MXR Rockman pedal

The MXR Rockman pedal, sold as the Rockman X100 Analog Tone Processor, is MXR's pedalboard revival of Tom Scholz's Rockman X100, the headphone amp and signal processor that shaped a generation of recorded guitar tones in the 1980s. MXR describes it as reviving "the signature sonic character of Tom Scholz's celebrated headphone amp and signal processor in pedal form"¹. It is an all-analog pedal with four of the original unit's tones, built-in chorus, and mono or stereo operation¹².

What it does

The pedal recreates the four tonal presets of the original Rockman X100, running from clean sounds into overdrive and distortion territory⁴:

Compression is calibrated for both clean and distorted tones, in the manner of the original unit¹, and the chorus uses the same bucket-brigade circuit approach as the original Rockman¹.

In stereo, the pedal sends the signal of the selected mode to the left and right channels while varying the chorus between the two sides, which is the wide, processed sound the Rockman became known for². It also runs in mono¹.

On the front panel there are sliders for Volume and Input Gain¹, and a control input allows for external mode switching, so the four modes can be changed remotely rather than only from the pedal itself⁵.

Where it came from

MXR announced the pedal in January 2025, ahead of that year's Winter NAMM, with a launch date of January 23¹. Premier Guitar's editors framed it as MXR setting out "to resurrect one of the '80s most essential tone machines in pedal form," with the Rockman X100 as the source circuit⁶.

Delicious Audio's Paolo De Gregorio described it as a pedal-style preamp built for today's boards⁷.

What reviewers said

Premier Guitar's reviewer was positive on how MXR handled the conversion:

The review also highlighted the control input for external mode switching as a practical addition⁵.

Guitar World's review noted that "MXR has reimagined the unit as a standalone all-analog pedal"³, confirming that the pedalboard version keeps an analog signal path rather than modeling the original digitally.

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