Electro Harmonix Electric Mistress

January 2008 Guitarist 121
ELECTRO-HARMONIX XO PEDALS £60-£134
EFFECTS
Electro-Harmonix
XO pedals
£60-£134
A quartet of new digital stompboxes including – shock horror! –
a dedicated multi-effects processor of sorts… by Simon Bradley
Memory Man
Certainly among the most
authentic of recent delay
reissues, the BOSS RE-20 Space
Echo (£152) is simple to use and
sounds great. For more off-the-
wall presets and settings, the
Damage Control Timeline
(£399) does it all, while Line 6’s
all-conquering DL-4 (£189) gives
a total of three separate effects at
the touch of a switch.
Micro POG
With the BOSS OC-3 (£89) you
can utilise polyphonic octaves,
plus onboard drive, to great
effect: it also incorporates the old
OC-2. Use the Dunlop Hendrix
Octavio (£179) to recreate Jimi’s
classic octave-up tone, while the
MXR Blue Box (£92) adds fuzz
and allows you to add a double-
low octave massive enough to
move buildings.
The Rivals
H
ere we have a quartet of
the newer members of
Electro-Harmonix’s XO
Line that shies away from the
more out-there stompers such as
the Micro Synthesiser and 16
Second Delay in deference to
offering a selection of immediately
useable units.
Two are straight-ahead affairs,
while the remaining pair offer
slightly more in the way of
onboard features and functions,
and the spec of each includes a
rectangular steel chassis, sturdy
footswitches and cool, chunky
controls. What’s more, each
stompbox also includes the
prerequisite 9.6-volt power supply
for a battery-free operation.
We asked Rick Stevenson from
E-HX to help us navigate through
each pedal in turn, as well as
offering a few more general tips on
how to use the company’s effects.
Stereo Memory Man
with Hazarai
“Hazarai? ” Rick laughs as he
explains: “This is all Mike
(Matthews, E-HX guru) reaching
back and grabbing a Jewish word
which means basically, well, since
what it means does not really fit
into a magazine, we should say
‘with everything’.”
In a nutshell the Memory Man
is an all-in-one, wholly stereo
multi-tap delay, echo and loop
station and you can either dial in
your own parameters. or use
E-HX’s presets. The white
Hazarai control is actually a push-
push infinite rotary encoder that
enables you to select each of the
multi-tap and echo settings plus
the loop functions: push the
button once and the unit defaults
to the preset of that setting.
“The Hazarai is an awesome
pedal,” boasts Rick. “While each
effect is totally usable and wildly
manipulative, everyone seems to
have their own favourites. To me
the Looper having the ability to
incorporate every pure effect and
manipulation is a sound designer’s
or performance musician’s dream.
“While we are known as a
company with analogue history,
the Stereo Memory Man could
only be done digitally. The bit
processing and recording is 24-bit
and 46.88k: the delays and looper
are 32-bit. This is one reason that
the fidelity of complex loops is
maintained, even when you get
crazy with pitch shifting within
delays.”
The repeats control regulates
the number of delays, while the
function of the decay control is
similar to the feedback pot on
other delays. The filter button
controls the tone of the repeats,
and a flashing green Beat LED lets
you know the speed of the delay.
Sounds
You can really hear the increased
crispness of the digital processing,
but that’s not to say you can’t
rough the pedal up when you
need to. For Edge-style delays,
mimicking Brian May’s three-
part canon solo tricks, obtaining
a Brian Setzer slapback snap and
all points in between, this truly is
an awesome unit. It gets very
spacey indeed when you set the
pedal to the maximum 30 repeats
and alter the delay in real time, but
it’s rarely anything other than
entirely valid and musical.
The looper is as useful as
anything else out there, and the
300ms echo setting includes a
smidge of chorus. The downside is
that you need to physically turn
the Hazarai pot to access different
parameter settings, but many will
be able to live with that, especially
if the unit is incorporated into a
studio’s FX trunk.
Micro POG
This version of the now classic
polyphonic octave generator
forgoes the octet of fiddly sliders
of the original in favour of three
simple pots.
“The Micro POG, just like the
original POG and HOG, is digital;
it could not be done any other
way,” Rick tells us. “The tracking
is tighter and quicker than on the
original POG although it doesn’t
have the second octave up, which
no one seems to miss, or the
detune. On a personal note,
I prefer the sound because the
tracking is just right there.”
It offers an octave below and
above a given note, all three can be
balanced with the responsive
controls. There’s a single input
and two outs that allow you to
split the dry and wet signals.
Sounds
This is a very musical octaver with
almost none of that irritating
waggle on lower notes and chords.
It does take a bit of time to get used
to, but the Micro POG can, at
different turns, transform your
electric into a 12-string, a passable
bass or even a church organ.
In fact, adding obscene amounts
of drive to the latter setting would
make Jon Lord quake in his
wellies at the helm of his
legendary Hammond, while for
a speedy sketch demo when your
bass isn’t to hand, the sub octave
with the dry signal removed is
more than capable of stepping in.
With an electric bass, the POG is
a weapon of aural destruction and
is great fun to boot.
Holy Stain
This represents, in effect, the first
authentic E-HX multi-effects
processor. “The Holy Stain is both
digital and analogue,” Rick
explains. “This is an inexpensive
Although it is digital, the Stereo Memory Man can sound pretty analogue too
With an electric bass, the POG is
a weapon of aural destruction
GIT298.rev_ehx 121 3/12/07 19:01:28