Brand
Founded by Mike Matthews in New York City in 1968, Electro-Harmonix became known for inventive effects that brought new sounds within reach of guitarists. Its first product was the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster; the company’s long-running catalogue ranges from fuzz and overdrive to delay, modulation, octave and experimental processing. JustPedals listings include the Small Clone chorus, Small Stone phaser, Memory Boy delay, POG 2 octave generator and Micro Q-Tron envelope filter. Check the exact version and power requirements when comparing EHX models, since familiar names often span different generations and formats.
Category
Fuzz drives the signal into extreme clipping, often flattening the waveform and generating a thick spectrum of harmonics. Transistor type, bias, input loading and tone filtering create markedly different responses, from loose and velvety to gated, spluttering or octave-rich. Some circuits interact strongly with pickup impedance and guitar volume, while others include buffers or blends for a more consistent response.
Tags
Voiced or equipped to retain low-frequency fundamentals and the higher headroom of a bass signal. Clean blends, crossovers and bass-specific filter ranges can preserve weight and articulation while the effected portion adds harmonics, movement or ambience.
Can operate from an internal replaceable battery, usually with different available current and running time from an external supply. Battery chemistry, access and automatic disconnection through the input socket affect practical runtime and storage. High-current digital processing generally shortens battery life more sharply than a simple analogue circuit.
Connects input directly to output through mechanical or relay switching when the effect is off, removing the active circuit from the audio path. It avoids buffer colour but leaves cable capacitance and switching design to influence high-frequency loss and possible switching noise.