Electro-Harmonix
Electro-Harmonix is an American company that makes electronic audio processors and sells rebranded vacuum tubes. It was founded by Mike Matthews in 1968. It is best known for a series of guitar effects pedals introduced in the 1970s and 1990s. EHX also made a line of guitars in the 1970s.
During the mid-1970s, Electro-Harmonix established itself as a manufacturer of guitar effects pedals. It was the first company to manufacture, and market affordable state-of-the art "stomp-boxes" for guitarists and bassists, such as the first stomp-box flanger, the first analog echo/delay unit with no moving parts, the first guitar synthesizer in pedal form, and the first tube-amp distortion simulator. In 1980, Electro-Harmonix also designed and marketed one of the first digital delay/looper pedals and a line of guitars in the 1970s.
Company history
Founding years (1967–1968)
Electro-Harmonix was founded by rhythm and blues keyboard player Mike Matthews in October 1968 in New York City with $1,000. He took a job as a salesman for IBM in 1967, but shortly afterwards, in partnership with Bill Berko, an audio repairman who claimed to have his own custom circuit for a fuzz pedal, he jobbed construction of the new pedal to a contracting house and began distributing the pedals under a deal with the Guild Guitar Company. Fuzzboxes were in demand following a trail of hits involving their sound, including " Satisfaction" by The Rolling Stones two years before, and recent popularization of Jimi Hendrix. The latter connection resulted in the pedals being branded the 'Foxey Lady'. In addition several low priced models of acoustic guitars were sold.Following the departure of his partner, Matthews was introduced to inventor and electric engineer Robert Myer through IBM colleagues. Together they designed a circuit to create a distortion-free sustain. A simple line booster used by Myers in testing to preamplify the guitar's signal was also manufactured from 1969 as the Linear Power Booster, and has continued production in present day.
First products
The Axis fuzz pedal, also sold under the name 'Foxey Lady' for the Guild guitar company, and LPB-1 Linear Power Booster were the first products in 1969. The LPB-1 massively boosted a guitar signal & could be used to overdrive an amplifier, resulting in a raw distorted sound, full of sustain and harmonics. Several similar devices, which sold well, followed, such as the Treble Booster and Bass Booster.The Mike Matthews Freedom Amp, a portable guitar amp powered by 40 "D" batteries, was popular in many venues that lacked an A/C power source.
In 1982, the company also spun up an offshoot called The Alien Group, which produced the Voice Box and its successor Voice Box II. These were external speech synthesizer boxes built around the Votrax SC-01A speech synthesizer chip. Available for the Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, and Apple II computers and advertised in computer magazines of the time, they added speech and singing capability.
Change of direction
Electro-Harmonix stopped making pedals in the mid-1980s, and in the early 1990s started selling vacuum tubes re-branded with its name for guitar amplifiers, which it had also been making since the 1970s. During the same period Matthews bought ExpoPul, a vacuum-tube factory, located in a former military industrial complex in Saratov in Russia. Due to demand and the high prices guitarists were paying for old 1970s pedals on the vintage market, Electro-Harmonix reissued the more popular old pedals in the mid-1990s, including the Big Muff Pi and Small Stone. In 2002 it started designing new pedals to add to its range. Company policy was that all reissued effects remained as close as possible to the original, vintage designs; however, casings, knobs and especially the old-fashioned mini-jack power plug were not up to later standards. In 2006 the smaller and more standardized "micro" and "nano" effect lines using surface-mount circuit components were introduced. Circuit board manufacture was outsourced, and the pedals assembled in New York.Effects pedals
Electro-Harmonix produces pedals with many different types of sound manipulation suitable for guitar, bass, vocal, keyboard, and other instruments.It also sells rebranded vacuum tubes carrying the Electro-Harmonix brand name. As of 2024, ExpoPul factory in Saratov, southwestern Russia, continued to produce vacuum tubes for Electro-Harmonix. The operation in Russia employs more than 300 individuals, in contrast to the 125 employees in New York. As of 2025, vacuum tubes produced by ExpoPul in Russia are still available for purchase on the official Electro-Harmonix website.
Big Muff
In 1969 Bob Myer and Mike Matthews designed the Big Muff Pi, a fuzzbox that added a bass-heavy sustain to any guitar sound. It is described by the company as "the finest harmonic distortion-sustain device developed to date". Originally this was intended to be a pedal that would mimic the fuzz tones of Jimi Hendrix and other guitarists at the time, but the result was a mix of a fuzz and distortion pedal with a very heavy sound. It also made small amps sound much better and allowed distortion at any volume.The pedal sold well and was used by Carlos Santana, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Alex Lifeson of Rush and, later, Metallica's bassist Cliff Burton, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and in the 1990s KoRn's rhythm guitarist Munky, Vicente Freitas, Jack White of The White Stripes, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., The Edge of U2, and Billy Corgan. The band Mudhoney titled their debut EP Superfuzz Bigmuff.
Although the first Big Muff production date was for many years cited as 1971, the first version of the Big Muff was actually sold in 1969 as a hand-made "perf board" version. A production version with an etched PCB board was made in early 1970. Mike Matthews was friends with Jimi Hendrix and claims Jimi bought one from Manny's Music in New York, shortly after they were released and had one in the Electric Lady Studios shortly before Jimi's death in 1970. Several variations of the Big Muff Pi followed throughout the 1970s. Electro-Harmonix produced a reissue assembled in New York City; until 2009 it produced a version made by Sovtek in Russia which provided a slightly different tone. The Bass Big Muff replaced the Russian version.
Several other variations of the pedal were in production, including the Metal Muff, the Double Muff, which incorporates the original Muff Fuzz circuit, twice in series with a single overdrive control for each circuit, providing the user either with a cascaded 'Double Muff' sound or the original Muff Fuzz circuit, the Little Big Muff, a smaller version, and a variation in circuit, of the NYC Big Muff, which produces yet another variation in sound, and the Big Muff with Tone Wicker, which is similar to the 2008 revision NYC Big Muff, with two added features: a tone bypass switch allowing you to bypass the tone control and a switch that adjusts the frequency of three high frequency filters in the circuit. The Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi is a dual unit, housing an overdrive and a distortion circuit featuring 2 Germanium transistors each, and simulating a dying battery with a Volt control, which characteristically affects the sound of the distortion.
In 2018, Electro-Harmonix released three vintage Big Muff re-issues the Green Russian Big Muff, the Op-Amp Big Muff, and the Triangle Big Muff, and in early 2020 the Ram's Head Big Muff was reissued.
Phasers, chorus and flanger
Electro-Harmonix often produces a range of pedals based on a single effect, and then combines two or more into higher end units. For instance, the Epitome combines the Micro POG, Stereo Electric Mistress, and Holy Grail Plus into one effect unit.The widely used Small Stone phase shifter is a 4-stage phaser designed by David Cockerell, whom Electro-Harmonix hired from his former employer EMS. The phased sounds of French composer Jean-Michel Jarre depended heavily on the Small Stone unit. It was reissued years later by EHX and a smaller version of the pedal was eventually introduced in a 'Nano' casing.
The Small Clone chorus is a very popular chorus pedal, used by Kurt Cobain, both live and in studio. Like the Small Stone, it is issued in both the standard size and two different smaller versions.
The Electric Mistress is an analog flanger. It had first been sold in 1976 and was by that the first flanger in pedal format. The Deluxe version has been reissued and is still in production, although in 2015, a new Deluxe Electric Mistress was introduced in the company's smaller "XO" casing. As well, there are two digital recreations called NEO Mistress and Stereo Electric Mistress. Except for the very first blue/red version the Electric Mistress featured a "Filter Matrix mode" which allowed the user to freeze it at any point in the flange, offering distinctive chime-like tones. On the Neo and Stereo Mistress, this is achieved at a certain setting on the "rate" knob. Notable users include David Gilmour, Todd Rundgren, Alex Lifeson, Robin Trower, Andy Summers of The Police, J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. and Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante.
The Flanger Hoax pedal is a more advanced unit, allowing further control of the various parameters of phaser, flanger and chorusing effects.
The Polychorus allows highly adjustable chorus, flanger, filter matrix, and slapback echo effects. Notable users include Cobain, Adrian Belew, and more recently Ryan Jarman of The Cribs.
Electro-Harmonix's 'XO' line added the Stereo Polyphase, an analog optical envelope- and LFO-controlled phase shifter.