Slash

Slash is the guitarist behind Guns N' Roses' biggest records and a long run of solo albums, and for pedal builders he has been one of the most enduring signature artists in the business. His relationship with Jim Dunlop, the effects and accessories firm behind the Cry Baby wah and the MXR and Way Huge brands, spans a line of picks, pedals and more developed over what Dunlop describes as "30+ years of close collaboration"¹². Guitar World's reviewers have called him "undeniably a master of the wah pedal," and noted that he likes to boost his Marshalls with some type of distortion/overdrive pedal³.

His pedalboard story splits neatly into two parts: the wah pedals that carry his name, and the octave and fuzz effects tied to his playing and his signature models.

Wah pedals

Slash's wah sound is inseparable from his playing. He performed the wah guitar solo on Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine"⁴, and by the end of the '80s into the '90s he was one of the players Gearnews points to as being "armed with Les Pauls. And wahs."⁵

His signature wah history runs through several Dunlop models:

The original signature Cry Baby put both of Slash's core effects in one box, which Guitar World's reviewer found "somewhat difficult to nail the ideal combination of dirt and wah"³. His later approach separates the two: an entirely revoiced SC95 Dunlop Cry Baby Classic wah and a signature SF01 MXR Octave Fuzz³.

The SW95, reviewed by Guitar World in 2007, "features a high-gain distortion circuit and a classic Fasel inductor, just like Slash's own custom-built wah pedal"⁴. Its manual describes a red DISTORTION switch and a footswitch that toggles the pedal on and off⁷.

The SC95 is the wah most players associate with him now. Its custom-wound inductor is paired with what Guitar World called "a silky-smooth pot," giving three wah sweet spots so players can create wah effects that are baritone, soprano or treble³. Dunlop tuned the pedal's EQ sweep to a lower frequency, which Vintage Guitar found "helps give it a warm, thick sound devoid of harshness at any point"⁸. It carries a distressed hot-rod finish, battery or external power options, and the trademark Slash-and-crossbones logo³. Per the Dunlop manual, it runs on one 9-volt battery, a 9-volt AC adapter such as the Dunlop ECB003/ECB003EU, or a DC Brick power supply⁹, and it features what the manual calls "SLASH-APPROVED TREAD"⁹.

Octave effects: Tycobrahe Octavia and Boss OC-3

Before the signature octave fuzz existed, Slash was using vintage and modern octave pedals side by side. Premier Guitar reported that he had been using the Tycobrahe Octavia and the Boss OC-3 Super Octave "for the last couple of years" at the time of their 2021 review¹⁰.

The two pedals come from very different eras of octave design. The Tycobrahe Octavia is a 1970s piece, a fuzz/octave divider pedal that provided an octave-up effect, from a builder whose Parapedal, Pedalflanger and Octavia are "fondly remembered by many guitarists, but no one seems to recall how they sound," as Guitar Player's historians put it¹¹. The Boss OC-3 Super Octave is the modern counterpart: Guitar World credits it with having "introduced polyphonic octave effects, turning this bottom-end box into a broader innovation"¹². It sits in Boss's OC range of octave effect pedals, a line later extended by the OC-5¹³, and it was among the octave pedals covered in a That Pedal Show demo of the category¹⁴.

Signature pedals: the MXR SF01 Octave Fuzz

The pedal that turned Slash's octave habit into a product is the MXR Slash Octave Fuzz, announced in May 2012 as part of a trio of products with Jim Dunlop¹⁵. Dunlop and Slash teamed up to create two pedals, the MXR Slash Octave Fuzz and the Slash Cry Baby Classic¹⁶.

It is an analog pedal with three fuzz voices¹⁷:

• Sub Octave: a low-octave fuzz voice that can be run dry or switched into the '70s-style "shag" fuzz circuit¹⁷
• Fuzz: the core '70s-style fuzz circuit¹⁷
• Octave Up: a high-octave fuzz voice¹⁷

Vintage Guitar describes the three flavors as offering "a palette of distinctive, utilizable sounds"⁸. The circuit has a clear lineage: one of Dunlop's goals was to develop a more predictable version of the '70s MXR Blue Box fuzz pedal, and Vintage Guitar's reviewer concluded that "the Slash achieves that"⁸¹⁸.

Slash's own explanation of what he wanted is quoted in Guitar World's launch coverage:

He used it on two tracks from Apocalyptic Love, his second solo album¹⁰, and MusicRadar credits its use on that record as the reason MXR brought out the signature octave fuzz¹⁹. Reviewers were positive: Guitar World's reviewer wrote, "I can see everyone from detuned hardcore shredders to traditional blues wailers becoming addicted to this pedal's refined octave/fuzz grind and attack-preserving tonal integrity"³.

The Appetite for Destruction rig

The gear behind Guns N' Roses' 1987 debut predates all of the signature pedals, and two pieces of it are fixed points in the story.

The amp was a rented Marshall from S.I.R. in Los Angeles. Slash had asked for their Stock #39 but was delivered Stock #36 instead, a similar but not identical amp modded by Frank Levi, without S.I.R. telling him. He recorded the album with it, then kept it after the sessions by claiming it had been stolen; an S.I.R. supervisor named Glenn Buckley later retrieved it from Stage 6.

The guitar was a Les Paul copy built by luthier Kris Derrig. The band's manager handed it to Slash at the last minute before guitar overdubs in January 1987, and it carried most of the album's guitar parts. Derrig died of throat cancer a few months before the record came out. Another guitar from the sessions, a 1961 Gibson SG used for the rhythm part of "My Michelle," was smashed through the tour van's windshield during a photo shoot at Take One Studios' parking lot, for a Robert John photo.

Other gear and endorsements

Beyond wah and octave pedals, Slash's name shows up across several makers' catalogs:

• Tortex picks: Dunlop celebrated 25+ years of Slash using Tortex picks with a limited edition Slash Pick Tin, featuring the same white 1.14mm Tortex picks he takes to the studio and on the road²⁰.
• Talk box: he says the effect goes way back for him: "I've had a talk box since I was 16. First time I heard it was Frampton's 'Do You Feel Like We Do,' then Jeff Beck's 'She's a Woman,' and Aerosmith's live 'Walk This Way.'"¹
• JAM Pedals: he is quoted calling them "one of the best pedal creators to come along since I've been playing guitar."²¹
• PedalPalFx: the maker describes its MOD #34 modification, a mod that can be made in a 1959SLP or JCM800 amp, as Slash's main tone, calling him one of their favorite guitar players²²²³.

That last point lines up with what Guitar World observed about his playing style: he likes to boost his Marshalls with some type of distortion/overdrive pedal rather than relying on pedals for his core tone³. The signature line with Dunlop and MXR, now more than three decades old, keeps growing around that approach¹.

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