Electro-Harmonix Golden Throat

ok...let's see if we can get all the knuckleheads to understand...if you step on the pedal once it turns on. if you stomp on the pedal again it turns off....oooooohhhhh aaaaaahhhhh look at you...you're so smart! Stick the hose in your mouth...good...now move your mouth about and contort your face into all sorts of gastly grimaces...now tell me you want me to show you the way....

Ok here's the deal. I have an absolute fetish for Electro Harmonix pedals. The stuff Mike Matthews and co. have been cranking out for almost 40 years has consistently been among the most revered and wacky-out there pedals in history. That Golden Throat is definately no exception. It can be put to much broader use than most people's preconcieved notions of it. I run this with usually a strat (with a gibson 57 in the neck position and a gibson p90t in the bridge position) the rest of the pedal board consists of an EH big muff pi(reissue), crybaby classic wha, dunlop rotovibe, eh small stone(reissue), eh small clone(original),eh full double tracking effect (original), eh bassballs(original)...into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille (2x12). The Golden Throat sits in the line in between the amplifier and the speakers...effectively working as another speaker cabinet..albeit a much smaller one. Not many of these things have stuck around (especially of the 1st generation of golden throats which mine is) and this is basically because these little speaker drivers cannot handle the huge wattage that most practical performance amps boast. Many players have wound up either blowing the driver or blowing their amp head. the golden throat sounds the best with a lower volume overdriven amp...I sometimes run an a/b switch and instead of running the gt with the fender..i'll use the head of a Marshall micro stack (15watt solid state glorified practice amp) strictly to run the golden throat. It's a great sound and I can set the levels for the gt and leave them set...with the louder amp I have to really pull back on the guitar's volume in performance...which really takes the bite out of this giant pedals awesome tone...

well...it's all original and built in 1976...i'd say that's pretty good.

though eh customer support is somewhat hit or miss..i've dealt with the guys over there and had decent service...though they no longer make the golden throat and do not service these pedals any longer.

Ok if you're dying to have a talk box I highly recommend you pick up the Golden Throat...you can usually find one on ebay for around $100-150...and they sound miles beyond the other talk boxes out there to my ears. The rocktron banshee in my opinion is thin and quaky sounding with it's own power amp...and the heil I find to also have a thinner and crispier sound than the gt. The framptone talk box is the closest comparison..and some may even like it more as it does have a much clearer sound than the golden throat...but for vintage vibe the golden throat cannot be beat.

This is a hard one to answer. The unit is extreemely easy to hook up and play through, but it takes a lot of practice to be able to really express yourself - and even more if you want to make audible "words". But once you get the hang of it, you will have a blast.

Side note: I used to play in an original rock band, and we did a cover of David Essex' "Rock On" where I basically sang the song using the talk box. It was a BIG crowd pleaser.

It has its own sound which can be beefed up by pushing the driver to the point where the level light brightens up and if you use some distortion out of your amp too. Be careful not to push it too loud as I have heard it can actually loosen fillings.

I'll have to give it a 10 for uniqueness.

Built like a tank.

N/A

I'm a full-time music composer/producer, and every once in a while I'll pull this puppy out to add some funky flavor to a guitar or keyboard part. Then when people hear it they say "Holy crap...how cool!" I've used in in electronic, dance, rock, world, and even as a wacked out effect for strings in an orchestral piece.

The trick is not to use it in the way it was used in the 70's by the likes of Joe Walsh, Frampton, Perry, etc... Do your own thing and bring this effect into the 21st century. Rock on!!!

My wife bought me my Golden Throat well over twenty years ago. In fact, it's older than my daughter. You can never accuse Electro Harmonix of over-engineering their products. The case is a two part folded steel job, held together with self-tapping screws. A threaded alloy boss connects the voice tube to the driver. There are jack sockets for connecting the box to your amp and to your speaker cabinet. A conventional mechanical footswitch routes the amp signal to either your cab or the driver inside the floormounted box. A red overload lamp absorbs excess signal levels and warns you that a dental visit may be impending if you overdo the volume level.

A distortion unit is used to beef up the guitar signal into the amp. In my case it's a RAT inline with a Hiwatt DR103. This combination gives a warm sustaining sound from the Golden Throat.

Overall, the talk box is quite easy to use although some exaggeration of vocal shapes has to be made to try to create 'word' sounds. It's old technolgy but different. I haven't used mine for a very long time but for that something different I'm going to put it to use. Show the bubble-bee brigade that searing distortion isn't the be-all and end-all.

The only problem is ensuring that there is sufficient cable length to connect amp to talk box and talk box to cabinet. And it is a hefty chunk of metal to drag around. But, for that noise that most people recognise but can't identify the source of, it's priceless.

Not that noisy bearing in mind it's advanced years. Good quality guitar cables keep noise/hum to a minimum. A RAT to add controlled distortion and sustain and a Hiwatt to drive it - that's all. Instant Joe Walsh and 'Sweet Emotion' is now a realistic option.

Having sat unused in a garage for over twelve years, it was cleaned up, missing self-tapping screws replaced, plugged and used. First time! No problem. I was amazed. Dear Wife got a bit fed up with "Weurghh, weugh,wah-wah-wah, weeuurghhhh" though.

Simple, rugged. Got to be a perfect...

None.

It's a talk box and it does what it says on the tin. Not having used it for yonks I can't say yet whether I'm going to use it frequently ie at most gigs. But it will make a nice change from some of those awful wah-wah breaks that I inflict on my associates.

How many effects that old would perform perfectly adequately after protracted neglect? Well done EH! It really is an old trooper...

easyest thing in the world... minimoog into a small amp. amp into talk box, an there you go!!! tape the tube of the tlkbox to a mic (i use shure sm57) put the tube in the side of your mouth and play!!!
it takes some practice to be able to use it for words, but it's not impossible

allright! it's up to you!!! it's not hifi in any way but it sounds slammin so...

never had any problems with mine. used it on gigs and in the studio for three yaers

the simplest, cheapest, most fun processer you can get!

Just one switch between the mouth tube and an other instrument (it seems there was a level knob but it was replaced by level control led which is not working). You only have to talk or sing in the tube (I use a garden-watering-like rubber tube, but I think a metallic tube could bring good sounds).

There is an audible hiss when using the other instrument. It has a very rich tone; it sounds like when you talk in hi-fi headphones connected to guitar amp with distortion, but you get no larsens. I love it !

it was made at least twenty years ago.

I have no idea

I found it in a store in Paris where I also found an old Boss Chorus Ensemble (Chorus & vibrato), I had never heard about it before, but I knew Electro-Harmonix through the Big Muff. It was a very good surprise...