ZVEX Vexter Box of Rock Distortion Pedal
The ZVEX Box of Rock distortion pedal is actually the first "distortion" pedal manufactured by ZVEX. The Box of Rock or BOR is highly specialized to simulate the "everything on 10" sound of a classic Marshall JTM45 non-master-volume amplifier. You may use the Box of Rock effectively with many different amplifiers, but to get the sound that it was originally designed to produce, try it through a Marshall at least once. You may use your guitar's volume control to adjust for the exact amount of distortion you need, all the way down to very clean and clear with most drive settings. You will notice the words "distortron engine" on the Vexter version of this pedal (no, that's not a misprint) on the pedal. This is the named given to the circuit by ZVEX.... On the hand-painted version, the stomp switch on the right is labeled "ROCK" instead, because the paint brushes are too wide for so many small letters.
The Zvex Box of Rock also contains an extremely high-headroom, unity-to-50X gain booster with nominal input impedance and low hiss. It is very similar to the SHO boost circuit, with refinements to make it sound more like a standard amp input and less glassy. The boost channel can be used alone or in conjunction with the "distortron engine" channel. The boost channel of the Box of Rock follows the distortion channel so that the distortion is able to hit your amp harder (at a higher volume) when both switches are engaged, for boosting solos and what-not.
Look out when boosting what-not. 8^)
Listen to the ZVEX Vexter Series Box of Rock
View the Video Demo of the ZVEX Box of Rock
The Controls:
Drive: Sets the amount of distortion. Start around 1:00 o'clock.
Tone: Adjust for treble content. Start around 2:00 o'clock.
Vol: Adjust for distortron engine volume level. Start around 9:00 o'clock.
Boost: Sets the boost level, which is engaged with the left stomp switch. Start around 11:00 o'clock.
The Drive and Boost controls are based on the original Super Hard-On gain control, so they may crackle when turned. This is perfectly normal.
Operation:
Plug your guitar (or any effects output) into the right hand input jack. Plug the output into an amp or other effects input. Rock out. Careful with the Boost setting when using a high-powered amp with lots of headroom... you may be shocked at how loud it can get!
The best way to complete this pedal is to run it through a Marshall amplifier on a warm clean setting (try strapping the channels, setting the volumes below 3, and setting all other controls to 6 as a start point), which has the proper voicing to reveal the "rock" in the Box of Rock.
