Zvex Box of Rock Vexter

This Box of Rock™ simulates Zachary’s favorite amp turned up all the way, a 1966 Marshall® JTM45. The tone control adjusts brightness and there’s a high-headroom low-noise boost.

The Box of Rock™ is ZVEX Effect’s first “distortion” pedal, 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. Once you’ve set your maximum needed drive on the pedal, 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. The 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 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.

• 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 my original Super Hard On™ gain control, so they may crackle when turned. This is perfectly normal.

• VOLUME

  Adjust for distortron engine volume level.

• TONE

  Adjust for treble content.

• DRIVE

  Sets the amount of distortion.