
EHX’s version of the legendary Klon Centaur pedal (EHX themselves call it a transparent distortion/fuzz/overdrive), I find the Soul Food to be way more versatile than many other drive pedals, and it does way more than I would’ve expected a Klon-type pedal to do… and for less than $100/€100 as well.
Get the EHX Soul Food here:
I first bought the Soul Food years ago, but it’s been sat in a drawer for years until recently, when I got it back out and realized I’d been using the wrong settings to get the best tones for my styles of music.
So, in this video, I play the Soul Food with my Fender Telecaster and my Epiphone Les Paul across my favorite genres and using my top Soul Food settings. Now I understand the pedal more, it’s really become one of my first overdrive choices – it can be transparent if you want it to be, or more than that, and it has great touch and response.
I also do a short A/B comparison with the Soul Food and a Flattley Centurion, which is a UK-built, boutique pedal with a similar circuit, to hear how different (or similar!) they sound.
Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:
00:00 Hello!
00:32 All about the Soul Food pedal and what we’re doing to today
Single coil sounds with my Fender Telecaster
02:32 Clean reference tone and turning on the pedal
02:47 Clean boost playing and first tones
04:08 Indie sounds
05:46 Treble knob sweep test
06:24 Classic rock sounds
07:10 Indie rock sounds
08:27 Hard rock sounds
10:46 Punk rock sounds
11:27 Alt-rock riff
11:52 Single note riffs and classic rock – testing the treble control
12:45 All controls to 10!
13:18 Heavy riffs
13:45 Soul Food as boost for a dirty amp
Humbucker sounds with my Epiphone Les Paul
14:46 Clean reference tone and turning on the pedal
15:18 Clean and dirty boost sounds and first tone explorations
15:58 Drive at 3 o’clock to full-on for rock tones
17:36 Indie rock sounds with treble control test (18:52)
21:02 Classic rock sounds
22:20 Guitar volume knob roll-off test
22:53 Hard rock sounds
23:44 Single note riffs and classic rock – testing the treble control
24:31 Heavy and metal riffs
26:50 Soul Food as boost for a dirty amp (punk rock from 27:16)
28:22 Telecaster (bridge single coil) indie rock loop with control tweaking
30:51 Les Paul classic rock loop with control tweaking
33:11 A/B loop comparing the Soul Food with the Flattley Centurion: Telecaster (bridge single coil and neck humbucker) indie loop with control tweaking
36:10 My thoughts and your opinions wanted!
36:42 Soul Food’s versatility and the clean/transparent boost
37:49 It’s more than just a clean boost though!
38:45 Why I didn’t like the Soul Food at first – you can make it sound bad
39:54 The loops and the extremes you can get to
40:44 Soul Food vs boutique Klon clone!
41:48 True bypass and buffered bypass
42:21 Final conclusion and goodbye
My setup was as follows: I ran the EHX Soul Food (and the Flattley Centurion for the A/B comparison) into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit 200 head. That went from the Red Box DI straight into my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, which went into Logic Pro X. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done. Oh, and I used my TC Electronic Ditto Looper to record and play the loops.
Here’s some links to those bits of gear:
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H&K Black Spirit 200 head:
Soul Food:
Flattley Pedals:
TC Electronic Ditto Looper:
Focusrite 4i4 (this is the newer equivalent of my 2i4, which they don’t make any more!):
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Enjoy!
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Controlled Distress – Biz Baz Studio.
#EHXSoulFood #ElectroHarmonix #OverdrivePedal #TransparentOverdrive #EHX
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