Reuniting With An Old Friend – The MXR Dyna Comp (76 Reissue-Script Logo)
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A great friend of mine at Saddleback Church recently became a Dunlop (Pedals & Accessories) distributor. He provided me with 5 brand new MXR pedals to try out and review.
One of the pedals was a reissue of the 1976 Vintage MXR Dyna Comp with the script logo. Apparently, a batch of the old integrated circuits (CA3080) used in the original Dyna Comp were located and the reissues were made.
I had purchased my first Dyna Comp in the early 80′s for $40.00 from an ad placed in the South Bay Recycler (I was 16 at the time). I originally intended for the pedal to act as a volume boost for soloing but, I came to find out that it did much more that.
It also acts as a very cool “brickwall” limiter for doing the “funky chicken pickin & chord” stuff. It will also calm down an “out of control” Wah pedal when the Dyna Comp is plugged in after the Wah.
The coolest feature of this particular pedal is the way the compression releases after you hit a sustained chord. Your first initial hit gets a little “ducked”, and then the chord musically and magically appears.
My first Dyna Comp started dying (distorting real bad) when I was in college and I tried replacing it with Boss Compressors (CS2 & CS3). The Boss Comps did not have that Dyna Comp “vibe”.
When I first plugged in the reissue Dyna Comp a couple of weeks ago, I was 16 all over again (but without the LA Banning High School Drama).
Here is a link to a great video comparing a regular MXR Dyna Comp to the 1976 Reissue Dyna Comp.
The pedal is “true bypass” so if the battery starts to go or if you have a power supply malfunction, switch the pedal off and your signal is till there.
Of course, the only drawback to the Dyna Comp reissue is that there is no LED indicator to let you know if it is on. I guess that’s what ears are for.
