Hi everybody,

this is my first post in this forum and it is about my first Electro-Harmonix effect pedal. Just yesterday I received my brand new Q-Tron Plus in its violet box, and now I am just back home after the first test drive in my rehearsal room.

First impressions:
Overall the effect is great. The circuit has many settings which give you a very vast range of options to model your sound. I was inspired to buy it by Norm Stockton, after he answered me on fb that he used the old Mu-Tron for his recording “Pondering the Sushi”. I really dig the sounds he produces in this piece, so after some research I figured that the Mu-Tron is now reborn as the EHX Q-tron. I decided to go for the “Plus” version just to have the extra features at hand, should I ever need them (I play bass). I was able to dial in a pretty close resemblance to the bubbly sound I was after without too much trouble. After that it was 4 hours of pure fun My guitarist liked it too!

I was also very pleased with the included power supply. It has a reasonable length of cable and seems pretty heavy for it’s size, so I guess it is not a switching mode power supply, but a good old transformer and I like this. And the unit is really quiet when using power from the mains, which is great, especially since there is no option to run it on battery

Now the ranting part, I just can’t skip it:

1. Gain: My impression is that the overall gain of the unit when boost=off is not 1, not even close to 1. The processed signal has noticeably higher level than the signal in bypass mode. This annoyed me cause when I engaged the unit I was ridiculously louder compared to my previous levels and had to compensate with the volume on my bass. I have not performed measurements to back this up, but this is my “end-user” experience. I would really love an independent output level control and I will probably add one.

2. Footswitch: You guys have put in this effect the crappiest, lowest quality footswitch I have ever seen. Not only is it hard to press, but it also causes “gunshots” to be heard from my amp when I step on it. Moreover – at about the 10-th time I used it it refused to disengage, the button part just went up and down without actually operating the switch. It worked after some more attempts, but – is that the way a brand new, out of the box unit should perform? I expect the footswitch to fall apart by itself before long, it doesn’t feel sturdy at all. At first I was inclined to contact the support, but decided not to, cause I am already too tired of chasing another company’s support for the same problem in their product. So I will probably have to change that switch myself.

To continue on this topic – I don’t think there is much economic benefit in using crappy switches. Personally I would gladly pay $10 more and have a really good switch. And while I am at it I will share a thought with you. Since EHX is capable as a company to develop and produce so many different electronics products it shouldn’t be hard for you to develop your own relay based switching solution similar to this one: http://www.muzique.com/schem/bypass.htm The guy used to sell ready boards for around $5, and if he hadn’t discontinued his project I would probably have stockpiled on these. The parts are not expensive, so adding such circuit to a product wouldn’t make it much more expensive, but would increase the quality. I hope you get my point.

And finally – an idea: In my opinion there should actually be 2 footswitches on the unit – one on/bypass and one momentary, that would allow the performer to quickly step on it in order to use the filter only on a short phrase and then have the filter bypassed at the moment they lift their foot. I am surely going to do something in that direction too

So, these are my first impressions of the Q-Tron Plus. It is definitely going to stay on my pedalboard, but I will need to address some issues with it in order to make it perfect.

Cheers,
Marin Dimitrov