The EH Man’s Electro-Harmonix Extravaganza!!
The ORIGINAL EH/EHX Fansite!! Serving the Electro-Harmonix community since the 20th century!!
Saturday, 29 September 2007 18:48
This is a prototype Electric Mistress pedal, one of approx. 5 that were made in Russia in 1994. The prototypes were given to EH salesmen on the company’s move from their Manhattan offices to the new offices around 2000. Reportedly, at least one prototype does not work. This one works, but is hissy. You can see from the pics below that it’s a pretty standard Russian pedal construction, much like the Sovtek Big Muffs and Small Stones.
Saturday, 29 September 2007 18:54
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 06:13
Not content to change just the sound of your guitar or other instrument, EH also ventured into the realm of stereo for a brief time.
Nearly all of their stereo products can be found on a single flier dating from the early 70’s. This sheet showcased their line of boosters and sound enhancers specifically designed for the stereo systems of the time. While most of their stereo products were designed to actually enhance your listening pleasure, there were times when they just couldn’t help themselves.
First off, there were the Linear Stereo Boosters (LSB) models 1 and 2. Both units were simple boosters utilizing 2 transistors per channel. The difference was that the LSB-1 had a non-adjustable output while the slightly larger LSB-2 included an output level control for each channel. Simply hook them up inline with RCA cables and get a nice boost to your input signal, be it from a tuner, 8-track, or other device. Switching them to the OFF position bypassed the boost effect.
The Stereo Tone Expander was similar in build, but allowed you to adjust the tone of each channel via a TONE control. According to EH literature, the controls had the effect of extending the existing preamp tone controls one extra rotation.
We looked at the Stereo Pulse Modulator in another article, but a recap is called for here. Imagine two tremolos for each channel, each with it’s own VOLUME and SPEED controls, along with a MASTER VOLUME and you’ve got stereo insanity! EH claimed that by tuning in to your resonant frequency with the SPM you could get stoned electronically. Presumably, there are no laws to prevent this.
Finally, we come to the Stereo Ambitron (also mentioned here). Basically, it was a rackmount delay unit designed to convert mono recordings to stereo and was designed by Howard Davis for use with his mono jazz recordings.
EH’s stereo products came and went pretty quickly. It seems that they lasted for only a year or 2 at the most and all are rare items today. Not really usable to most musicians today, but nonetheless they’re an interesting chapter in Electro-Harmonix history.
Friday, 05 October 2007 18:18
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 06:14
Here’s a series of photos taken in 1972 to advertise the new EH Freedom amplifier. While at least one of the shots was initially rejected by publishers (guess which one), all eventually appeared in magazine ads or EH literature. Featured in these ads was the famous “Miss Band-Aid”, who was also available on her own 6 ft poster, and Mike Matthews in his finest 70’s regalia. The Black gentleman is unknown, but may well be EH employee Willie Magee. The slogan at the bottom sums up the Freedom amp campaign.
Monday, 21 January 2008 08:00
Last Updated on Tuesday, 01 June 2010 10:00
Here’s another acoustic guitar made by EH in the 70’s.
This guitar, marked with the brand “Brody” is another Japanese-made acoustic that EH had made for them in the 70’s. Mike Matthews has stated that Brody was his mother’s maiden name. Unlike the EH guitar seen in Part 1 , this one is of a lesser quality. At one time I owned 2 of these and both were suffering from the bridge pulling up off the body. I had both repaired (one had to have the bridge replaced) and constructed one original guitar from the 2. The pearl dots on the bridge aren’t original but were put there by the luthier to cover screws that are helping to keep the bridge in place. The other guitar was given to my friend, guitarist Greg Lockhart. Both are now playable and do play nicely, but not with the tone and feel of the better-made EH acoustic.
Thursday, 16 April 2009 00:22
Last Updated on Saturday, 21 August 2010 13:07
When you needed a portable amp back in the 70’s, you had 2 choices: the Pignose, which put out a few watts of power or you could go the EH Freedom amp route, with 55W of battery-powered goodness.
The Freedom amp came about around 1972, blasting it’s way into the musician’s consciousness with the power of 55 watts into a single 10″ heavy duty CTS speaker.
Not just for guitarists though, it was available in bass and PA models as well.� All shared the same basic cabinet construction and speaker with just a few differences to make each it’s own beast:
The Bass version: I’ve never seen the Bass version so I don’t know what the full control layout is. I do know that it was apparently the first model dropped as later ads mention the Guitar and PA versions only. It have a “Heavy Low Frequency Resonance” control, which was supposed to give it more depth and wallop than a 2-15″ setup. If you find one, I’ll buy it!
The PA version: Very rare. I’ve only seen a couple of these so far and talked to just a couple of people who own one. These amps had the usual Volume and Tone controls, but no Bite. Some versions also added reverb with a Reverb control. Sometimes they had a red covering but I’ve also seen them in black.
In addition to the 3 different models you could also get them in 3 choices of power supply: AC. AC/DC, or DC only. AC power was supplied via a detachable AC cord and a side-mounted AC socket. DC was provided by the inclusion of a battery holder or holders capable of holding….40 D cells! Yes, that’s right: 40! All these batteries were held in one of 2 ways: either in a large metal battery holder mounted on the inside of the back panel or in a series-connected string of 10 four cell battery holders mounted inside the amp on the bottom and sides. Having 40 Ds in one of these amps takes away a bit of the portability of the amp but they do seem to last a long time. An AC/DC amp simply used the power switch to switch between the power modes.
The amps were covered in a thin vinyl that was available in red or black and had a single handle on top that was either a plastic fold down handle or a more traditional strap handle, like Fender uses. I’ve not found any rhyme or reason for either handle or vinyl color.
The original ad campaign caused a bit of a stir with it’s interracial overtones. You can see pics used in the ads here.
In the next article we’ll take a look at the bigger brothers of the Freedom amp along with it’s siamese twin brother and the later reissue.
Friday, 28 September 2007 21:46
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 07:34
Since I had 3 different versions of the EH Crying Tone pedal on hand, I thought this would be a good time to compare the 3 units and note the evolution of EH’s wah-style housings.
In the first pic, the wahs are arranged from old to new (L-R). The one on the left is a nice example from 1974. This was EH’s first attempt at this sort of pedal. It’s a well-built, sturdy casing, similar in styling to some DeArmond wahs I’ve seen. Were they bought from DeArmond? It’s possible. Anybody got a DeArmond to compare? In the center is a Crying Tone from 1977. Note that it’s a bit wider and has the footswitch exposed at the end, rather than under the treadle. The one on the right is an example from 1979. Personally, I’m not overly fond of this particular chassis, but it does serve the purpose. A couple of facts worth noting:
All 3 units had the same controls and the same circuit. The controls are: MODE (selects between wah and volume pedal), TONE RANGE (selects from 4 different wah sweeps) and REVERSE (changes the direction of the sweep from low-high to high-low). Give them credit for providing 4 usuable sweeps on the wahs. All are decent sounding and range from a deep bassy wah to a standard sweep.
By now you’ll have noticed there are 2 different circuit boards. The ’74 has an EH-5600 board while the ’77 and ’79 have an EH-3006 board. Both boards contain the same wah circuit. You also may have noticed some empty holes on the upper half of the EH-3006 board. Simply filling these empty spaces with a few parts and adding a control for fuzz volume and a footswitch for fuzz on/off would turn the wah into an EH fuzz-wah pedal. Having the boards made this way saved a lot of trouble since they could use the same board for 2 different products. You’ll also notice the ’77 housing has a plugged hole for the 2nd footswitch.
Labels for the controls were originally done with black adhesive labels but by ’79 the control labels were silkscreened onto the sides of the bottom plate. The ’79 also included another technological advance: the battery door!!
Finally, here’s a pic of the ’77 with it’s original box and foam knob protectors. Why does this pedal make me think of the Queen Alien from the ALIEN movies?
Friday, 28 September 2007 21:27
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 07:36
Unknown to most people, EH also made a line of guitars in the 70’s. Here’s my personal guitar from my collection.
These guitars were only available from EH for a very short time in 1974. The one piece of literature I have that mentions them compared them to higher-priced Martins. They were available through a special offer for $87.50 with the purchase of $50 or more in certain scratch-n-dent EH products. The list price was $187.50. I’ve known about these guitars for years and have received emails from at least 3 people who own them, including one person with a 12-string (!), but had never seen one until a gracious owner sent me pics of her guitar, which she purchased new in ’74 or ’75. I originally posted those pics here but I finally purchased one on Ebay a couple of years ago and would rather showcase my own collection. When I received it, I was pleasantly surprised. I expected a cheap acoustic typical of the early-mid 70’s Japanese guitars and what I got instead was a very nice playing and looking guitar. Not bad for just under $100!
In response to an email, Mike had this to say about the guitars:
We didn’t buy out a warehouse and put our name on them.
We bought them from Moridaira/ Morris Guitar….who at the time were the best guitar maker in Japan, making guitars for Fender and many big companies.
They put the EH on the guitars.
Best regards,
Mike Matthews
Friday, 28 September 2007 21:01
Last Updated on Friday, 04 June 2010 12:33
Last time we looked at EH’s drum machines, so this time we’ll look at their drum effects. As far as I know, all of their battery-powered drum effects came in the standard Big Muff chassis. As usual, there were 3 knobs, one of which was SENSITIVITY (used to control how hard you had to hit the pad to activate it), a switch in back, and a cork or leather pad on top for striking. The AC-powered models came in the Memory Man-style box with an assortment of knobs, switches, and a pad. All models had an EXT. TRIGGER jack.
This was a nifty little unit whose sound was described in the last article as an electronic tone that changed in pitch as it reached the end of its length. The sound was very reminiscent of the electronic drum used in the intro of The Cars’ “Let The Good Times Roll”. START FREQ and STOP FREQ set the pitch for the tone while the DECAY switch set the length of the tone.
A great little siren effect. Just set the RISE TIME and FALL TIME knobs, and watch your party clear out fast. The DECAY switch set length.
A tunable electronic drum. The tone is set using the PITCH and RESONANCE controls while the LOW – HI switch selects the pitch range. I’ve always wanted to get about 6 or 7 of these and build
an electronic drum set with them.
An electronic kick drum, thunder, explosion, etc. Hook this up to your SVT, set the DECAY and TONE controls, and put the PITCH switch on low. Now, turn your amp to the desired level and hit the pad. Presto!!! You need new windows!! And eardrums. And neighbors. Anyway, you get the idea.
Took the Space Drum one step further by adding two controls (MODULATION DEPTH and MODULATION RATE) and an on/off switch for modulation of the signal. It also features a COORD. IN jack that allows you to connect an external sound source and trigger it through the unit with the pad. A SHORT-LONG switch sets the length of the tone. Some units had a RESONANCE switch instead.
An electronic crash drum. You can also use this to simulate the sounds of surf, crashing metal, gunshots, and, of course, a snare or cymbal. Controls are: SWEEP START, SWEEP STOP, SWEEP TIME, RESONANCE, and DECAY TIME.
Used for simulating (what else?) clapping sounds. It also has an interesting feature using the REV. NOISE OUT jack. This gives you a white noise sound which is adjustable in Volume, Attack, and Decay. Actually cooler than the clapping sound.
A silly little unit that uses slide pots to set the pitch of 8 tones along with controls for the RATE and DECAY. You also have a line of LEDs, one for each tone, to serve as a visual indicator of the speed. A switch selects the driver to be the internal CLOCK or the PAD, while another switch selects REPEAT or SINGLE. Two jacks are provided, one for OUTPUT and one for TRIG IN. Some later models also have CV OUT and CLOCK IN/ OUT jacks for hooking it up to your synth. Believe it or not, some of my friends really like this thing.
A nifty lil’ Rhythm Generator/Synthesizer that controlled up to 4 of your triggered drums or effects. Each channel had a LEVEL and a DIVISOR control to set strength and timing of the trigger signal. TEMPO and LEVEL controls on the Clock section set overall levels. You could also select an external clock signal via the toggle switch.
The battery-powered effects listed for $89-$99 in 1981. The AC models varied a bit more, $129-$199. Get a bunch of them and tell your drummer he/she has to use them from now on in place of a drum set.
Friday, 28 September 2007 20:49
Last Updated on Friday, 27 August 2010 18:12
By now most of you know that Electro-Harmonix was a big manufacturer of guitar effects, but did you know that they also produced an extensive line of electronic drums and rhythm boxes? It’s true! They made quite a few devices designed to let the drummer get different sounds without the expense of a whole electronic drum set. Let’s take a look at this line.
Starting in the late 70’s, EH began introducing their drum machines. The first unit was the Rhythm-12 , which is an unusual box in itself. To start with, the casing is not a standard EH style. It’s a flat metal box measuring 4″ x 6″ x 7/8″. It has 3 controls with very un-EH knobs and two of them are labeled VOLUME, TEMPO, while the last is unlabeled but is used as a 12 position selector switch for rhythm patterns. Between the selector and TEMPO controls there is a small jack that is labeled TOUCH and it is used as a start/stop switch. On the left end of the unit are jacks for OUTPUT, F/S, and 18V, F/S being for the connection of a footswitch and 18V for the included 18v adapter. Perhaps the strangest feature of the unit is not really a feature at all, but a sticker. In the upper left, there is a sticker that says “Electro-Harmonix” with “Made in England” printed beneath it. What gives? To the right of the sticker is the “Rhythm-12” label. I suspect that if we were to carefully peel the EH sticker up, we would find out who made this thing. Anybody want to try this on theirs? No? OK, here we go…let me get a grip on this corner here…OK, slowly peeling it up…. WHAT?? SOUNDTECH?? All I can tell you about this is that EH bought these units from a company in England. They then put a sticker on them and sold them as actual EH products. Other units actually had “Electro-Harmonix” printed on them.
The sound of the Rhythm-12 is what you’d expect of a standard 70’s drum machine. The rhythm is made using a bass drum, snare, and wood block. Not much excitement here. The 12 rhythms are: Tango, Waltz, Disco, Rock 1, Rock 2, Swing 1, Swing 2, Slow Rock, Latin 1, Latin 2, Latin 3, and Reggae. Hitting the start/stop switch starts the rhythm at the first beat. The instruction sheet recommends that “To further increase the range of the RHYTHM-12 try connecting to a SMALL STONE PHAZER (sic). The sound is fantastic.”
With their next rhythm box effort, EH did a little better. Enter the short- lived DRM-16 “the first automatic drum kit with feeling”. The DRM-16 (DRM = Digital Rhythm Matrix), EH-7450, made it’s appearance about 1978-9. It was housed in the standard Memory Man style box and was AC powered. The controls consisted of VOLUME, TEMPO, DELETE, STYLE, and COLUMN. VOLUME and TEMPO are pretty much self-explanatory. DELETE allowed you to remove various sounds such as wood block and long and short cymbals. STYLE and COLUMN allowed you to select from 16 available rhythm patterns by setting them according to a chart printed on the face of the pedal. On the chart you had 4 funk patterns, 4 disco, 4 rock (hard, boogie, soft, and slow), and 4 misc. (latin, reggae, cntry (country), and shuffle. On the top edge there was the usual power switch along with two OUTPUT jacks, a BASS OUT jack, and a Space Drum switch. The Space Drum was an unusual sound that was also available in two stand-alone versions (covered in PT. 2). It was an electronic tone that decreased in pitch as it reached the end of its length. The sound was very reminiscent of the electronic drum used in the intro of The Cars’ ” Let The Good Times Roll”.
Shortly after the DRM-16’s release, EH redesigned it and christened the new model as the DRM-15 (fig. 2) alias EH-7451. This unit had the same features as the DRM-16, with the exception of 1 less rhythm pattern (CNTRY was replaced by an OFF position) Why the change? EH said in its introductory ad that the DRM-15’s “different memory technology allows a significantly lower price while sacrificing only the Country pattern.”
The second version of the DRM-15 has the output jacks labeled: OUTPUT 1, CLOCK OUT, and CLOCK IN. CLOCK OUT was used to send a signal to another drum unit to activate it and CLOCK IN was used to synchronize the DRM-15 to an external source.
Around the same time, EH also released the DRM-32 (EH-7460). This was their top of the line drum machine. Its biggest feature was that it now had 32 rhythm patterns. The patterns were selected the same way as the 15 and 16, but each pattern on the chart was actually 2 patterns, either of which could be selected by use of a slide switch marked SELECTION which took the place of the SPACE DRUM switch. SPACE DRUM was still available, but now it was always on unless deleted by use of the DELETE control. The outputs are a combination of the 2 versions of the DRM-15 with Output 1, Clock Out, and Bass Out.
One of the odd things I’ve noticed about these units is that the DRM-15 and 16 both say “MODEL 01” while the DRM-32 says “MODEL 03”. What became of “MODEL 02”?
If you needed a drum machine for some home recording, the DRM series was right up your alley. The RHYTHM-12 would do in a pinch, but it’s not nearly as good as the DRMs. Around 1980, the DRM 15 and 32 sold for $189 and $269 respectively. The earlier DRM-16 also also carried a price of $269, so you can see the redesign really brought the price down. I was unable to find a list price for the RHYTHM-12.
Friday, 28 September 2007 19:59
Last Updated on Friday, 20 August 2010 07:50
Ask any musician what Electro-Harmonix is famous for and you’ll likely get one answer: EFFECTS. Lesser known is the fact that EH also made some very cool amps. In the early 70’s, the Freedom amplifier was all the rage and toward the end of the decade came the Dirt Road Special.
The Mike Matthews Dirt Road Special, EH-7050/1313, appeared on the scene sometime around 1977. Ads for this amp mention that the amp was “named for its gritty funkiness, great power efficiency, and extreme durability.”, all important features for any amp at the time or even today. Early EH literature written by Peter Stampfel of the Holy Modal Rounders mention the amp in development but without the Mike Matthews name on it. Instead, it was mentioned using a couple of famous guitarist’s names.
Like tweed Fender amps, the Dirt Road has the control panel mounted on top and to the rear. The amp wasn’t much bigger than its Celestion G12M speaker, a logical choice since EH was the American distributor of Celestion speakers at the time. The controls for the amp portion consisted of Volume, Tone, and Bite. Bite was a feature that was also found on the earlier Freedom amps that accentuated the treble and really did give it “Bite”. By itself this was a cool amp, but EH went one step further and included a Small Stone phase shifter circuit board with a Rate control, on/off switch, and a Color switch.
“Yes, yes, that’s all fine and dandy,” you say. “What about the sound?” Let me start by reminding you that I’m a bassist and by my standards this is one extremely cool solid-state amp. The amp is rated at 25 watts RMS and 65 watts peak but is still a pretty loud amp, especially with any Bite in it. This amp did considerable duty as the test amp on my workbench for 3 1/2 years and it never gave me any trouble. If I had to list anything that I didn’t like about it, it would be that the phase shifter isn’t footswitchable. If you want to turn it on/off or turn on the Color, you have to reach down and flip a switch.
The Dirt Road Special was pretty basic with the entire amp section contained on a small circuit board. The only IC is a 4558 dual op-amp. The power amp uses 6 transistors to generate the mighty sound. The phase shifter board is the same one used in Small Stones of the late 70’s era. Unlike some of the Freedom amps, you have no choice but to plug it into the wall via a detachable power cord.
Like Fender amps, I’ve seen these things in both blackface and silverface. I believe that in this case, however, the silverface is the earlier model.
If you find one that sounds kinda bad with lousy tone and uncontrollable feedback at small amounts of Bite, try replacing the IC. It can make a world of difference. While you’re at it, install an IC socket to make it easier the next time.
The Mike Matthews Dirt Road Special carried a price of $249.95 in 1978. Used ones these days aren’t as common as, a Marshall or a Crate, but can be had for anywhere up to $250 which is still not really a bad price for an amp with a stock 12″ Celestion speaker and a built-in phase shifter.
And now, a new feature: THE EH GRIPE SEGMENT! Have you noticed that just because something says EH on it, some people automatically assume its worth a lot regardless of how useful an item it really is? Case in point: there was a dealer that was offering NOS EH 9 volt batteries (that have probably been dead for at least 10 years) for $50 each. Even if they still had some charge in them. I don’t think your EH pedals would sound any better with them than with the cheap 50 cent ones down at your local dollar store.
Thanks to Jim (last name unknown) of Arkansas (?) who sold me this great amp back in ’92. I hope things are going better for you these days. Also thanks to Tyler, formerly of Roadworthy Guitar and Amp here in Bloomington. He found the amp for me while looking for an Orange amp.