MXR Celebrates 20 Years of its Zakk Wylde Collaboration with reissues of its Wylde Audio Trifecta - Chorus, Overdrive and Phase

Those familiar swirly shapes are back! - with some new designs of those geometric patterns - and mostly with colour-coordinated LED at the centre of the swirl.

I believe the Chorus and Phase are mostly just the corresponding MXR Analog Chorus and Phase 90 in different enclosures - while there may be some very slight tweaks to those circuits. I can’t recall whether the Overdrive (Based on Boss SD-1) ever existed as a standard MXR pedal too - there’s certainly not another in the range currently. Said asymmetric clipping Overdrive has for sure been honed to Zakk’s preferences - with more bite and gain onboard than is typical for that core circuit - so for sure that one is properly modified and differentiated - while I’m not 100% clear on how close the other two are to their respective source pedals.

In any case it’s a really cool looking collection - and reasonably priced for sure - sporting the same kinds of clear knobs as on the recent MXR Hybrid Fuzz. I’m kind of sort of tempted a little bit - while I’m not specifically a Zakk Wylde fan - but those are for sure cool looking pedals.

The Chorus is slightly dearer than its MXR M234 Analog Chorus equivalent - $150 vs $130. They both have exactly the same controls - Low, High, Level, Rate, and Depth.

The Wylde Phase is actually $10 cheaper than the EVH Edition of that pedal - at $120, while the plainer MXR M101 Phase 90 is $20 less at $100. Of course with the exact same single ’Speed’ knob.

And finally I can’t find a current equivalent MXR pedal to the Wylde Overdrive at $130, but the Boss SD-1 Super OverDrive it’s supposedly based on is available at $63, and the Waza Craft edition of that is at $150 - so make of that what you will. Same three knobs - Level, Tone, Drive on the original source, and re-labelled Output, Tone, Gain on the Wylde Overdrive.

These are of course all classic effects pedals - and for sure there is a wide variety of near alternatives - as there are myriad analog choruses, and the Phase 90 in particular is the most copied phaser circuit of all time - so you certainly have options and at different price points.

I feel these Wylde Audio 20th Anniversary editions are for sure priced right - and they’re really cool to have in your collection and on the board. I certainly don’t need any of these per se - but they’re all really nice-to-have. And for Zakk Wylde fans surely really cool collectibles - and sort of mementos even of the fact that he’s currently playing lead guitar on tour with Pantera - in place of the much loved but sadly long-departed Dimebag Darrell.

It just really remains for me to say ’good job’ to MXR - these are well conceived and deftly executed - and I feel there will rightly be a little flurry of activity when they go on general release on the 15th of this month. No doubt we on this side of the pond will need to wait a few more weeks beyond that - as is always the case with Dunlop Group products!