Electro Harmonix Soul Food

[greyskull]

Just picked up one of these pedals on a whim as they are DIRT cheap Klon Centaur Klones £50 or so.

Studio mac took a shit today, so todays session got cancelled, so managed to do a little test and shootout.

For the sake of Familiarity, I used Jeff's Rose of Sharyn D.Is. (Thanks Jeff!!)

Amps Are a JCM800 RI and a mk1 5150 into the trusty orange 4x12 miced with a single 57 - Great River pre - Pro Tools

There is a version of the song Raw, With the Maxon 808 and with the Soul Food, as well as the raw tracks

Probably could have spent more time placing the mic, or working on the tones. but hey, this was just a test.

No eq Or processing at all.

Initial impressions are that I REALLY like this pedal. Much much thicker than the Maxon od808. Maybe not suitable for super heavy low tuned stuff with every amp, but will work much better with my current rig than the Maxon, which cuts WAY too much bottom end, from a set-up that is already on the toppy side.

Waddya Reckon?

Raw
Maxon 808
EHX Soul Food



800 Raw
800 Maxon 808
800 Soul Food

5150 Raw
5150 Maxon 808
5150 Soul Food

 

[Manicompression]

Cant listen right at the moment but thanks for doing this. I really like EH products and have heard good things about the Soul Food.

Edit: Finally got a minute to check this out. I like the Soul Food most in all of these examples, although with the 5150 I think the 808 could be the better choice depending on the context.

A while back I saw a youtube vid from Analogman where he compares the Soul Food to a Klon side by side and the difference is extremely negligible imo. Of course he doesnt do a straight high gain amp boost with it.

I think the Maxon OD820 is living in the same world based off of my month or so of owning it, but certainly the value is in EH's favor here.

Cool stuff.

 

[Jan___]

Cool comparison, thanks! Just listening on iPhone earpods but I was shocked that the difference wasn't larger. I mean, yeah the Soul Food is definitely fatter than the OD808 and a bit different in the (high) mids but I didn't even think you could use it to boost an overdriven amp like we typically do with an 808. Cool!

 

[greyskull]

It didn't occur to me to use it any other way!

 

[Jan___]

It didn't occur to me to use it any other way!

 

[JeffTD]

Yeah, this thing sounds rad. I've been getting further and further from the Tubescreamer type ODs for boosting amps lately (honestly liking an eq more than anything right now) because they tend to focus the pick attack in a way that I'm not always into. The 808 tends to thin it out a bit, and sure it's more aggressive but it's also a little more peaky and annoying with my particular pick attack for whatever reason, and this test kinda proves that.

 

[Clockwork]

I started messing with "klones" as amp boosts a couple months back and definitely like them better than higher gain alternatives, I think transparent ODs are the way to go to get focus/eq but not necessarily a ton of extra gain.