how sonic youth gets some of their weird noises.

this pedal like all mxr pedals are built like a tank, i could probably throw this out of 10 story building and still have it work fine.

i haven't had to call on a mxr pedal yet and i don't expect that i will be calling them in the future.

i paid $60 new for this pedal when i was expecting to pay over $100. for the amount of money and the craziness of the pedal it is a deal.
i would recommend one to anyone trying to create avant garde music. hell anyone who has experiement tendencies should pick up this little guy.

Just an output knob and a knob to adjust the octave level, pretty easy.

I'm running this through a '95 Fender Twin-Amp, and I play a mexican Fender Tele. I like the pedal a good bit actually i decided. The output knob allows the pedal to be used as a booster, and it's great for leads actually. Its a smooth, fat distortion with a solid low end. The distortion is stationary and is not varied by the knobs or anything. When you turn up the "blend" knob, the octaves fade out, and when you turn the blend knob down, the octaves are more and more present until - when the knob is completely down - it is only the octave. The thing is, it is your signal taken down two whopping octaves, so when you play something too low, it distorts and its just a blurry wall of feedbackish stuff. But with the blend knob at about 1/2 to 3/4, you get an appropriate blend (!) of distorted signal and octave, and on the higher strings it really beefs up your solos.

Then, with the blend all the way up, with just the distortion, it sounds great for barchords and the like, but not so good for harmonizations and open chords, as there is a wee bit too much gain (for my single coils anyway) and you cannot adjust the gain.

This sounds pretty good for what it is supposed to do, this is a reissue and they are not supposed to sound as good as the originals, but this sounds ok.

Its real sturdy and heavy feeling, thick metal casing. I'd gig without a backup.

Never dealt with them.

This thing is kinda weird, but it's cool and it adds a new dimension to things. Its really cool to go up high on the e string and hear the high note, and then hear a beefy rumble of the same note. I also love the low end, very thick and heavy, but still keeps a good amount of treble, so it doesn't muddy up or anything. Another thing i really like is the fact that this pedal actually gets rid of excess buzz from single coil pickups, believe it or not, but it runs quiet. The downside to this i think is that the sustain is very limited and when you let a note ring out, it stays for a moment, but then it fades out and it sounds just like someone is cranking down the volume knob on your amp, but its pretty minor. I play mostly rock stuff, and i actually like this one a good bit. On the dunlop website they have soundbytes of this, www.jimdunlop.com. The soundbyte i decided is pretty close to what you hear on their sample, but go and try one because when i brought mine home i realized it can do a lot. This pedal isn;t for everyone, but its still a good pedal and i'd recommend it.

2 knobs. easy enough, however, you have to screw around with it for a while to get what you want out of it.

makes great noise. i love it for that psychodelic, sonicyouth esq. guitar sound. my setup consists of a randall rg80 combo,a fender rocpro 4x12 cab, an mxr micro-comp, proco vintage rat, electro-harmonic big muff pi, crybaby wah, boss chorus, electro-harmonics small stone, and then into the BlUE BOX. with this arangement, the blue box adds a nice twist and carries my sound further into the unconventional. i also like to use remote controls, metal files, slides, and other stuff to get wierd sounds with the blue box.

i'm pretty sure it will last forever

it's a great pedal and for all those axe playing, mullet flowing, leather pants wearing, guitar snobs who think this pedal sucks...well i guess you're entitled to your own opinion, but i know you'll come crawling back to the blue box when you realize that real music and inovation doesn't come from a jackson and a metal zone.

This is cake to use. It has two knobs. Output and Blend. This is the reissue version. There is no manual cause you don't need one.

Man is this pedal interesting. It is totally unpredictable. With the blend all the way up, you get a nice beefy fuzz. All the way down you get an octave that is out of control. Mix it up for that good ol fuzz octave sound. As other people have stated before, it gives you the Nintendo sound on higher frets. Totally cool. It is not noisy in the least bit. The only noise you get is what you put into it. It has a built in noise gate.

It is built to last. Weighs quite a bit. Fortunately it is made of metal, so it isn't gonna break any time soon.

If you like to experiment with your sound or are looking for a new sound, give it a try. It is not for everyone. So don't go buy it to use as a distortion pedal, cause it won't get it. It is definately a pedal of aquired taste.

2 nobs. 2 NOBS! M'kay?

Ok, I don't really know what others are talking about, but my pedal needs volume at about 2-3 o'clock for equal singal when bypassed, and I am only using a strat and an older epiphone. Plus, this pedal has plenty of gain, just no way to tame to bass-y-ness of the sound. At Blend completely off, it is a nice clean-ish dissonant octave effect, and full it is a NIN distortion. I also have found that with open strings, they ring forever and the sustain is pretty nice, good Sonic Youth type drone.

Definitely for experimetal minded players

MXR are great, tough little pedals.

Never dealt with them.

Value = yup! Great pedal! Better than using a 2 octave down and tehn addind distortion, I have tried this, it is not even close.
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I actually got another one of these laying around in the box brand new as a back up that I want to sell soon because I am going back to school and need the cash. So if you are interested, email me! jadczak@hotmail.com