Electro-Harmonix Percolator: Crazy Fuzz/Distortion/Overdrive fun?! Review & Demo (NOT SPONSORED!)

This is the Electro-Harmonix (or EHX) Percolator: a modern take on the cult legend of an overdrive/distortion/fuzz pedal that is the Harmonic Percolator! ----- Get it at Thomann: https://thmn.to/thoprod/647059?offid=... At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/B5Bxo4 ----- The InterFax HP-1 Harmonic Percolator fuzz appeared in the 1970s, and it’s gone on to become a mysterious cult among guitar players. Used by the likes of Steve Albini, the Percolator is simply different to any other drive pedal you’ll find, offering up chaotic, abrasive, sputtery and crunchy fuzzstortion tones that make it a unique proposition. An original circuit developed by InterFax Electronics' Ed Giese, the Percolator pairs a germanium and a silicon transistor for increased even-order harmonics - which apparently sound very pleasant to the human ear - and used asymmetrical hard clipping. Originals are hard to find and expensive when you do. There have been a few Percolator-inspired pedals over the years, but now EHX are here with their highly affordable ($99/€99), extra-featured version to make the Percolator accessible to everyone. The controls here are simple enough: Balance is your volume, Harmonics your gain, and Bias adjusts the gain circuit bypass for achieving octave and gated sounds. As you turn it up, you’ll go from smooth drive tones to pseudo-octave fuzz to squelchy, velcro gated fuzz tones. There’s also a mini switch here for Drive/Fuzz. In Fuzz mode, the clipping diodes are engaged for heavy fuzz tones. In Drive mode, they’re disengaged, giving you more headroom and raw, organic overdrive/distortion tones with more of a transistor drive character. There’s also an internal trim pot to let you tweak the gain and overtone/octave levels even more. Watching the EHX demo of the Percolator, I was in love - but I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the pedal myself (EHX promises everything from raunchy drive tones to ripping heavy fuzz)… so I bought one to try out against my other drives! The Percolator is said to be unique... but how different can it really be from all the others? That’s what we’re finding out here, as I run the Percolator up against a selection of my favorite pedals from each area! For drives, we’ve got the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver, the Paul Cochrane Timmy, and the Benson Preamp. For distortion, we’ve got the ProCo Rat 2, the Boss DS-1, and the Tone City Dry Martini (which is a Fulltone OCD clone). And for fuzz, we’ve got the Digitech DOD Carcosa, the EHX Op-Amp Big Muff, and the Walrus Audio Fundamental Fuzz. I picked these pedals because they’re (mostly!) affordable, but also because they give us a huge range of tones that may - our may not - come close to doing one of the jobs the Percolator does. So, have a listen, and let me know what you think of the Percolator - and which pedals you think get closest to it - down in the comments! Here are some links to the various parts of the video: 00:00 Introduction and what we’re doing today 01:39 EHX Percolator controls, features and info 04:26 Today’s rig and plan 06:03 LOOP 1: EHX Percolator (Amp: Clean Channel) 08:38 Percolator on amp’s Crunch Channel 11:09 My thoughts 11:55 Percolator vs Overdrive Pedals 12:20 Timmy info 13:01 Blues Driver info 13:41 Benson Preamp info 14:30 LOOP 2 – OVERDRIVE 21:53 My thoughts 23:36 Percolator vs Distortion Pedals 23:59 Dry Martini info 24:39 Boss DS-1 info 25:09 ProCo Rat 2 info 26:01 LOOP 3 – DISTORTION 31:13 My thoughts 32:41 Percolator vs Fuzz Pedals 33:31 DOD Carcosa info 33:59 Op-Amp Big Muff info 34:31 Walrus Fundamental Fuzz info 35:14 LOOP 4 – FUZZ 42:44 My thoughts 44:18 Buffer test 45:23 Internal trim pot test 46:53 What else I like besides the tones! 47:14 What don’t I like? 47:43 What other Harmonic Percolator pedals are out there? 48:42 My thoughts on the Percolator and why you should buy it Here’s some more Percolator reading for you: Theremaniacs: http://www.theremaniacs.com/percolato... Reverb article: https://reverb.com/news/the-curious-c... My setup was as follows: I ran the pedals into my Hughes & Kettner Black Spirit AmpMan Classic. The amp went from the Red Box DI straight into my Zoom H6 recorder. That's it. No post-processing on the sounds was done. I used my Boss RC-1 looper to play the loops, and my Shergold Provocateur, Fender Telecaster and Epiphone Les Paul guitars for playing the various loops. --- At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0 --- Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe. #EHX #ElectroHarmonix #Percolator #HarmonicPercolator #Fuzz #FuzzPedal 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