Quite often on less expensive pedals the manufacturer doesn’t include a power supply to save costs. It’s incredibly frustrating to get a pedal only to find out you have nothing to power it – especially when some of the smaller pedals don’t even run on batteries! It was a nice surprise to find that EHX also send out a power supply with the Soul Food. You can alternatively run it on a 9V battery so it’s nice to have this flexibility in such a low cost pedal. With my PRS CU24 I can push the only tone knob (treble) up to get a nice scooped bluesy barely driven sound. Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Overdrive– an OCD clone (read the review for another discussion & comparison on a clone pedal) Do I think the Soul Food is a good Klon klone? No, I don’t. While it’s usable, I haven’t (yet!) found a reason to choose the Soul Food on tone alone. The mid-boost just isn’t that sweet-sounding, and it doesn’t affect the next pedal in the chain quite how I’m used to.

Just what the world needs, right? Another overdrive pedal... Well, in the case of the Electro-Harmonix Soul Food the answer might just be a resounding 'yes'. Powered either by a 9V battery or the included 9.6V power supply, the Soul Food is a simple three‑knob overdrive box, sporting the expected Drive, Volume and Treble (tone) knobs. Plugging in a guitar switches on the power. An LED shows when the pedal is active, and there's an internal switch setting for true or buffered bypass. As shipped, the pedal is set to true bypass. All three knobs do pretty much what you'd expect, but with any overdrive pedal it's the fine detail of how these actually work and interact that matters. The Soul Food unexpectedly turned out to be the "green" overdrive pedal I have always wanted. Of course I listened to a number of review, but when I tried this it sounded quite different (in a good way) than I was expecting. Initially, I was disappointed as I really wanted this to replace the BD-2, but it wasn't quite the tone I was looking for that. BUT, after a few minutes of using it I decided it was going to replace the TS9 and not the BD-2. If when you watched the video earlier you enjoyed what you heard, the Soul Food is for you. The styles covered in that video best represent the styles of playing suitable for this type of overdrive. If you enjoy that style of playing then there’s no reason to not get the Soul Food. My personal answer is: no. I don’t care about the hype behind the Klon and I don’t feel you shouldn’t care either. Does it really matter how close the Soul Food replicates the Klon sound?

Customer Added Media

It doesn’t matter if the Soul Food does or doesn’t replicate the Klon sound perfectly. What matters is if this is a good sounding pedal. Soul Food Features Is it bad to compare the Electro-Harmonix Soul Food as well as Klon Centaur due to the sheer difference in price of these pedals? Not at all, this comparison is relevant and shows how comical it is that Klon Centaur has attained such outrageous secondhand cost. But if that did not happen, probably guitarists wouldn’t access the Soul Food now. As these videos show, even in 2013 klones existed – but they weren’t the klones of today. They were being built by hand by small boutique pedal builders. They weren’t as expensive or as unobtainium as the original Klon Centaur, but they weren’t being made in factories at scale. Many of the boutique outlets were one-man operations. These klones commanded boutique prices, and often the only way to get one here in the UK was to import it yourself from the States.

I was still happy jamming away on a solid state with the Soul Food but switching over to a valve amp did compliment the Soul Food as would be expected. Reliability/Quality Now gradually raise the DRIVE knob and get a feel for the level of grit it adds to your tone. Find the sweet spots where you enjoy the tone and what type of playing it suits. This is a very dynamic pedal so the position of the DRIVE knob should really reflect what you are doing. Once you find a DRIVE position you enjoy, adjust the TREBLE knob to find the position you enjoy the most. So what? Every overdrive review talks of warm drive and how the knobs might offer a good range, while maintaining transparency. The big difference to me is that, in contrast to the TS9 which I used and loved for many years (and can deliver some great SRV and Phish-style tones if used properly), this pedal does not add much mid-rangey compression, which when it is a feature of some pedals, can often manifest itself in some unwanted nasal, spongy or crunchy tones. Those pedals work great in many contexts, but I've wanted to move on. This Soul Food pedal leaves my tone less compressed-sounding and the result is a playing dynamic that seems more natural and real.For the rest of this review, forget about the Klon Centaur. I’m going to review the Soul Food just like any other pedal and that’s the way you should assess your potential gear.