Review: Electro Harmonix C9

Started by Rhcole, January 01, 2015, 01:46:23 PM

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Rhcole

Bill Ruppert made an excellent video on the C9, and it's features are clearly described elsewhere. I will cover the points that I find the most interesting and important here.

First, it's interesting and perhaps surprising to me that EHX would follow up its organ pedal (B9) with another organ pedal. Yes, you can chain them together etc. but from a marketing standpoint it seems a bit odd to me. How many organ voices do guitarists actually need/want? Curious.

That aside, the C9 spoke to me right away as a more versatile pedal than the B9 due to its shimmer and Mellotron flute voices. I love pedals that can be used both with regular guitars and as enhancements for synth systems. Plus, the recent Pitch Fork gave me confidence that EHX continues to improve pitch shifting for complex chords and intervals, which matters to me.

Here are the high points in no particular order:

1. Tracking is pretty good. It certainly isn't as good as a hex system, nor would you expect it to be. But EHX continues the upgrades in it's tracking such that, although gargled sounds clearly exist in the background on full chords and complex intervals, it is serviceable and disguised by other features in the pedal. In fact, it's a big enough upgrade that I sold my HOG 2 which simply can no longer compete with newer EHX products for tracking accuracy.

2. The pedal appears to have a gate that keeps it from squealing and slurring as you finger different positions. Very smart. Since it emulates keyboards, there is no need to pick up all of the nuances of fingering automatically. It make for a more accurate and believable organ simulation.

3. The Mellotron flute sound primarily reminds me of the calliope or flute sounds on traditional organs. This blends well with regular guitar and is a nice special purpose sound.

4. The big surprise for me with this pedal is the Mod control. I expected it to be either a true Leslie type sound or chorus. This setting changes with the selected voice, but often has a gurgling sound that is very similar to the chorus sound of the seventies Solina string ensemble keyboard.
That sound irritated me a bit in the old days because it represented a "cheap" string synthesizer effect (I used to call the sound "strings filtered through a cheese grater"). But time changes perceptions, and I love being able to blend that kind of old-school sound in with more modern tones. It's similar to when digital delays came out- I wanted to dump tape echos with their timing, distortion, and flanging issues for clean digital delays, only to have these "faults" re-emerge in vogue decades later.

5. The Shimmer selection is similar to other sounds now widely available from Strymon, Eventide, and others. But it has its own somewhat funky charm. If you extend the sustain it begins to change into a vaguely metallic tone that is certainly pretty weird. That's typical of EHX to give you a wide enough range of controls to make both the sublime and bizarre from the same pedal.

6. The construction is good enough but doesn't seem quite as rugged to me as I expected. EHX has generally good assembly and construction, although my recent Pitch Fork purchase doesn't fit the 9 volt battery in very well and my 45000 looper needed servicing immediately. I will reserve further judgement on these points based on how the products continue to perform.

7. The organs are really good. My favorite is the "Blimp" setting. I have to admit that these selections are better than many of the hex organ sounds I have gotten from Roland products, except for the clarity and pitch integrity that hex systems produce.

The C9 is another great product from EHX. They are one of only a handful of pedal manufacturers who seem really willing to take a risk on new ideas.