Electro-Harmonix Soul Food Distortion/Fuzz/Overdrive Pedal

Product Information

The silly money that Klon Centaur pedals fetch is just a testament to show how much value the Soul Food gives as nearly all guitarist can afford to get one. Is this pedal for you? My next choice of pedal is a little more realistic, perhaps: Wampler’s Belle. This is Brian’s take on the Nobels ODR-1 overdrive pedal. The ODR-1 is an affordable overdrive that’s been used on countless hit records over the decades.

Finally, try using the Soul Food as a booster. Use your amp or another pedal as your main overdrive/distortion and play around with the Soul Food as a way to boost your tone during a solo or section you want a bit extra grit. Many guitarists use the Soul Food this way so it’s worth experimenting with. Many of the pedals I’m using today have buffers in them. The Boss pedals have an always-on buffer. I’ve got the buffers switched on in the Soul Food, the Klon KTR and the Tumnus Deluxe at all times. Inside the EHX Soul Food, showing the Buffer / True Bypass switch People talk about this pedal's similarity to the Klon Centaur. I've never tried or heard a Klon in real life so...Of course, overdrive pedals like the Soul Food are designed to be used with a valve amp and to push those tubes and produce a warm tone. But I wanted to see how it would go on solid state amps. It still produced a fantastic tone, but that could also be due to the fact that solid state amps today are light-years ahead of solid states from the past. Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Overdrive– an OCD clone (read the review for another discussion & comparison on a clone pedal) The amount of available gain is very similar to the Centaur. With the Gain knob maxed out I coaxed rich, harmonic overdrive tones out of single-coils that evoked thoughts of Eric Johnson and vintage Larry Carlton. And unlike many TS-style ODs at high-gain settings, the Soul Food’s low end was defined full of presence.

I was looking for a clean booster, something that did not add coloration to my tone. This little guy does it really good IMHO. One thing, it is interesting how this pedal reacts depending on where it is placed in the daisy chain. I tried to place it after my overdrives but it did not work for me. It was not a bad sound, just a little treble and it did not blend well with one of my overdrives. On the other hand (before overdrives), it gave me a sweet transparent booster (no gain), no coloration and blended well with the others guys. Do I think the Soul Food is a good Klon klone? No, I don’t. While it’s usable, I haven’t (yet!) found a reason to choose the Soul Food on tone alone. The mid-boost just isn’t that sweet-sounding, and it doesn’t affect the next pedal in the chain quite how I’m used to. It doesn’t get much easier to use than this. It’s a simple overdrive pedal meant for those who like a simple tone. Overdrive and booster pedals work best with avalve amp so if you own a solid state amp, this may or may not suit your needs. You will know for sure whether this is the right pedal for you by listening to the tone in the video later.The Electro-Harmonix Soul Food is ideally meant to do one thing: provide guitarists availability to the sought after form of a clean boost as well as overdrive tones which are made known by the Klon Centaur overdrive guitar pedals. It’s meant to simply accomplish this feat while costing about a console video game. This sounds like an excellent food for the soul. Features and controls If you are interested in receiving this coverage for longer than one year, you have the option of purchasing additional years of the Performance Warranty. The pricing is as follows: It’s a nice size pedal with nice chunky knobs that don’t feel like they will snap off any time soon. I love the fact that the Soul Food gives guitarists the choice between True Bypass and a Buffer and that’s a level of quality I didn’t expect from such a low priced pedal. I haven’t heard of any other guitarists having problems with the Soul Food and I don’t expect any problems. It’s a simple pedal in a rigid housing. Overall impression

Hand on heart, I can’t say that the Belle sounds better when boosted by the KTR. This is definitely a matter of taste. Here, I’m not trying to ‘fix’ a problematic sound. I’m using the KTR to change the flavour; to make a good sound into a great one. I’m not convinced it does. Quite often on less expensive pedals the manufacturer doesn’t include a power supply to save costs. It’s incredibly frustrating to get a pedal only to find out you have nothing to power it – especially when some of the smaller pedals don’t even run on batteries! It was a nice surprise to find that EHX also send out a power supply with the Soul Food. You can alternatively run it on a 9V battery so it’s nice to have this flexibility in such a low cost pedal. The pedal is known for its ability to add gain without coloring the tone of your amp too much. In other words – a fairly transparent overdrive pedal. Although it does have fairly pronounced mids. To my ears, both overdrives have similar characteristics, but they clearly have important differences too. The OD-3 has a bit more bite, a lot more body, and the mids are not as prominent. I think it also has a bit more saturation than the Soul Food does.Absolutely not. The creation of the Klon (and by consequence, the Soul Food) came about a result of Bill Finnegan’s dissatisfaction with Tube Screamers in early 1990s. Searching for that “amp at 8” sound without actually turning the volume up that high, TS9s and TS808s were natural starting points. However, he found that they compressed the signal too much and lost low-end definition when cranked. The Klon and Soul Food both retain bass clarity and open, full sound as you march the gain higher. Some people like the compression and mid-range growl that Screamers add, so it’s not a matter of better - just different. There are so many “klones” already. Why is this one any different? Mike Matthews and his team at Electro Harmonix have done a heroic job in making this exceptional pedal accessible to guitarists having a palate for Klon-style tones. There has been a lot of hype over the Soul Food – maybe not as much hype as the Klon Centaur, but still enough hype to become skeptical. I haven’t played the Klon Centaur and I’m not interested in trying it. The Soul Food is a fantastic sounding pedal at an amazing price. I’m still surprised that EHX decided on such a low price because it could easily sell at a higher price point. What this DOES sound like is a nice clean low gain overdrive. Think that barely broken up bluesy sound, something like "Jenny Don't Be Hasty" by Paolo Nutini kinda sound. It doesn’t matter if the Soul Food does or doesn’t replicate the Klon sound perfectly. What matters is if this is a good sounding pedal. Soul Food Features

Scour online forums and you’ll soon find that if you were to A/B test two gold Klon’s, they wouldn’t sound exactly the same. It should be clear after listening to the pedal switched on and off what is really meant by ‘transparent’. The tone isn’t dramatically changed. What you notice is an overall enhancement to the tone. Harmonics, overtones and sustain all add to your tone and give it a richer feel. You can hear that it’s quite a bright sound compared to other overdrive pedals that roll off the high frequencies.Will you agree with me? Maybe. Maybe not. After all – tone is completely subjective and it’s ultimately your opinion that matters most. It can be used with low gain to get a volume boost, a tiny bit of breakup, or then with the gain up it can push a tube amp or another drive pedal nicely.