New Pedals Are Something We Can All Get Excited About. (EHX Glove)

So back it October Electro Harmonix debuted a new line of Overdrives and Distortions. Being a fan of the brand (mostly the Big Muff and derivatives there of) I was interested to see what they had done. The features are attractive. The range of the new pedals span the whole range of OD and dirt pedals. EHX released their new pedals: Glove, Hot Tubes, Soul Food, and East River Drive (not to mention the Big Muff Pi nano). I'm really looking forward to taking a close look at each of these pedals. I've spent some time with one, and this is what I've found:

The Glove pedal is a mosfet drive in the vain of the famous OCD from Fulltone. My personal experience with this pedal has won this pedal a special place in my heart (and possibly my pedalboard). There has huge possiblities with unit. Reported to be able to clean boost. I won't know. My amp is very easily overdriven. A set of hot humbuckers and a boost will send my clean channel into breakup. So I don't know about "clean" boost. It definitely has some boost. The tones possible are great, but whats get my attention is the options on this pedal. First you notice the big three knobs. Everybody know the three, no matter what they are called, they do the same function. Drive, Tone, and Volume are present and accounted for, but take a closer look and you notice a mini-toggle. At first I thought it was a switch that bypassed the tone circuit, it isn't. It actually changes the tone stack. "On" is a high-mid boost and "off" is a flatter mid section with a little focus on the low-mids. Both ways produce some nice tones. Your tone and guitar's character still shine through with this pedal. But thats not all. On the inside there is a switch to change from 9 to 18 volt operation. Modders have been adding this function to their pedal for as long as I've been aware of modding, its nice to see some forward thinking. This pedal is a breath of fresh air, and you can find this for less than $60. The design may not be 100% original but I really like what they did with this pedal

Now the Ugly. To get to the internal voltage switch (or change the battery for that matter), you have to open up the box (screwdriver not included). The slight inconvenience isn't my may concern. I have the habit of cracking open my stomp boxes as it is. I did happen to notice that EHX have turned to the darkside in the name of profits. There is heavy usage of micro-sized passive components. This is bad news for modders and boutique snobs. If Boss can sell a $50 dirt box with real sized resistors and caps, then it serves to think that so can EHX. Oh wait, they are made in the USA.

So I dig the pedal, Love the features, and the price outstandingly low. It looks like a win in my book, just don't look behind the curtain.