Picked up an EHX Soul Food the other day from a nearby music store. I had one on order from Sweetwater, but they extended the backorder period, so I cancelled. Anyway, here's some first impressions...
I was surprised to find that they include a power supply with the pedal. So, pedal & power for 65 bucks...hard to beat that. There's quite a range of drive to this pedal, but I've found the lower drive settings the most useful in my rig. As you increase the drive, you also increase the mids. I wasn't expecting this, as I thought the Klon was billed as a more transparent overdrive. I guess you can only be so transparent.
The touch sensitivity of the SF is pretty cool. It feels good to play through it. That's the best way to describe it, I guess. It really responds to your pick attack.
Again, for my rig, the pedal seems a little too middy for me, particularly on the bridge pickup. My guitar is all korina & set up with 2 'buckers ala Gibson. An A4 equipped '59n & a regular '59b. My amp is an early 70s Traynor Reverb Master. I think this pedal would be better through a strat into a blackface type of setup. That's just my initial thoughts. I like the pedal well enough to keep experimenting with it, but it won't replace my OCD.
I did a little recording, a/b'ing the SF & the OCD. There is also delay and phase in there, but I still think you can hear the differences between the two pedals. The solo guitar starts with the Soul Food & alternates from there. You can hear the switch clicks when I switch pedals. Most of the time I'm on the neck pup, but toward the end (edit...actually I switch pups near the middle...but don't shut the phaser off until near the end) I switch to the bridge and shut off the phaser. This is when you can really hear how middy this pedal can be when compared to the OCD.
Here's a pic that shows how the pedals were set when I did the recording:
and the recording:
I was surprised to find that they include a power supply with the pedal. So, pedal & power for 65 bucks...hard to beat that. There's quite a range of drive to this pedal, but I've found the lower drive settings the most useful in my rig. As you increase the drive, you also increase the mids. I wasn't expecting this, as I thought the Klon was billed as a more transparent overdrive. I guess you can only be so transparent.
The touch sensitivity of the SF is pretty cool. It feels good to play through it. That's the best way to describe it, I guess. It really responds to your pick attack.
Again, for my rig, the pedal seems a little too middy for me, particularly on the bridge pickup. My guitar is all korina & set up with 2 'buckers ala Gibson. An A4 equipped '59n & a regular '59b. My amp is an early 70s Traynor Reverb Master. I think this pedal would be better through a strat into a blackface type of setup. That's just my initial thoughts. I like the pedal well enough to keep experimenting with it, but it won't replace my OCD.
I did a little recording, a/b'ing the SF & the OCD. There is also delay and phase in there, but I still think you can hear the differences between the two pedals. The solo guitar starts with the Soul Food & alternates from there. You can hear the switch clicks when I switch pedals. Most of the time I'm on the neck pup, but toward the end (edit...actually I switch pups near the middle...but don't shut the phaser off until near the end) I switch to the bridge and shut off the phaser. This is when you can really hear how middy this pedal can be when compared to the OCD.
Here's a pic that shows how the pedals were set when I did the recording:
and the recording:
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Clean boost is sweet also.
