Pedal Review: EHX Soul Food OD

Salutations fellow pedalheads! Because I write a blog on worship and guitar pedals, I will, believe it or not, be composing several specific pedal reviews on pedals I feel merit a review. The subject of this review is the EHX Soul Food OD. I hope you enjoy!

Klon Centaur

Have you ever heard of the legendary Klon Centaur OD? Basically, it’s the best drive pedal of all time. So, some dudes spent close to a decade working tirelessly to develop the world’s greatest overdrive pedal. Annnnnnd they charge you anywhere from $2000-2500 for it. Nuts, right? What EHX owner Mike Matthews did as a response to this outrageous price is create essentially the same pedal for the cheap price of $67. I speculate this is because Matthews has an incredible sense of humor and knew he could get away with selling the same pedal. That being said, the Soul Food is dabomb.com.

The Soul Food can be used from anything between a clean boost to a heavy tweed sounding overdrive. I personally use it as a simple clean boost with the slightest bit of drive. The resulting tone is reminiscent of Timon Klein/James Duke’s clean tone. To be clear, I’m nowhere close to as good as Timon Klein or James Duke. EHX really knocked it out of the park with this pedal.

Things I Like

As you can see, the Soul Food (top right) has
an incredibly small footprint

1. It’s small! The Soul Food has an implausibly small print on my pedalboard. Because this pedal only has three knobs, it only needs to be about the size of an iPhone 4.

2. It sounds professional. The Soul Food pushes the natural gain of the amp you use (tube amp or not). There is no obnoxious compression that can be found in other drive pedals.

3. The treble knob. The treble knob on the Soul Food is absolutely vital. On most drive pedals, the treble is already obnoxious, even without a treble boost. But at ’12 on the treble knob, the pedal is actually considerably flat. I usually have my knob set at ‘2.

4. It can be used as a boost pedal when used after other drives. ‘Nuff said.

Uses (Practical and Impractical)

James Duke hard at work

1. Slide guitar swells. As I said before, the Soul Food gets a really Duke-esque dirty tone. If you really want a “sick” swelly slide sound, to turn the drive knob to about ‘1-2, and the treble knob to about 3. You will not regret it.

2. Boost. Turn your drive down mostly all the way, turn your volume up considerably, and put it after your other drives. On point.

3. Vintage overdrive. Turn the drive up to about ‘5, turn the treble up all the way. Grab your Flying V, put on your ripped jean vest, get a new tattoo, and play some AC/DC. Make your papa proud to call you his son. Forget ambient music.

All in all, you need to purchase the EHX Soul Food. By far my favorite pedal. In fact, go buy it here: http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/electro-harmonix-soul-food-overdrive-guitar-effects-pedal

Thanks y’all,

Curtis Russell Howard