Home › Forums › Review Your EHX Gear › New respect for EHX – PitchFork and Synth9

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  • July 20, 2018 at 2:11 pm #85402
    coyote
    Participant

    Hi all,

    I owned one of the original Big Muff Pi devices, long ago. And I used to go hang out occasionally at the EHX display store on 48th Street in NYC, back when it was Music Row (the store was tucked in right next to Mannys). While the BigMuff was ok, it was noisy and never turned me on that much…. and things like the Electric Mistress, while cool, were also noisy.

    And other players such as Boss and DOD etc were in the compact pedal market, and their gear worked and made less noise and was easier to arrange on a pedalboard and whatnot. So I traded away the BigMuff, and kinda lost interest in EHX.

    Fast forward 30 years.

    I now own two spectacular EHX devices: the PitchFork, and the Synth9. I am blown away by both of them. And they are in far friendlier formats than those big old clunky effects boxes. And the other EHX devices I check out in music stores are likewise wonderful. The various POGs, the C9, etc all are captivating.

    So while I am no fanboi of any particular brand, I certainly will look at EHX offerings for any future effects pedal purchases.

    August 5, 2018 at 10:01 pm #124166
    gvelasco
    Participant

    My experience has been that in every case where EHX is either reissuing one of their classic pedals, or they are “kloning” someone else’s classic pedal, they go beyond just cloning and actually make improvements to the original circuit while retaining the best qualities of the original circuit.

    First, with all of their reissues, they are putting them in the more durable and pedalboard friendly diecast enclosures. In many instances where the original issue didn’t have a 9V adapter port, the new one does. Where the old circuit was noisy, the new circuit is quiet. Where the old one might have had unity gain issues, the new one is corrected.

    With the Op-Amp Big Muff, it sounds like they kept the mojo of the original Op-Amp Big Muff, but they added the ability to bypass the tone circuit.

    With the Soul Food, which is a Klon Klone, they make the buffered bypass internally switchable. This is a great improvement over the original because many people don’t need an always on buffer in their modern pedalboard configurations.

    With the Glove OD, which is a Fulltone OCD clone, they make it 9V/18V internally switchable. The Fulltone switched to 18V when it’s plugged into an 18V adapter. With the EHX, you can run it at 18V internally on a 9V adapter. That’s much more convenient for most people that are using 9V 1SPOT daisy chain adapters.

    With the Satisfaction, which is a Gibson Tonebender clone, there are many improvements over the original design but they nail the tone.

    In every single case that I can think of EHX goes beyond just doing a reissue or a clone and thinks carefully about what they can add to the circuit to make it better…THEN they sell it for a GREAT price. I really feel like EHX pedals are the best VALUE in every category right now. They may not be the absolute best pedal in any of those categories, but they are always the best VALUE, and in many cases they ARE the best – even compared to very expensive boutique pedals. In some cases EHX has designed their own very unique signature sound pedals that no one else offers, and you don’t have to pay boutique pedal prices for them.

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