TR Rating

Value
Tone
What We Like
Concerns
Build Quality
Sweet and natural
clean boost
none
REVIEW
GEAR
TONE REPORT
MXR
MICRO
AMP+
The MXR Micro Amp has been a go to
clean boost for many guitarists for 20
years. Now the MXR Custom Shop brings
us the Micro Amp+. Beyond adding a po-
tentially amp slamming 26dB of boost, the
Micro Amp+ adds active bass and treble
controls that allow you to sculpt the boost
to the needs of your rig.
Unity gain is achieved with gain dial at
about 7 oclock (just a little above the low-
est spot on the dial). With this output and
the Bass and Treble controls at noon, its
hard to differentiate your base tone from
the tone with the pedal engaged. This is
perfect thing if youre happy with your
tone and just want it louder.
If you want to accentuate (or cut) frequen-
cies in your base tone along with boost-
ing your volume, this is where the Micro
Amp+ really starts to shine. Cut back
the Bass a little if you want to dial some
muddiness out of your humbuckers. Dial
back the Treble if your Strat or Tele bridge
pickup is too strident. Or push the Bass to
give your single coils a little more meat.
Thanks to the nature of the active Bass
and Treble controls, cutting both of these
gives the impression of boosting the mids,
while boosting the Bass and Treble serves
to scoop the mids. With the gain at unity
and the Bass and Treble up fully clock-
wise, I was able to solicit Blackface type
spanky cleans out of my Vox AC15HW.
Conversely, pulling back the Bass and Tre-
ble makes for a nice mid-rich boost. It
was too middy for the Vox but perfect into
my Fender Vibro Champ. And cranking
the Bass and Gain but leaving the Treble
at 1 oclock pushed the Vibro Champ into
gnarly breakup bordering on fuzz. Addi-
tionally, pulling back the Bass and leaving
the Treble at a noon allowed me to get
a decent volume jump out of the Vibro
Champ before it went into full distortion.
The Micro Amp+ is also a great stacker.
Dialing the treble up to 2 oclock allowed
one of my fuzzes thats voiced nicely for
rhythm work but too dark for lead to
really cut through the band mix without
becoming harsh.
What We Like
The sweet and natural clean boost of the
Micro Amp+ is alone worth the cost of
admission. The tweakability is just icing
on the cake.
Concerns
None.
STREET PRICE $119.99
REVIEW BY PHILLIP DODGE