Electro-Harmonix Soul Food Overdrive

EHX serves up a tasty overdrive that is sure to please

By Phil O'Keefe

One of the most talked-about pedals on the forums in recent years has been the Klon Centaur. This hard-to-find boutique "transparent overdrive" has many fans, has inspired more than a few DIY "Klones", and today, the now-discontinued originals command incredibly high prices on the used market. When Electro-Harmonix founder Mike Matthews heard about this, he instructed his staff at EHX to come up with an affordable alternative that starving musicians could afford, and thus was born the Soul Food Overdrive. Let's dig in and see how it tastes.

What You Need To Know

• The Soul Food overdrive is housed in a relatively small die-cast enclosure that measures approximately 4 5/16" long x 2 1/2" wide x 2" high, including the knobs, jacks and switches.

• The input and output jacks are side-mounted. Output impedance ranges from 650Ohm to 3.3kOhm, depending on how you have the pedal dialed up. The input jack has a switch that disconnects the battery whenever a plug is not inserted. Input impedance is 1MOhm. No battery is included with the pedal, but it can be powered by a single 9V battery if desired. Alkaline batteries are recommended for use with the Soul Food. The battery compartment is accessed by removing four screws and the bottom plate of the pedal.

• If you prefer using a power adapter, a 2.1mm center-negative 9V DC input ("Boss-style") jack is provided at the top of the pedal, and amazingly at this price, EHX even includes a power adapter in the box along with the pedal. While the pedal is designed to run from a 9V power source, the internal circuitry features boosted power rails for increased headroom.

• The pedal's controls are pretty straightforward, with Drive, Volume and Treble knobs. It's really easy to get around the Soul Food, and dialing up a variety of sounds is a piece of cake.

• The Treble knob is an active type tone control that boosts treble when turned past noon, and cuts it when set lower than 12 o'clock. When set to noon, the Treble control is in a neutral position and has no effect on the sound. Unlike some tone controls, this one isn't overbearing or ineffective, so you'll actually want to try various settings on it to fine-tune your sound.

• When the Drive knob is anywhere from its minimum setting to around nine o'clock, there's really no grit apparent in the sound. As you increase the Drive from there, you start adding in a bit of edge to the tone, and the grind gets progressively heavier as you get closer to diming the knob. You'll also notice an increase in midrange as you increase the Drive control.

• At higher Drive knob settings, there's a pretty decent amount of overdrive on tap, but by itself (i.e. running into a clean amp) it never goes into heavy distortion territory, and the character of whatever guitar you're using still comes through. The amount of drive is, unsurprisingly, somewhat dependent on what guitar and type of pickups you're using. With single coils, there's a decent amount of overdrive, but as soon as I plugged in a Gibson SG Standard with 57 Classic Humbuckers, there was a noticeable increase in the amount of grind and grit available from the Soul Food.

• The Volume control sets the overall output level of the pedal. With the drive knob set to nine o'clock or less, unity gain on the Volume control is at about ten o'clock, so there's plenty of additional volume on tap, and the Soul Food works great as a clean boost when dialed up this way.

• The Soul Food uses surface mount components, which helps keep the price of the pedal low while insuring high quality and reliability. In fact, the price is almost shockingly low for how good this pedal sounds.

• A footswitch allows the player to turn the pedal on and off. A red LED next to the switch illuminates when it's on. An internal switch allows you to select either true bypass or buffered bypass switching. From the factory, this switch is set to true bypass. When using longer cable runs or several true bypass pedals, the transparent sounding buffer can be used to help prevent signal loss and keep your tone rockin'.

• The Soul Food is very touch-sensitive and responds well to variations in how hard you play. It also works with your guitar's volume control, and even with high settings on the Drive knob, it cleans up beautifully just by rolling down your volume a bit.

Limitations

• Bragging rights due to the exorbitant amount of money you paid for a pedal are not part of the deal with the Soul Food overdrive. If you're concerned about status and exclusivity, it's not going to add appreciably to your sense of self-worth.

• While EHX refers to the Soul Food as an "Distortion/Fuzz/Overdrive", in my opinion it's not ideal as a heavy overdrive or distortion. You can get a pretty decent amount of overdrive from it, but don't expect it to overwhelm your tone or take you to metal-land when running it into a clean amp. It's much better suited for clean boost through mid-gain overdrive-type tones.

• Surface mount construction means DIY modifications would be tricky, if not nearly impossible for most people.

Conclusions

There's a lot to like about the Electro-Harmonix Soul Food Overdrive. It's a fantastic pedal for use as a clean boost, and if your overdrive tastes run towards the transparent side of things, and you prefer to retain the basic tone and timbre of your guitar, then this is a terrific choice. While it's not what I'd recommend first for the heavier musical genres - at least not if you're expecting the pedal to give you all the dirt you require without any assistance from the amp, it also excels at mid-gain overdrive sounds, and depending on what type of amp you use it with and how you have it dialed up, it has enough tonal flexibility to give you additional grit and grind for just about any style of music you're into. 

Is it a direct clone of a Klon? I couldn't tell you - while I've heard them before and I've had a few opportunities to play through them, I didn't have one on hand to do any direct, side-by-side comparisons. Based on my previous experiences with them, the Soul Food does have a very similar voice, and can be used in the same ways you'd normally use a Klon. Whether or not it's identical really isn't the question as far as I'm concerned anyway - I'm more concerned about what it can do and how it sounds, and the Soul Food deserves to do well based on its own merits. I predict that it will. This is an exceptional sounding overdrive that sells at a price anyone can afford. Tasty tones, huge value, and highly recommended - it's delicious!


Resources

Musician's Friend EHX Soul Food Overdrive online catalog page ($83.74 MSRP, $62.81 "street")

Electro Harmonix Soul Food Overdrive product 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.