Electro-Harmonix Soul Food vs Spruce Goose vs Crayon | Which is the best EHX transparent overdrive?
Today, we’re comparing three of the best – and most underrated – Electro-Harmonix overdrive pedals: the Soul Food, the Spruce Goose, and the Crayon!
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Get the Soul Food at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/329887?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/PyZZQQ
Spruce Goose at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/578011?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/Y9kO1r
Crayon at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/376576?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/m5BBK1
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These three pedals are all a little bit under the radar when it comes to the overdrive game, although the Soul Food has become a bit of a cult choice if you’re after a Klon Centaur on a budget. At under $100/€100 new, it’s a wonderful Klon clone – or Klone – and a top choice for players who are after that sparkly Klon clean boost effect for a great price. Simple and easy to dial in with its three controls – for Volume, Drive and Treble – the Soul Food has become a pedalboard mainstay for thousands of guitarists over the years, and for good reason.
The Spruce Goose is a newer EHX offering, and it’s the brand’s take on the iconic Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit. With the Volume, Gain, Bass and Treble knobs, it’s easy to dial in a range of low gain overdrive tones, and you can ‘goose’ the pedal by either 9dB or a whopping 21dB via the Lift switch. The Spruce Goose will set you back around $130/€130.
The most underrated of these three pedals, though – and the cheapest, coming in new at under $80/€80 – is the Crayon… or, to give it its full name, the Crayon 69 Full-Range Overdrive. This versatile drive is capable of a huge range of tones, from clean boosts to screaming, thick overdrive, and its Volume, Gain, Bass and Treble knobs make it easy to tweak to taste. The wise folks of the internet guitar forums suggest that the Crayon is based on the wonderful Xotic BB Preamp pedal (the BB stands for Bluesbreaker there) – whatever it is, it’s an excellent choice for anyone in the market for a new overdrive pedal option!
In this video, I run the three pedals through an indie rock loop played on the bridge single coil pickup of my Fender Telecaster, then a classic rock loop using the bridge humbucker of my Epiphone Les Paul. The pedals are running into my Hughes & Kettner AmpMan Classic on the clean channel, with no reverb. The goal is to see how similar they sound, and how different, and how well they stack together. Hopefully, by the end of it you’ll have found out which one might work best for you and your setup! Let me know which one you prefer in the comments ????
Here are some links to the various parts of the video:
00:00 Introduction and what we’re doing today
00:21 Soul Food info
00:43 Spruce Goose info
01:25 Crayon info
02:11 Today’s rig and plan
02:57 Fender Telecaster indie rock loop
09:13 Epiphone Les Paul classic rock loop
15:38 My thoughts
16:03 Why the Soul Food?
16:26 Why the Spruce Goose?
17:12 Why the Crayon?
17:58 Which pedal is best, and which should you buy?
My setup was as follows: I ran the pedals into the front end of my Hughes & Kettner AmpMan Classic pedal amp, then 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 Boss RC-10R to record and play the loops. Here’s some links to those bits of gear:
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AmpMan Classic at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/512777?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/q4vkVO
Boss RC-10R: https://thmn.to/thoprod/470055?offid=1&affid=1250
At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/daq4J2
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Enjoy!
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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.
#ElectroHarmonix #EHX #OverdrivePedal #TransparentOverdrive #SoulFood #SpruceGoose
*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*
@EHX
#ElectroHarmonix #Soul #Food #Spruce #Goose #Crayon #EHX #transparent #overdrive
Originally posted by UCbNnXraM9oHWWBACNS07DMw at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8EQ5mfaY3E
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Here's your timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and what we’re doing today
00:21 Soul Food info
00:43 Spruce Goose info
01:25 Crayon info
02:11 Today’s rig and plan
02:57 Fender Telecaster indie rock loop
09:13 Epiphone Les Paul classic rock loop
15:38 My thoughts
16:03 Why the Soul Food?
16:26 Why the Spruce Goose?
17:12 Why the Crayon?
17:58 Which pedal is best, and which should you buy?
Great video, thanks. The crayon is near to the Soul Food i’m using since many years now but i prefer the Food just because is more transparent. I don’t like the Spruce Goose, to my ear is souding really thin compare to other’s. I’m using the Soul Food for cruch and as a solo boost before my amazing True Tone Jekyll and Hyde (i love this one). Thanks for sharing your work ????????
Realise I'm late to the party with this video, but I found because I jut bought a Crayon last week. Amazing pedal. I love it. As you say: incredibly versatile and an absolute bargain. Funnily enough I got because the stroe I was in didn't have a Soul Food in stock but I tried it and had to have it. Interseting that you get a pretty much indenticle sound from the Soul Food and the Crayon when you're dialling in sounds. Anyway – great comparison video and I enjoyed your clarity and presentation. Subscribed! ????
I have a ehx Crayon and EXh Glove on my pedalboard, i love them.
Bought a crayon in Poland on a holiday. Has been my only overdrive pedal for 5 years… use it for every type of music. Love it so much! Would recommend 🙂
Muito bom o vídeo, vim ver pelo Crayon, e só confirmei que era o que eu esperava ..
I tried 6 ODs before I got the Crayon and dug it. I think it definitely is underrated, I looked it up on Equipboard, and I’m pretty sure like nobody on there was using one
can you use the ehx crayon as a transparent overdrive?
The Spruce Goose is so incredible. Having the bass and treble works great with allowing other stacked overdrives or pedals to blend with it better. Say a Paul Cochran Timmy with this pedal. You can add a little more bass giving both pedals a fuller sound.
Thank you for the comparison. The Soul Food is the winner.
Totally agree with Rich on the BluesBreaker hype: flubby, raspy, piercing, hazy, undefined middle frequency pfffff.
Anyways, thanks Rich, another super-useful demo !
Soul Food all day! Love it nice a crunchy sound for blues and blues rock, like the BOSS Blues Driver. When the signal starts to breakup. Great stuff!
Woah, the Spruce Goose is new to me. You can get into 90s Jonny Greenwood territory with that bad boy it sounds like.
I have both the Soul Food and the Crayon. I like the Soul Food as a clean boost and a low gain OD but ATMO I’m not crazy about the higher gain settings because to me it gets too compressed and murky. However, you’re correct about the Crayon, it can make Marshall style amp sound more Marshall-like or a Vox sound more Voxy. EHX’s website has a settings suggestion where you can emulate the sound of an 808 without the drawbacks usually found with an 808 style pedal. I played a BB and to me I think the Crayon is a more flexible and more aggressive sounding pedal. Lastly, there were two versions of the Crayons. They sound really close to one another but my understanding is there’s some changes with the buffer circuit and graphics but for all intents and purposes they are 99.9% identical sound wise.
I have a Crayon and I really love it. Very underated
I have the Electro harmonix hot wax duel overdrive absolutely incredible best $130.00 spent
Electro harmonix are legendary no one matches Electro harmonix
BB stands for Big British, not Bluesbreaker.
Love your videos!! I needed a comparison like this, thank you!
I gave 60 USD used for my Soul food back in 2019 and it's my always on pedal mostly as a buffered boost for my big muff.
I'm now on my second Crayon as I foolishly traded off the first one, but found this one recently for 35 USD also used.
It's silly not to have a Soul food or Crayon as they're cheap alternatives to higher priced versions and almost as good.
I don't really have any interest in Blues breaker type pedals and especially not if I've got these two.
Good vid and demo. Cheers
Ive got a Crayon and really like it to push an Overdrive further into hard rock territory. I find it gives added gain across the whole frequency spectrum of the guitar. Verry useful and definitely under rated.
The Crayon was awesome, I really have wanted to try the other two as well
Thanks for this vid. I just got the Spruce Goose and it slots in nicely between a Moxie (Tubescreamer) and a Lightspeed as the “medium” grit flavor.
Tend to keep my Lightspeed on, then adding the Goose. It just works.
The lift switch is also a great touch. Adds more gain without the hiss.
Curious if you tried that.
All the best, sir.
I have the EHX nano Hot Tube (Craig Anderson schematic & red llama style) and my question is: is similar to the Crayon?. Hot tube gain knob ends with a touch of fuzz tone.
You are dangerous. I do not need a pedal…now I want one ????
The selection is solid, EHX you can almost buy blind (just as Boss and MXR imho).
Remember to have fun, fun is always the reason to buy another pedal.
Just fetched a Digitech Trio (drummachine kinda metronome kinda pedal). great fun!
Electro Harmonix ????????????
SF is a fave of mine.
My favorite is the soul food pedal. It has really nice, warm and round sounds and it's my choice for blues and blues rock.
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Nice work. I've been waiting for your opinion on the Spruce Goose. I thought it was a Timmy clone or 'inspired by' as they say. Interesting take on the Blues Breaker with the Bass and Treble knobs which more so appear on the Timmy rather than the Blues Breaker. Those have always been my choice for tone shaping: The Bluesbreaker, Klon, and Tube Screamer.
I actually bought the Spruce Goose and Soul Food yesterday! I don’t have a Crayon, technically, but I have the Hot Wax combo pedal with the Crayon and Hot Tubes circuits. I’m stacking the Goose into the Soul Food currently and I’m loving it
An excellent and classic effects maker, one of my PBs is fitted with EHX effects only. I have a Crayon from these 3 pieces, very satisfied. For stronger distortion I use a Metal Muff, +- the same size, and it goes on …. As an amplifier I use a PB from EHX 5mm or 15 W Howitzer. The manufacturer recommends using their 9.6V power supplies for their effects. I have a lot of them in my cabinet, I use the Caline Power Scuru for power, including the added Digitech Trio band Creator. It works without problems. I agree 100% with your final assessment. Greetings Pavel CZ.????????????????
Soul food , geese and crayon… the Firehorse eats all of that stuff… im afraid i may have received DNA from a goat instead of a horse, thankfully we’re still in the early R&D stage. Of these three I think the soul food resonates most with my tonal preferences. I have always enjoyed playing with crayons ????️.