Electro-Harmonix OD Glove

Overdrive / Distortion with a British Vibe

By Phil O'Keefe

Continuing on with our grand tour of all the cool new dirt boxes that Electro-Harmonix has released this year, this time we're taking a look at their new overdrive-distortion pedal with a decidedly British rock amp vibe - the OD Glove.

What You Need To Know

• Housed in a die-cast enclosure measuring  approximately 4 5/16" long x 2 1/2" wide x 2" high, including the knobs, jacks and switches, the OD Glove uses a MOSFET based overdrive circuit, and is designed to give you anything from a clean boost all the way up to medium gain overdrive tones that border on distortion. The sound is very similar to a cranked amp in overall feel and character.

• There are three knobs. The Gain knob adjusts the input gain and how much grindage you'll get. The Volume control sets the overall output level of the pedal. There's quite a bit of range available with both of these controls, with Gain being adjustable from clean boost territory to light overdrive and all the way up to very heavily overdriven tones. The OD Glove isn't really a substitute for a true heavy distortion pedal, although it is capable of some pretty heavy grind.

• The tone control is designed to filter out high frequencies when it is rolled down. Dime this knob and you get the full response of the pedal, and the further you lower it, the more the high frequencies are attenuated. You can get some pretty sweet "singing sustain" sounds with the gain cranked up and the highs pulled down a bit.

• There is also a Tone Shift toggle switch on the top of the pedal. This provides you with a fast and easy way of re-voicing the pedal. When the switch is in the Off position, the pedal has essentially a flat EQ, with just a mild amount of emphasis on the low-mids. Switching over to the On position kicks in a midrange boost that emphasizes the mids and upper midrange. There's also a slight volume increase when this switch is in the On position, and of course, with the increased midrange emphasis, the pedal will cut through a bit better in a busy mix. It's nice having the ability to tailor the midrange response, and this switch adds a lot of tonal versatility to the pedal. 

• An internal switch inside the OD Glove changes the pedal's internal operating voltage from 9V to 18V. When this is in the 9V position, the tone is a bit more compressed and a little tighter overall, and in the 18V position, it's a bit more open, with more headroom. I liked the sound of both positions, and again, having the option just adds to the pedal's tonal versatility. It's also nice that you can operate the pedal at 18V without having to use two outlets on your power supply brick or without the expense of having to purchase a separate 18V adapter. In fact, external 18V adapters should never be used with the OD Glove since it's rated for 10V maximum.

• The overall construction quality appears to be good, with surface mounted components used for the majority of the parts. This helps to keep reliability up and costs down, although it does make repairs, modifications and tracing the circuit more difficult, especially for someone like me who has a lot of mileage on their Mk I eyeballs.  

• The pedal can be powered via the included 9V battery, or an optional external 9V DC power supply. The OD Glove uses the industry standard 2.1mm center-negative style power plug. Current draw is 12mA at 9VDC. The power jack is located at the top of the pedal.

• The 1/4" input and output jacks are side mounted. Input impedance is 300kOhm. Output impedance varies, depending on how you have the volume control set, and it ranges from 12kOhm to 100kOhm.

• The OD Glove carries the standard Electro-Harmonix one year limited warranty.

• Switching is true bypass, and a red LED illuminates when the pedal is active.

Limitations

• The OD Glove is not designed to accept voltages higher than 10VDC at the power jack. Using higher voltage power supplies can fry the pedal and void your warranty. The internal switch does not configure the pedal for use with external 18V power supplies; rather, it kicks in an internal voltage doubler circuit that takes the 9V DC power source and kicks it up to 18V internally. Electro-Harmonix takes care to point this out in several places in the OD Glove's manual, and I wanted to call attention to it here too - it's not really a limitation per se, but it's certainly something you want to keep in mind so that you don't blow the pedal.

Conclusions

This is an excellent sounding and very versatile overdrive pedal that can cover a broad range of your overdrive needs, from clean boost to mid-gain tones. It won't quite take you into super saturated territory on its own, although when used with hotter humbucking pickups and goosed with another pedal, such as the EHX Soul Food, it certainly gets close. In fact, I really like how well the OD Glove stacks with various other dirt pedals and boosts.

One of the rumors I've seen in a few places online is that this pedal is based on a very famous "obsessive / compulsive" boutique overdrive. I happen to own one of those pedals, and it's one of my all-time favorite drive pedals, so I plugged the two in and did some side by side comparisons. With identical settings, the tones were very similar, although not quite identical. Still, with a bit of tweaking, I was able to get the two pedals to sound very close to each other. The boutique pedal seemed to have a bit better dynamics and overall openness and clarity, but it also costs twice as much. I was particularly surprised by just how well the two pedals stacked together- I was able to get some very juicy high-gain tones by using one to slam the input of the other.

Once again I am shocked and impressed with just how much pedal EHX is offering for such a low price. The fact that this pedal is built in the USA, is priced like an imported pedal, and yet can still go toe to toe with such a highly respected overdrive and hold its own speaks very well for just how much tone and value you get for your money with the Electro-Harmonix OD Glove. Like their other recently released overdrive and preamp pedals such as the East River Drive, Hot Tubes Overdrive and Soul Food Overdrive, it's a real winner and exceptional value.

Resources

Musician's Friend's Electro-Harmonix OD Glove online catalog page ($82.86 MSRP, $62.15 "street")

Electro-Harmonix's OD Glove web page

Phil O'Keefe is a multi-instrumentalist, recording engineer / producer and the Senior Editor of Harmony Central. He has engineered, produced and performed on countless recording sessions in a diverse range of styles, with artists such as Alien Ant Farm, Jules Day, Voodoo Glow Skulls, John McGill, Michael Knott and Alexa's Wish. He is a former featured monthly columnist for EQ magazine, and his articles and product reviews have also appeared in Keyboard, Electronic Musician and Guitar Player magazines.