Talk:Electro-Harmonix

From the Wiki: "Electro Harmonix stopped making pedals in the mid 1990s and concentrated on vacuum tubes for guitar amplifiers, which they had also been making since the 1970s. However due to demand, and the high prices guitarists were paying for old 1970s pedals on the vintage market they reissued the more popular old pedals in 1999, the Big Muff Pi and Small Stone included."

According to Ronald C. Neely II (the world's foremost expert on EH other than Mike Matthews himself)'s website (ronsound.com):

"Finally, in 1984, the EH company met its demise... due to Japanese competition." "By 1986, the Broadway Computer Corp. was out of business and Mike regained ownership of the EH trademark, but he didn't release any more products at the time."

"In 1990, he started the Sovtek company and released a Big Muff Pi II which was made in Russia. Currently the Sovtek/Electro-Harmonix line also includes a reissue of the Small Stone phase shifter and a reissue Deluxe Electric Mistress flanger with the Memory Man slated..."

These two histories are irreconcilable. Let's check the EHX.com website!

They reprint an article from "The Guitar Market": "Electro-Harmonix went bankrupt again in 1984." and "Matthews regained the trademark in 1991, but twice burned, he was hesitant to return to that arena."

They also reprint "The Music and Sound Retailer interview with Mike Matthews" February 2005: In Mr. Matthews' words, "The company actually closed in '82. I tried to reopen it, but that didn't work"... "so in '84 it closed."

Last, but not least is the fact that I got my first military-green "Sovtek/Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi" for my sixteenth birthday in 1996, the second year of it's production. The first batch of these supposedly said "Red Army Overdrive."

I agree, this article is total crap. It is poorly written, and the history leaves out, well, the history. I know for an absolute fact that almost everything they ever made was being liquidated at a fraction of the normal prices in huge black and white magazine ads in 1980 or 1981. The company had to have been insolvent at that time and could not have gone out of business in the mid-80s (or the 90s as it has been quoted above).68.183.56.209 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:24, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Tone?
In the second paragraph of the sub-section 'Phasers' the word 'inexpensive' is used twice and the phrase 'low cost' is used once. I'd question the use of these adjectives. Cheap compared to what? I've bought a number of E-H pedals over the years and they've never struck me as being particularly cheap. Doozy88 21:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:EHramhead.gif
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BetacommandBot (talk) 05:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Mistake?
The article claims both that the Big Muff Pi was a "mistake" stumbled upon while attempting to make a "clean sustainer" and that the same pedal was modeled after Hendrix's Band of Gypsies-era tone. Obviously both of these statements can't be accurate. If the Big Muff's sound was a happy accident it can't be said to have been modeled after anything, and conversely, if it was designed to sound like Hendrix, it can't be said to have been an accident.

Pumashake (talk) 02:11, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Available Harmonies on the HOG
Despite even the devices manual, the interval '2 octaves plus a 5th' is not available, but '2 octaves plus a 3rd' is. This can be seen clearly in the photo to the side of the article (high resolution). The reason for this particular interval becomes apparent when one considers that 2 octaves and a 3rd generates a frequency 5 times (whole number) that of the original frequency. I have made the appropriate change. Please consider that many primary sources regarding the device are actually incorrect before changing the information back. 24.30.130.62 (talk) 19:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)Tim Holt

Advertising?
The 'Effects pedals' section of this article definitely needs to be rewritten. A lot of it sounds like advertising copy; e.g. "The POG can make a guitar sound just like an organ." I don't think this is true, and it's certainly POV. "You can control the 7 expression modes via expression pedal (supplied with the pedal) and you can store up to 6 of your favorite settings with the HOG foot controller (sold separately) to load your favorite settings fast and easy. The foot controller is highly recommended by most HOG users as they all agree you'll find some very cool sounds that must be saved. The HOG has also won the Mark of Excellence Award by Guitar Worlds defunct sister magazine Guitar One Magazine. Videos and more information can be found on the Electro-Harmonix website." - What? Is this an online EHX brochure? I own some of their effects and they are very good, but this isn't the place to promote them. I don't know if someone affiliated with the company has put this up or not, but it has to go.

Do we really need detailed descriptions of many of their products? Okay, some of them are world renowned and have been used extensively by notable artists, but many of the ones listed are fairly new, and I don't think they're notable in and of themselves. I am going to remove the HOG and POG sections as these seem to be the worst offenders (both are mentioned under the 'Octave, pitch and synthesizer' heading anyway).79.68.86.107 (talk) 14:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Proposed merge from Electric Mistress
I don't think this is notable enough for its own article. I'll leave this here, and if there's no major opposition, I'll do it in a couple of days. Conical Johnson (talk) 07:07, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Description of LPB-1
Is the description of this device accurate?

"The LPB-1 massively boosted a guitar signal to provide gain by clipping the signal, resulting in a raw distorted sound, full of sustain and harmonics."

Have studied the schematic for the last year, and built many of these circuits as part of my own designs so I'm intimate enough with the circuit to know how to mod it in any direction, and unless they were different when first made, there is no clipping involved in an LPB-1 circuit. It also doesn't provide a "raw distorted sound" because the whole point to the LPB is that it's a clean boost. From my experience, LPB gets your guitar signal just to the edge of breakup, and its then up to your next pedal or your amp to go the rest of the way to distortion. The above passage makes LPB sound like a raw overdrive, the main problem with that sentence being that LBP does not clip....it features no diodes or anything else for this purpose and is just a very simple transistor circuit with about 5 resistors and 2 capacitors setup to run (for the most part) clean. Some frequencies do get slightly overdriven, hence the phrase I used "just to the point of breakup". If the "raw distorted sound" from the passage refers to what happens in your amp after the pedal, then that should be made clear. although thats only the output your going to get depending on how you have your amp set up. If you set up a clean amp, and turn LBP up to full, you still get a clean sound....just louder and fatter, so even there the description should be made clear that you're not going to end up with a "raw distorted sound" unless you prepare your amp to give that sound in conjunction with the pedal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.98.128.82 (talk) 11:01, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

please sign in & sign your comment; it’s useful stuff. I copied an LPB back in the day- single transistor gain stage.... well, its name tells you what it does. it does not distort in & of itself, unless it is driven into clipping, which is not its intended use. the one I copied was designed to plug directly into the side of a guitar, not sit on the floor. it will overdrive an amp, or bring a weak pickup up to useful levels. there is no tonal modification by the circuit itself; only its context can bring anything like this about. I’ve reworded the article slightly to reflect this- let’s see if the edit sticks or if some wag thinks they know better!

duncanrmi (talk) 23:22, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

do we need yet another massive & uncorroborated list of users?
they’re cheap effects pedals. everyone I know who plays an instrument has at least one ehx pedal. it’s just another load of fan-cruft taking up space that could more usefully be used addressing some of the contentious points above, or expanding on the effects themselves & their impact, & the competition from the likes of boss/roland, guyatone & the rest. votes for losing the list, or at least pruning it a bit?

duncanrmi (talk) 23:18, 1 July 2019 (UTC)

“Rebranded” vacuum tubes
New Sensor set up factories to make tubes. They make their own EHX and Sovtek tubes. And several other brands. They aren’t “rebranded.” This whole article has a very negative slant. DavidRavenMoon (talk) 22:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)


 * New Sensor have not set up any of their tube factories. Their one and only tube factory in Saratov Russia was ones a part of a huge Soviet gorvernment owned group that was called as Reflektor. Reflektor had many divisions making many kind of electronic components including one that was making vacuum tubes and later that part was named as an independent subisidiary and had a name Jsc Ekspopul (АО ЭкспоПул in russian language). In 1998 Mike Matthews had an opportunity to buy the Ekspopul factory and he did it with his russian companion Irina Bitukova who now is also a chief officer of that factory. Bitukova is also a director of Jsc Sovtek in St. Petersburgh. Jsc Sovtek is operating as a design office for the Ekspopul factory and they are the peoples who finally send the tubes from Russia to EHX and also direct to european dealers and manufacturers, those who buy tubes in big quantities. In Jsc Sovtek their 25 workers (including one of the best russian vacuum tube engineers) are learning how the western vacuum tubes were made and designing how the new ones needs to be made in Ekspopul factory. You can find all this information as free from the web if just do searching in russian language. At this time they don't have any other factories than Ekspopul. Earlier Jsc Sovtek made manufacturing contracts with other independent russian manufacturing companies like LLC Vacuum Components (former Ryazan factory) who made few production runs of 811 and 572 type power triodes for them. Jsc Ekspopul is now the only factory in Russia who makes glass type audio tubes. The other russian companies like Jsc Svetlana in St. Petersburgh only makes metal-ceramic type transmitting tubes and other high power industrial types. Spentuboi (talk) 18:29, 27 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The Ekspopul factory has been in business from the heydays of vacuum tubes and has a long and remarkable history.
 * In the middle of 1940's the central committee of the communist party of Soviet Union ordered a new factories to build in Kaluga, Saratov and Vinnytsia to manufacturing receiving-amplifying tubes. Before that most of these tubes were produced only in few companies including Istok in Fryazino and Svetlana in St. Petersburgh.
 * The construction of the factory in Saratov begin in July 1946. It was designed to be the country's largest of its kind and got numbered as electrovacuum plant no: 338.
 * In 1953 the power station, mechanics workshops and manufacturing lines were ready and the production of receiving-amplifying tubes started.
 * In october of 1953 plant was produced 4000 tubes and by the end of the year the production reached 48 000 tubes.
 * Between the years of 1954-55 the factory got its own glass shop to manufacturing electrovacuum glass and it helped to increase the production volumes to 20 times. In same time factory started the production of finger tubes (noval and 7 pin miniature types).
 * In the end of 1958 production of the factory was reached several million tubes and exceeded its design capacity. The production was more than quarter of all receiving-amplifying tubes produced in the whole country.
 * Between years 1959 to 1965 the reliability and durability of the tubes were increased and factory organised the production of new tubes with minimum service life of 10 000 hours.
 * In 1963 the factory produced 50 million tubes and became one of the largest manufacturers of receiving-amplifying tubes in Europe.
 * In 1966 factory was awarded with a highest order of Soviet Union for its achievements.
 * In 1985 the factory made its billionth receiving-amplifying tube.
 * In 1993 the group of factories was corporaticed as OJSC Reflektor.
 * In the middle of 90's after the collapse of the State, falling of economy and bankroupt of the mother company started the restruction plan and promising industries including vacuum tube production became independent companies. This was the time when factory got its new name; CJSC EkspoPUL. Export orders helped to preserve all of the promising product areas including the historical one - manufacturing the vacuum tubes which were now considered ones of the best in the world.
 * The first direct foreign connections were established to providing acces to the international markets of vacuum tubes.
 * In 2003 almost 90% of the production of EkspoPUL was exported to the USA. Spentuboi (talk) 01:09, 28 April 2022 (UTC)