MXR Commande Overdrive

with only two knobs how can you go wrong?

I am very impressed with the tone. It just walks all over the ts-808. It is much more natural and tube like with less mid hump, way more output and it doesn't cut as much bass. It also doesn't have that boxy compressed sound that I hate about tube screamers. Works great for rhythm or lead. Has enough useable gain to use as a stand alone distortion or use it at lower gain and higher volume to push an amp.

By the way the guy who has a collection of 6 pedals and says a DOD grunge sounds better is an obvious novice concerning tone. Since he bought it broken and fixed it himself I have to assume he screwed something up. Take it from an old school tone junky with 200+ pedals and many nice tube amps a DOD grunge does not hold a candle to this pedal in terms of tone.

It's a mixed bag. It uses some good components: Full size pots, metal film caps. It also uses some crap compontents: footswitch, enclosure. It is better than Arion but not as good as DOD in this area. It is held together with 1 screw! WTF.

I think they must have lost a lot of money creating the 2000 series pedals and were trying not to go bankrupt at this point. The 2000 series pedals have super thick custom metal enclosures, heavy duty footswitches and are built better than Boss or anything else at the time, but they didn't sell well against the cheaper Boss and Ibanez pedals. Next came these super cheap POS commande line that cost less than Boss and are built like crap, but still win in terms of sound quality.

This pedal is a total sleeper. The tone is insanely good. Worth a spin.

Very easy to use

I've used these MXR plastic pieces of crap for over 20 years now and they are still the best overdrives as far as sound. They are cheaply made and you will have to do a lot of soldering to keep it going, but the sound is the same as overdriving a good quality tube amp. It's noisy but with a battery instead of an adapter, its not so bad.

Can't depend on it, but I use it anyway. I've played gigs where it would cut my sound off altogether and then I just kick it a few times, and it comes back. It's worth it though.

You can get these for $30 still on ebay. They came out on the market originally in 1981. I bought one new when I was like 13 or something. I'm only on my third one of these and it's 26 years later. So, that crappy plastic covering has something going for it.

Two knobs. Make sure the level stays higher than the distortion & you're laughing.

Not bad at all. Nice warm overdrive through tube amps. Don't notice much noise, personally. May cut a little bass, but no more than any TS-patterned pedal. I use it in front of a 70s MXR Distortion +, which may be a sh*tload more solid, but is nowhere near as powerful volume-wise as this plastic curio & has fewer useable settings too. With the level at 2 o'clock, drive at 12 I get a cool just-breaking-up chime which I can boost with the Dist+ (Volume dimed, distortion zero) to add a little crunch where necessary. Contemporary it ain't, cool it is. Too bad I'll never gig with it.

Uh, what can I say that hasn't already been? Looks weirdly like an old Atari joystick. Has the tack of the early 80s strewn all over it. Even before I used it, I had to re-solder the battery wires (I hadn't been the first to do so either). The battery compartment doesn't close fully either if there's a battery installed. Anyone else have that? I've had to mummify the lower half of the thing with black masking tape just to keep the thing shut & protect the already knackered battery wire. Works though.

This thing is a long forgotten legacy of a time when MXR's good name was strapped to the mast of another corporate Death Star mother ship (ie before Dunlop, who probably don't even know it ever existed)

Been playing 17 years. Own & have owned more than I probably need or needed & certainly more than I can be bothered to list here, sorry. This is a neat little overdrive & I'd like to gig with it, but I think it'be inviting the hand of disaster. I'll use my Tokai TOD-1 (not dissimilar sounding relic from the same era, but in sensible Boss-style metal casing). It's still fun for doing Angus/Pete Townsend impressions in the living room while my wife shakes her head in bemusement & my 1 year old daughter chuckles & slaps the front grille-cloth of my amp.

Very easy, just controls, volume and distortion.

I use this with a couple of Marshall JMP-1 Pre-amp's with two 50 watt Mono Block power amps running four 4x12 cabs and a Ground Control system, with most of my pedals in a rack on loops. I don't know why it's called an overdrive. It's more of a distortion pedal than a booster which is what an overdrive is really. It's no more noisy than other distortion pedals. It depends how you have it set up. I use it to just push the amps a bit to get 'em cookin'.

Been using it for years. I have a couple of these Command Series pedals and so far so good.

Never used them!

Been playing for a long time, lots of styles, but I'm into rock mostly. I wouldn't use this as my only distortion device (I use several) but it definitely reminds me of the old Distortion + sound. Quite sweet if you set it right. Pushes valve amps nicely. I think some people might find the plastic caseing a problem but I never have. It lives in my rack. I use mostly old pedals but use the new technology to switch them in and out with. Best of both worlds!

Transparently easy to use.

It sounds OK. I've never used light or mellow overdrive and it's an entirely different technique from Ramones or Who chord bashing.
For all out shredding, a DOD Grunge is better sounding in the same price range.

I've been buying pedals on Ebay for about four months now and have about six in 'my collection'. I bought a broken unit from an Ebay listing. The write-up said that it sounded great and would be easy to fix. I know some electronics and have a work bench, so my curiousity had me dib and buy the pedal. After about an hour, I have been able to get it working, so far.

I've not seen a pedal that was more guaranteed to fail than this one. From the light unshielded plastic case to the design of putting the large knobs directly over the in/out jacks, everything about the physical design of this pedal is a textbook example of what not to do. Using the low quality FR3 cellulose-based material for the circuit board instead of standard fiberglass-based FR4/G10 material is the iceing on the cake that just assures that every one of these units is going to self-destruct in normal use.

I have no idea of what possessed MXR to go from the A-bomb-proof metal boxes of the 1970's to these designs. Probably the company changed hands and a new manager appointed by the new owner conglomerate decided that this would work. I guess that this person had never played a multi-set gig or show.

Anyway I resoldered all the connectors, replaced the broken trace on the circuit board where power connector was mounted, replaced the battery connector and mapped out the circuit to a schematic, and it works so far. I fully expect other stuff to break in the next few days of playing. Do you know when this pedal was first made and sold? Maybe all the MXRs from this period are like this.

I wouldn't admit to having made this. It says MXR but it's not the same as the candy-colored metal boxes from the 1970's.

I love distortion, especially just blow on the string to get feedback type of anti-social behavior. I like the ambient Brian Eno and ultra-electronic sounds of Robert Fripp and Adrian Belew.

Easy to use? It's a stomp box, easier than that blonde from the mall.

This OD circuit actually sounds good, despite no tone control, with the expected noise.

What were they thinking at MXR. Let's make the cheapest pedal known to man. We'll set the standard for every plastic pedal to come. The on/off pedal never did work well, and now the bottom plastic cover has buckled, being held in by ONE screw (I surprised it's not plastic,too). The battery clip seperated from the thin wires long ago. But plastic does hold up to constant drop kicks, i'll hand them that. Gig with it? Sure, it's great for putting under that amp for just the right tilt. Also, when the footswitch does work and the LED shines bright, the circuit may or may not be active, I smell another dropkick!

I called ART in Rochester, NY. They denied ever making the MXR Command series pedals, stating the culprits who were responsible
have paid their debt to society and have vowed never to enter the musical equipment arena again.

The circuit itself is worth the problems with it. I won't be selling mine, just yet. I can't stand plastic pedals, but I must pay my penance by continuing to fight with this baby, hoping some morning I'll wake up and it'll all just have been a bad dream.

2 knobs - Output and Distortion. Output adjusts the volume, Distortion sets the sound from clean boost to buzzsaw. Simple. Also has old-style AC adapter plug and LED for effect on/off. On my unit, the effect LED glows dimly when effect is off and brighter when effect is on. Not sure if this is by design.

This is one of MXR's black plastic units from the 70's or 80's. It's a TI4558P-based unit like a TS808. However, it has ( or at least my unit does) a bigger bass cut than an 808 and a harsher edge to the distortion. It's also very noisy when cranked. I'm playing it thru a SS Roland JC-60 amp, I have no idea if it would sound smoother thru a tube amp. I sometimes boost it with a Ross clone compressor. I tried putting a DOD Milk Box in front of it but I get waaaaaay too much hiss. Still, considering what a TS808 costs, and the novelty value of this thing, I think I'll hang on to it.

Whwn I got it( $5 at a street sale) it had a bad battery connector and the jacks were badly oxidized.This unit has all the jacks PCB-mounted, and there is a steel reinforcing piece over the jacks which also supports the pots. I desoldered the steel piece so I could move the pots out of the way, and replaced the jacks with Switchcraft ones from Digi-Key. They are an exact fit. Make sure to get the 3-conductor ones in order to make the battery circuit work. After this repair, the unit works very well. The only weird thing about this unit is the stomp switch. It is a click-on, click-off type, which means that it turns the effect on when you step on it, but doesn't turn it off again until you press and release it. This appears to be by design as there are no electronics associated with the switch. I think MXR just cheaped out here.

Not many of these things around, and I doubt Jim Dunlop wants much to do with the Commande line.

The Commande line has been slagged by a lot of folks because they were cheap and plasticky. Some of the units aren't that bad, though. A buddy of mine has the Commande chorus which sounds OK. If you're looking for a TS808-style overdrive, and stumble across one of these for cheap, check it out.