The discontinued studio unit that thickened Dimebag Darrell's riffs returns as an all-analogue pedal, complete with the original control set.
MXR has shrunk the flanger and doubler rack unit behind some of Dimebag Darrell’s most recognisable tones into a stompbox. The Flanger/Doubler brings the discontinued ’70s and ’80s unit down to pedalboard size, keeping its all-analogue bucket-brigade circuitry and the full original control set.
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Dimebag ran the rack version as an always-on thickener, using its doubler side to fatten his sound while holding onto the tightness his riffing needed. It was one of the less talked-about parts of his rig, but it was always switched on – audible in the intro to ‘Cowboys from Hell’ and across tracks like ‘Slaughtered’ and ‘Hellbound’. Zakk Wylde has already put the pedal to work in recent Pantera Celebration shows, and bassist Rex Brown summed it up in the comments of a tech’s post: “That’s all you need.”
The pedal runs two voices, picked with the Doubler button. The flanger gives you sweeping, jet-engine movement and metallic resonance, while the doubler adds a slightly offset second layer for chorusing or a short, tight slapback. Manual, Width and Speed set the tone, range of motion and sweep rate, and the Regen knob handles intensity, moving from mellow colour to sharp metallic resonance as the feedback climbs. A Mix control balances wet and dry, from fully dry through to fully wet.
Two LEDs on the top face track the delay time as it moves, their rate and left-right activity following the Speed, Width and Manual settings – useful for changes by eye when the stage is too loud to trust your ears. An Invert switch flips the wet signal’s polarity for hollow, vocal-like textures or a firmer low-mid push. For wider setups, CV In and Out jacks connect to synths, sequencers and CV-capable expression pedals, and a Line Level switch keeps things clean with hot signals.
Long out of production as a rack, the Flanger/Doubler now fits a modern board with none of the old bulk.
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