The EHX Percolator takes a unique circuit design from a Milwaukee audio repair shop in the 1970s and beefs it up into its own fuzzy pedal.
Get the Electro-Harmonix Percolator: Sweetwater | Guitar Center | American Musical Supply | Musician’s Friend
Much of the EHX Percolator’s character comes from an asymmetrical clipping design that emphasizes even-order harmonics, creating a response that’s responsive to player’s picking attack and volume adjustments.
Electro-Harmonix has equipped the Percolator with a straightforward control set consisting of three knobs and a single toggle switch. The Harmonics control governs the input gain stage, moving the pedal from rich overdrive into full-on fuzz territory. Balance serves as the master output control, allowing players to match levels or push an amplifier harder.
Perhaps the most intriguing control is Bias, which adjusts the operating characteristics of the gain circuit. As the control is manipulated, the Percolator can move from smooth and relatively conventional drive tones into sputtering pseudo-octave effects and heavily gated fuzz textures that verge on synth-like territory.
The Drive/Fuzz toggle further expands the pedal’s range. In Fuzz mode, clipping diodes are engaged to deliver thick, aggressive saturation and the pedal’s most extreme sounds. Switching to Drive mode removes the clipping diodes from the circuit, revealing a more open, transistor-style overdrive character.
For players who enjoy diving deeper into their pedals, Electro-Harmonix has included an internal trim pot that allows further adjustment of the circuit’s behavior. The control can be used to emphasize sub-octave characteristics while simultaneously increasing overall gain, unlocking even heavier textures and adding additional low-end heft.
And of course, the pedal features mechanical relay true bypass and a footswitch capable of both traditional latching operation and momentary functionality.
In standard operation, a single press activates or bypasses the effect as expected. Holding the footswitch, however, temporarily changes the pedal’s state, allowing players to inject short bursts of fuzz into riffs, leads or transitions before instantly returning to bypass upon release.
Get the Electro-Harmonix Percolator for $99 at the links below:
