Electro-Harmonix

Hi

If you LOVE mellotron sounds,
If you’re a big fan of Genesis – hence of Tony Banks, or King Crimson and so on,
If you love progressive and ambiance music…

Here are the sounds you’ll get:



1. ORCHESTRA – This sound represents a full orchestra – including an octave below the normal guitar – and produces a gigantic, full sound.

Really awesome!

2. CELLO – This sound of a solo cello includes the cello’s natural vibrato.

Really awesome!

3. STRINGS – Presenting the sound of a small four-piece string section, including natural vibrato.

Really awesome, this preset sounds very close to a real mellotron.

4. FLUTES – This preset presents the classic solo flute sound heard on many recordings.

Sounds OK to me.

5. CLARINET – This osund of a solo clarinet sounds great both as a solo (played monophonically) instrument and when playing chords.

Sounds OK to me.

6. SAXOPHONE – This funky vintage British solo saxophone sound is perfect for playing Beatles-like rock lines. It blends great with an overdriven guitar.

This is where things get – say, complicated. While the Roland GR 20 perfectly simulates a sax’s sound (except for a little latency, or tracking if you prefer), this one ain’t good at all and makes it impossible to get a good, realistic and reactive sound with this rather bad preset.

7. BRASS – This preset is a trumpet-like sound, and when playing chords it produces a great brass section sound. The ATTACK and
SUSTAIN knobs work differently for this preset than for other presets.
The ATTACK knob controls a filter sweep for brass synthesizer sounds and the SUSTAIN knobadds the “lip buzz” characteristic of trumpet/brass sounds

Same as precedent : far from seamless, and getting a good, realistic and reactive sound out of this – rather bad – preset proves just plain impossible.

8. LOW CHORALE – This sound is a full low-voiced choir made up of many voices.

Really awesome!

9. HIGH CHOIR - This sound is a higher-voiced choir made up of many voices.

Really awesome!

So whether you like TONY Banks and 70s Genesis or not, you’ll get the ultimate pedal!

Yet, sometimes its sound is a bit shrilly while Roland’s GR20 (for instance) won’t, it will be softer sounding – but also less warm – than EHX’s. That’s a choice to be made, as here you won’t need a GK3 pickup.

This is a really good product, though a bit pricey and two of its presets (sax and brass) are really messy and dispensable.

Please note that Roland’s GR20 features the same sounds and that its orchestral sounds ans string ensembles sound different, they’re more powerful and will sound more punchy and somehow less shrilly.

Roland’s sax and brass simulations are also much better, making these presets more convincing.

Now, it’s a question of choice – use, need, place, budget and so on...

Don’t forget to read the manual, each note won’t deliver the same power and so on.
It can be used with an overdriven amp and a clean sound amp, as well as in stereo.

There are attack (like a swell/slow attack) and sustain settings, but also the lip noise simulation on the flute and so on.

This pedal will only deliver these sounds, no organ sound like the brand’s B9 and C9.

I’ve used it with a US Standard Strat (neck pickup replaced with a Seymour-Duncan SHR-1B) and an Epiphone Les Paul Custom Pro; my amps are a Fender Machete and a Marshall 8240 Stereo Chorus. I play all kinds of music ranging from Dire Straits to AC/DC to the Beatles, Genesis and Depeche Mode.

I use several stompboxes, the noisiest of them being the ProCo Rat, Boss CS-3, Boss PH-2, Boss OD-2, and the Silencer really does the job when using the appropriate routing for the FX loop.

The pedal comes with a 9V battery, though having renounced to using batteries for ages now I use it with a Thomann supply. Controls are very efficient:

- the Thresh[old] knob sets the signal level necessary to open the noise gate and allow the signal through
- the Reduction knob controls the amount of signal reduction, ranging from -70 to +4 dB
- the Release knob controls how fast the envelope signal closes down after the incoming signal falls under the threshold. In a nutshell, this setting will allow you to tell the box when it is able to cut the signal again when you’ve finished playing the last note of your musical phrase. That speed can be set anywhere from 8 milliseconds to 4 full seconds.

Unlike Boss (and many others), the manual doesn’t feature a routing diagram which may disturb beginners, so if need be I advise you to have a look at the Boss’s manual (available here, see on page 2: http://lib.roland.co.jp/manual/en/dl_06-10493/NS-2_e.pdf ) as the logic behind it is exactly the same as with the Electro Harmonix Silencer: you plug the guitar to the Input, the amp to the Output, get the signal out from the Send to the first pedal in the effect chain to be processed and get it back in plugging the output of the last pedal in that chain to the Return plug. Not so difficult, yet a connection schema would have been useful to those who don’t know how to use such a setup.

I haven’t tried the ISP Decimator G-String, but it costs 275€ (vs. 59 for the Silencer) so clearly the Silencer is unbeatable as to its value-for-money.