MXR Micro Amp

Simply plug in your guitar, turn the pedal on via the footswitch and you're in business. Adjusting the volume knob gives you more volume boost to about 3 O'clock. Past that setting, the micro amp still gets louder, but it also distorts.

The guy at the store accidentally put a wah pedal manual in my box, but I can't imagine what the instructions would be for this thing.

I had a Fulldrive2 that I liked for the comp/cut feature and I also liked the boost. Nothing else on that pedal did much for me, however, so I sold it and got the Tonebone Classic. To the Fulldrive2's credit, I still think the comp/cut setting is great, but the boost really added more gain. The Tonebone sounds great, but if you're looking for a small amount of distortion, your volume really suffers. Being familiar with Fulltone, I shoped the Fat Boost pedals for 2002 and 2003. While I really liked the newer 2003 model that had a larger gain control knob, I really didn't find it $100.00 better than the Micro Amp. In fact, I didn't even know about it. I've had Dunlop and MXR stuff before, but was unaware of this great pedal. Not only does it do what the Fatboost does, but it does so much cheaper. Where the Fatboost gets this one is you can select the amount of gain (though very subtle) on the Fatboost where the Micro amp automatically contributes gritty distortion after the 3/4 position. But, for what I needed it for, which is adding a slight amount of volume to my Tonebone, or to any other effect I want to accentuate while soloing or anything else I'm needing a volume bump for. I find the micro amp to be clear and does not suck any tone away from my sound when it's tured off.

Some reviewers have commented on the micro amp compressing slightly, but I really don't notice this happening. If it does, it's very sublte or it does so at higher volume levels. Also, up to the 3 o'clock position, the boost is clean and is great for helping to reinstate your tone after many pedals suck it all away or to provide a little punch when needed. It's also cool for driving the front of my amp hard without anything else. And using it past 3 o'clock gives you the natural tube amp breaking up sound the fulldrive2 gives you. Except it doesn't cost as much!

I haven't had an MXR or Dunlop made product that has ever been faulty, bad or poor quality. Sure, it's not boutique, but that doesn't mean it isn't built very tough. Input and output jacks are sturdy and all other components on the pedal seem to made the same way.

Never had to deal with them, which is always a good thing, so I won't comment.

I like blues, country, rock and roll and sometimes jazz. I think this pedal is a great match for what I was wanting to use it for. I don't use a whole bunch of pedals, so putting it at the end of my chain isn't necessary. I put it in front of everything but my Boss tuner. This way I can keep my compression and overdrive levels consistent with my amplifier volume. This way I can play rhythm with either effect on. Now, with the Micro amp, I can punch that on and set the boost level I want for solos or for higher volumed strumming. And, if I want, I can keep everything off and crank the micro amp for vintage distortion. (I hate that word "vintage" it makes me think of hippies on motorcycles)

I A/Bed the Fatboost from Fulltone and the Micro Amp, and for the price, I have to tell you, the micro amp beats it hands down. The FatBoost is nice, but in my opinion, I do not believe it is $100.00 nicer than the micro amp. In fact, I went to the store expecting to spend $169.00 for the FatBoost. So, one could argue, that even if the pricers were the same, the micro amp would be hard to beat. The Fulltone gives you tone and gain, but if you've used the Fatboost, you'll notice those effects are very subtle. The micro amp offers simplicity and a very transparent volume boost for those needing just that. For what they cost, everybody should have one.

To all the Fulltone faithful, I'm not knocking your beloved pedals. I have owned Fulltone stuff and it's very nice. However, in the case of somebody needing a volume boost, I can't see any huge reason to buy the Fatboost over the Micro amp. Especially when you're considering $79.00 for the MXR to the $169.00 for the Fulltone. I'm sure other opinions will differ from mine and that is fine, but my opinion is my own, I'm sticking to it and I think if you have the chance to A/B the two, you just might have the same opinion as me.

A single knob that raises the dB level. How's that for easy?

A nice full range boost. Doesn't lose your low end like a tube screamer.

So far so good. I can't imagine this thing will turn out to be fragile.

Bought it used, so there's no warranty.

I use old desgn amps (a Vox AC30 and a Marshall 18 watt clone), amp currently shopping for something like a Rangeaster or a Vox Treble Booster, but for $40 this is just a dandy little device. I'll certainly use this with my 12 string electric!

Well it has just one knob for volume and an on/off stomp switch, so if you cant figure this one out you are a retard!

Provides a sufficient volume boost, and some distortion in need be. This is a fine pedal and its about time someone exposed this whole boutique myth (or fraud as I prefer to call it). This Micro Amp is as good as ANY boutique booster on the market, and is certainly much more reliable than some homemade handmade piece of soldered wired junk.

They make em better in China than ever before, much better than some boutique slapped together by some little kid in someone's parent's dirty filthy basement.

4 get about it!

This MXR pedal kills the weak boutique competition. Period. I play vintage guitars into tube amps. Doesnt everybody?

One knob for volume. Plug in and play! Runs on 9 volt battery or special adaptor.

Sounds decent- not as good as my Banzai Cold Fusion, but then, hey, I dont always want my best pedals laying around where my friends can trip over them and then sue me- the MXR is inexpensive enough and built solid enough to withstand abuse. Nice boost, seems to kick the low and high-end up just a tad- perfect for my Gibson Les Paul Standard (accept no substitute- my guitar is king). I use the pedal's volume boost to overdrive the preamp tube in my amp to help me get that overdrive/distortion sound I crave. My pedal didnt come with the rubber-ring that fits around the knob- luckily I had an old one that I saved from an old MXR Distortion + that fell apart. The rubber ring fits snugly over the pedal's knob making it alot easier to turn the knob with your hand or foot, and it looks cool too!

I like the weight on this pedal- its very heavy- nice quality at a reasonable price. decent switch and I believe its a form of true bypass as I see 6 connections to the switch, even though the pedal does have an led.

4 get about it!

Great pedal at a very good price. Only boosts your volume, but theres some additional distortion available at the very end of the knob's sweep range. So up to say 3:00 is a clean boost, and at around 4:00 a pretty wild distortion kicks in. Some reviewer below said that the pedal distotion sounded like studio console solid-state distortion- that sounds plausible to me- its a clean distortion that works well with rhythm guitar chords. Im using this MicroAmp pedal with my new 5 watt Class A amp. The pedal seems to work best with low-wattage amps, as when I tried to use this pedal with my 50-watter it was just way too loud for practice. Other pedals I own include the Fulltone Soulbender and the MJM Britbender (2-knob version), and a few overdrives like the Maxon OD-808 and Blues Pearl Blue Screamer.

All right, one thing to say, if you're planning to use this little boy in a chain plugged into the effect loop PUT IT AT THE END OF THE CHAIN!!! Otherwise, my girlfriend would be able to understand this pedal...

I was searching for a good boost pedaL FOR SOLOS (on the clean and dist. channel as well) and I had bad experiences before I found out about the micro-dude. I've first with a DOD FX-40B eq...big mistake. It cost me 100$ and broke after a couple of gigs. I don't think a eq. is the solution 'cause it is made for changing the frequencies of the guitar signal at the first place (the dod had one eq for the volume and a billion others to equalize). After a bought a bass distorsion (FX92 DOD... again) and stomp on it for my solos while I was turning the gain up and the other stupid named knobs down (you know about the guys at DOD who find names like "zip", "more", "juice" or "stupid" to their pedals), it broke after like 2 or 3 gigs...It's not that i'm lazy and don't go repare my stuff I did it but I wanted a real boost pedal. I was thinking about the Ibanez tube screamer (expensive and I don't needed any overdrive) and a volume pedal by Ernie ball (but I wanted a stomp pedal). Than I heard about the MICRO CHUMMY and I wonder why I lost all this time. If you wan't a creat solos with punch, attack and sustain this MICRO Baby is for you

Hey it is small but heavy and solid.

* because it is expensive, but i've found that many professionnal guitarists use it. Here's my setup in order with whom it sound great:

Boss Chorus C5 (or Ibanez Bi-Chorus when not at a gig)->DOD Stereo Flanger (the old light blue one FX45-B)->crybaby original-> Danelectro yellow tremolo Tunamelt (great pedal)->MXR Micro Hommie...with a jcm 900 head and a 1960 4X12 cabinet...rock on

One knob makes this too easy to use. Just crank the knob for volume.

Sounds good- its an old school tone. When you turn its volume knob all the way up it kicks in its own distortion, so it can be used both as a clean boost and as a mild dirt box.

Mine seems solid enough- dont kick it around and it wont break, OK?

I doubt if there is any.

Fantastic bargain that blows away the Fulltone Fat Boost at half the cost! Only an idiot would use the Fulltone Fat Boost when the MXR Micro Amp does the same exact thing at half the price.

Couldn't be easier to use.

I use this at the end of my chain. Tele into a Deluxe. I leave it on pretty much all the time, cuz it sounds great and drives my amp alittle harder

This thing cuts out my signal half the time I step on it. It is totally unreliable and this is the 2nd one i've got from my local store.

So far they've been useless to help me fix my pedal.

Sounds great, easy to use but mine is faulty.

Easy to use and to get a good sound out of. No manual needed. One knob and switch with an LED indicator. There is also a power jack on the side.

I'm using this as a boost for my tortured signal path. I run through a Bad Horsie Wah (modded for unity gain) six Boss Stompers and another MXR. This adds enough gain that I suffer no signal loss from this long chain of effects. It really adds life to distortion effects and keeps the signal from degrading. I put it first in the signal chain (others have used it last) and it works wonders. It is on all the time at about 12 O'clock. If you crank it it will add noticable distortion, but at this setting it simply "beefs up" the signal. I use a Godin LGXT guitar and a Carvin SX100 Amp.

Reliabilty has declined on these since Dunlop took over for MXR. Jacks and switches are now mounted to the board and the battery jack is mounted to the board by a cheap plastic connector. I power mine with a Godlyke power supply (recommended) so I remove the battery clip altogether. The old style ones are much better, but the new ones do sound the same. The new MXR's do have Boss style barrel connectors for power supply now. Good! I have a spare, but have rarely ever had to use it.

MXR was good, but Dunlop seems lacking in this respect. Not as bad as Boss, but not as good as Morley or Carvin.

I play Classic and Modern Rock and this pedal really helps. I'm able to use a variety of FX without suffering the drawbacks inherent in the "tortured signal chain" they produce. Buy one, paint it Black and then tell everyone it's a secret weapon designed just for you.

If you can't operate this pedal, you probably don't have any business touching an amplifier. In/Out jacks and one knob. Getting water out of the faucet is more difficult that using this pedal. No manual needed, really.

I use this little guy to beef up my single coil tones. I mainly play humbucker guitars, and I use the Micro Amp for a little more "umph" when using single coil tones. It works great. The single coil tone is still there, but just as "in your face" as when using a humbucker. I also use it for boosting my clean channel.

Seems solid - I'm not going to buy another for a backup because I could still do a show if it fried, no problem.

Have only owned one MXR pedal before, a Phase 90, and I, regrettably, traded it off. Never had to deal with them, so I take the "innocent until proven guilty" approach and give them a "9".

I give this little guy a "9" over-all. It does what it does very good, but I think for what it does it's a little pricey. If it was $50 or $60 new, I would give it a "10". A great little signal booster with low noise and it will take up little space on your pedal board. Use as a solo booster, to warm up your clean sound, or as a pre-amp volume to a non-master volume amp. I like simple, too. If you can plug in a guitar cable to a jack, you can use this pedal.
As with other posters, I suggest putting it in the end of your signal chain if you are using other effects.

One knob? could it be easier?

I use it for a lead boost... and it works amazing... no one ever has trouble hearing my leads like they did before and that is only running it in the 12 O'clock position. It does something to the signal...almost a slightly compressed sound but whatever it is.. it sounds great. One thing... i had it in my chain first going into a metal zone pedal and it didn't work as well.. I put it in the chain last and it was much more effective

the input jack came loose and i did have to glue it back in.. other than that it's solid

no clue

great pedal.... I am thinking of using two of them.. one on all of the time for a signal boost and another just for solos....