Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer

Let me start off by saying that you can can an immense number of sounds from this thing. The front end of it has 10 sliders. Some of them have a more obvious effect than others, but it's pretty easy to understand what they do once you start fiddling with them for 10 minutes. One thing I don't like about the pedal is that it has a power switch on the top that turns the thing on which turns the power light on. The light stays on whether you are in bypass or not. It would have been alot more intuitive to have some sort of visual indication of whether or not you're in bypass (mine was purchased about a year ago, and the pictures online now look a little different so this issue may have changed). Also, I wish there was some way to connect an expression pedal to it for some of the sliders. To really get the most out of the pedal, you'll want to manipulate a few key sliders while your hands are busy playing. If you don't mind not wearing shoes, you CAN do it with your toes, but it would be alot easier to plug in an expression pedal (or two).

This thing sounds awesome. It's not a subtle effect at all, so don't expect to keep any of your tone while engaging the effect, but who would really expect to keep their tone when the name of the effect has the word "synthesizer" in it? If your band has a keyboard player, you might be stepping on his toes a little bit with this thing. "Sub-0ctave" is sweet. I wish "Octave" didn't add as much distortion as it does. "Square wave" makes this thing scream, though at high levels, I think can be too loud (so just don't turn it up all the way). I bought the thing for "attack delay" (a fade-in effect). And the filter sweep options are really cool, though, "resonance" is sort of subtle and you can really only tell the difference if it is all the way up or down.

One thing that might be a good thing, might be a bad thing, is that the sub octave and octave functions don't handle chords very well. They do fine with some, but as soon as you introduce any dissonance, the thing doesn't know which note to track and ends up wavering between the different notes. It sounds sort of cool, but it would be nice you could COUNT on it to handle a chord or not.

There is one definite down side to the pedal: when you're in bypass, eventhough they advertise "true bypass," your tone will be ever so slightly altered when plugged in to it. And at high peaks of volume (when you strum hard) you might even get this weird sort of popping noise. It's pretty quiet, and you can adjust the input gain by turning a screw on the back, but if you turn it down (to eliminate the popping) then you'll be running an overall quieter signal to your amp. Not cool. Especially if you're a tone freak.

The coolness of the effect more than makes up for this downfall though. Especially considering that you can't really get a pedal that makes these kinds of sounds anywhere else.

This is the weakest area. Maybe I'm abusive to the thing (I do move the sliders with my toes!), but I've had the thing for almost a year now and just the other day one of the white nub ends on the sliders broke off. I haven't decided what to do about it yet. I could super glue it back on, or I could leave it. The slider itself still works perfectly and I don't really even want to bother if it's just going to break off again.

Also, junk from the ground (like pebbles tracked in on the bottom of your shoes) can get in the sliders every once in a while (it's happened twice to me) and prevent you from being able to move them all the way in one direction or the other. Luckily for me, I was able to fish that stuff out of there.

Other than that, no problems and the thing still works great.

Haven't talked to them.

Overall amazing, but it's not for everyone. It IS a synthesizer after all! But if you're into making some really spacey sounds and soundscapes, this thing is a great tool. You can get alot of different sounds from it based on if you have it set to do the filter sweep, and how quickly. From a really trippy full on synth sound to some pretty wild envelope filter type sounds to a bowed sort of fade-in. This one pedal will drastically boost your capabilities.

It's pretty pricey, but I don't know of any other pedals that do quite what this pedal does. I've become dependent on it and it has become one (or four!) of my staple sounds. If it was stolen or broken beyond repair, I would have to get another one.

Honestly, it's not that hard at all. I have only limited experience with octavers (got a PS-5) and none with synths and I was getting goods sounds out of this thing after 5 minutes. Just read the intructions, they are pretty self explantory and actually useless since just messing around with it will tell you whats going on.

Well, to say a "10" or "pristine sound quality" misses the point of this pedal. Its relative goodness will vary greatly depending on what the user is looking for, and what they are able to achieve. I have had this pedal for a few days and it sounds different everday with just a minor adjustment of the sliders.

And that sound to me is BADASS. Pure analog, chewy, velcro-y, octave-y, distorted goodness. Its just so freaking cool. Put a phaser or delay after it (or a PS-5) in front of it and good god you can get some amazing sounds. I just got the most bitching laser blaster sound from it today- too cool.

But what's that you say? When am I ever actually going to USE this pedal? I dunno. If you are in a Rolling Stones cover band, then never. If you write original stuff then you would still be wise to limit this baby to one or two songs per set. There is a reason that no famous guitarist uses the MS as their backbone like Tom and the Whammy, Edge and the MM, etc. You will have to find that out on your own.

Its EHX. I have owned many of their pedals, some vintage, some new, and had exactly one die on me, and I'm pretty sure it was my fault. Their stuff is built solid and you can absolutely depend on it.

Never dealt with them.

I love this pedal. And I don't just hand out 10's. It gets a nine because its lacking any way to recall settings, and that is a problem because it can be impossible to recapture a certain sound with so many variables to play with.
Also, its a great pedal and its fun but it is far from essential. I am buying this after exhausting my search for the right fuzz, OD, delay, phaser, flanger, etc. etc. and having collected literally dozens of pedals doing so. In short, it would not be my "desert island" pedal.

As others have noted, this isn't the easiest pedal in the world to use. I often find I have to fiddle with the sliders after I switch it on before it will behave, especially on the filter sweep. As others have also said, it's a noisy beast but if you're used to taming E-H pedals and single coil pickups you won't let that put you off.

The micro-synth isn't true bypass, it will degrade your signal more than most pedals. My strat comes out sounding significantly darker. However, I'm putting this under ease of use rather than sound quality because there's always a way to install a bypass.

The manual is an overview of what each slider does and is supplemeneted by a leaflet of suggested settings that give you a good starting point.

So the controls aren't difficult to work out but it can be tricky to get the sounds you want and will be frustrating if you're used to always getting what you want from digital effects.

It's possible to get a great variety of sounds out of this pedal. You can mix the guitar's own voice with monophonic octaves (one above, one below) and a square wave version of the input signal. It will do bowed effects and the filter will give you everything from a laser like sound effect to a sweeping auto-wah. Thanks to its warm rich analog sound It can produce a great fuzz noise that I would definitely use in place of a fuzzbox.

I'm currently playing my strat, straight into the micro-synth, then into my POD, then out to my Marshall amp. The micro-synth is the first step in my quest to replace the POD with high-end analog versions of all the effects I've found useful in the modeller.

Fortunately, I started off with analog effects, so I have the perseverance necessary to put in the extra effort required to get the best sounds out of a pedal like this.

I'd be happy to share interesting settings with people.

I haven't gigged this pedal yet. I previously owned a delux memory man by the same company and the construction is pretty similar. I did gig with the memory man and it was very reliable, however, the sliders on the micro-synth are definitely more delicate than the large knobs you get on most of E-H's pedals. But you would hope that anyone with the intelligence to put together a pedalboard also has the intelligence not to stomp in the wrong place!

I haven't dealt with support.

I play various styles of music with a couple of bands and while I haven't found a way to justify working this into the sound of either, I'm working on it and I'm confident I'll come up with something. This pedal sounds too good, and too unique, not to use.

I've been playing about 8 years, I used to have a few analog effects pedals but they were all sold to pay rent, and in due time replaced by first a Korg modeller and then a Line6 PODxt Live. This pedal renders the synth models in the POD absolutely worthless, which is great because it's one step towards replacing the unit with all analog effects. with the fuzz you can get from this pedal I also feel I don't need a distortion pedal to supplement the overdrive tones of my Marshall valves.

So far what I love about it is its versitility. Fuzz - octaves - lead synth - bowed sounds - filter sweeps - frequency adjustment - percussive synth. The only thing I dislike is that it seems to take a bit more encouragement to get going than I really think it should and I don't know if that is a quirk of my own unit or a feature of the product or if it's something that will go away with more regular use. My favourite feature right now is the filter section, that's certainly the final selling-point that convinced me to buy it.

Other than the Line6 synth built into my POD, I haven't compared this to anything. And there is no real comparison between the two. If you want analog synth sounds from your guitar without having to install a synthesizer pickup, go for this.

So far I've recorded two tracks using nothing but this pedal and my guitar and you'd beleive me if I told you they were both done with keyboards.

While I have been reading reviews saying it was not easy to use, this is not true. You cant get a great sound right out of the box. It comes with a recommended setting sheet so basically, all you need to do is read it. You also can completely customize your settings to make your own crazy envelope or synth sounds. By reading the manual, which is simple, right to the point, and short, you know what each slider does and will quickly help you.

I was looking to get the sounds of John Frusciante from RHCP. I can do that perfectly due to the fact he used one in his early days. I also wanted to get the tones of dance style of synths. This pedal does it.

It can get some nice octave tones and laser beam type sounds as well. This pedal can sound like a lead synth and bowed synth too. You can even get percussive sounds out of this thing. The settings are endless, it's fully customizable.

It sounds great with the DigiTech Space Station and DigiTech Whammy (they're both modeled in my DigiTech Expression Factory). My set-up is Washburn Idol-this-DigiTech Expression Factory-Seymour Duncan TweakFuzz-Crybaby-EHX Small Stone- DigiTech Flanger- Boss DD-6- Fender amp. It sounds great with delay, flange, wah, and phase. It doesn't great with fuzz or distortion, considering that the square wave
control is pretty much distortion control.

It's not noisy at all. The pedal overall is very strong sounding.

The thing is solid, it never fails me. I can depend on it. I would use it without a back-up at a gig (I probably couldn't afford a back-up anyway).

Never dealt with them.

I play funk, dance, electronica, new wave, and psychedelic. This pedal is a perfect match for all of them. I can make great music without this getting in the way.

I have been playing for about 3 and a half years. All the gear i mentioned above is what I've got.

If it was lost I would try and save to buy one, due to the fact that it's pricey. But it's just that good.I love how it can get the exact synth sounds I want, without dishing out the money to buy a good Korg or Moog.The only thing I don't like is that two of the sliders are monophonic, but I don't care to much because this thing fills up the sound anyway.

I would have to compare it with the Line 6 FM4. I used to own one. It sounded sort of like a synth but was very digital. Mine died quite fast so I traded it in for this. I'm glad I did. You can get much better synth tones from this. This is also much more customizable in the sounds. You can't really get much variety of synth tones from the FM4.

A lot of the reviews that I had read before I bought the EHX Micro-Synthesizer said that the controls were really hard to use. After I finally got it though I realized that they were wrong. If you spend some time on it, and jam and play through it by yourself, you can easily learn what the controls do. To learn the versatility all you've really got to do is jam with other people and you can realize how much your sound stands out from the others. The manual isn't bad but it isn't great and doesn't go to in depth as to what exactly is happening to you signal. Of course, you can't really expect the manual to tell you every single small detail.

My favorite musicians are The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Mars Volta, The Strokes, and The Rapture. I listen to a lot of bands but as for guitar playing I'd like to sound like them. With the MicroSynth you can get a great sound, and it sounds to me a lot like the Mars Volta, of course the guitarist of TMV has many more effects this one sounds a little bit like it. Also I think John Frusciante of The RHCP has used this pedal before. The effects are pretty much all wonderful for designing your sound. This Pedal is pretty much monophonic, meaning that chords won't sound good if thats what your looking for. All the controls on this pedal are really good, and these effects will alow you to shape your sound, and discover new sonic boundaries. I'm using it with a standard Fender Strat through only this pedal and into my Line 6 Spider 3 75 watt combo amp. Its not noisy at all and cuts back a lot of the humming you hear through a dry signal from guitar straight to amp. The effects dont always sound absolutely perfect, but thats what makes this pedal good, you've got to work with it, and once you got the sound you want, it'll definately be worth it.

Unless your thrashing about on stage, beating the hell out of everybody and jumping into moshpits with this pedal, it's pretty dependably. Once the switch was a little bit broken on my box, but I managed to fix it with ease. I think I used a broken -tip actually. The screws sometimes are pretty hard to deal with, but otherwise I would absolutely use this in a gig without a backup.

I've never dealt with company so I can't say anything

I play whatever sounds good, and this pedal allows me to travel with the music I try to play, and not only that it lets me rock out on stage. I play through a Fender Stratocaster, into a Line 6 amp. If this were stolen, I'd probably buy a different pedal, like a moog freqbox or a digitech whammy, only because I've had this pedal already before. If i were really rich, I'd buy it again so fast your head would spin, and use it on stage a lot. What i love about it is the fact that I can make sounds that you can't get on any other pedal by itself. I dont hate anything about this pedal, but my least favorite thing is that i cant play chords very well on it. My favorite feature is the filter sweep section of controls. Compared to any lower priced or equal priced product, loads better. If you can afford a pedalboard full of moog pedals, you should get those instead, because theyd let you explore much deeper areas of music than this would, but I chose this one cause i could afford it, and i knew itd be my favorite pedal. I wish it could make the sound go on for much longer, and play the higher notes more loudly than it does. If it could modulate the sound it would be pretty cool. This pedal doesnt get in the way of making music at all, in fact it expands your ability to make music and lets you make music that other guitarists will be jealous of. Electro Harmonix pedals are always going to be good because they recognize the desires of the musician.

for me it was easy right out of the box, but i own a couple of moogs and have plenty of experience on analog synths. i had been interested in this pedal, and my local music store had one so i tried it there and instantly was able to get a good idea of what it could do, and of course i bought it right there and then.
now, it's incredibly easy to use. and the thing is a monster tone sculptor.

i use sg>preamp pedal>microsynth>frequency analyzer>volume>deluxe memory man (i love eh stuff)>thd univalve>poweramp>speakers

it sounds incredible for acid, metal, punk and spacey sounds. it's the filter sweep that makes alot of magic happen for my sound, but the posts below are right that this pedal can easily replace your fuzz, envelope, and or octave pedals because it has all of those built in.

i would call this a glorified distortion pedal before i called it a synth. to my ears and tweaking fingers, it's not really anything like an analog synth, but it does share a few similarites which can help to provide some nice synth like tones and effects. it is just incredibly functional, meaning you move a slider just a little and you'll notice the difference. very easy to go from ear-spear painful shriek, to muffled low-end fuzz with a simple slider adjustment. capable of blowing minds wherever you take it. well worth the bread if you like insane guitar sounds and i mean truly insane. i found out my hero helios creed uses one, so that made me even more happy i bought it.

the only problem i have with this thing is that it acts like a gate and sometimes long ringing notes will cut out before i wan them to. this is especially bad for me when i play slide. the notes will just not ring out properly unless i've played it perfectly and the strings are vibrating strongly. i've tried turning up the preamp section, but i just end up getting unwanted distortion and the problem is still there. so i ended up running into a preamp pedal befoe going into the microsynth and that helped alot and gave me even more insane tones and sustain, but i pretty much only play slide when the pedal is off now.

they do respond to emails

overall i would not be happy without this pedal. i play spacerock, blues rock, metal, punk, lots of rock. this pedal is like a powerful eq in addition to the other features. i can't say enough about how well it can color your sound. i'm thinking of using it on vocals too sometime.

like i mentioned, the thing acts like a gate which may or may not be a problem depending on what style and techniques you play. it might be more accurate to describe it as an annoyance rather than a problem, but it irks me when i have a sweet note screaming away in feedback sustaining bliss only to have it end abruptly before i want it to. i have had to work around that.

its easy to get some sounds out of this effect, but till you can really handel this pedal it takes some time!
but if you know analog synths then there should be no problem.

gibson les paul, orange or120 stack, e-h grafic fuzz, ibanez delay ad99,small stone, big muff, ibanez metall charger, homemade brantolog fuzz, dod ice box, cry-baby, noname vintage flanger, holy grail reverb, akay headrush, e-bow


it sounds great like all electro-harmonix

i use it often on gigs, but be cate full becase it needs yust one step and the faders are broken!!!

the sound of this thing is the best synth sound i`ve ever heard for a guitar!
but the price was high and you have to watch for it like a baby!

i love it, the bassplayer in my band uses one too for the bass and he likes it the same!
this pedal is great

you have to work a lot on it to find an usable tone

es335 handmade and jtm60
great sounds after days of work, but don't aspect the madness from it, it's just like an octaver, a boss sg1 and a qtron... nothing very strange like they describe it.
the 7 is for the reissue
i haven't tried out the vintage one, but i think it would have a higher rating

i'm selling it... to buy an electric mistress, if you're looking for strange sounds try the filter matrix feature of the electric mistress.

Pretty easy to use. The layout is very keyboard-like, with specific sections for voicing and filtration. The manual offers some presets, but the sounds you get on the way to the presets are a sonic trip all their own anyway.

If you're not familiar with subtractive synthesis in general, this pedal may take a while to get the hang of, but it's not hard. It's all faders, how hard can it be? Good sounds pour out of this thing endlessly, so just mess around with it.

This is where the rubber hits the road. For a long time, I was looking for a way to make a guitar a synth, through filter, octave, fuzz, and modulation pedals in combination. I could get a reasonably good sound from all of those things, but it still sounded rather guitar-like. Thn I bought the Micro Synth, and it was like going from swimming upstream to floating downstream. It was a cinch to get Moog-like sounds, fatty bows, floaty pads, squishes, splats, lazer beams, you name it. All from the guitar.

The sound generation section provides four sounds: octave, sub octave, guitar, and square wave. The sub octave and octave are pretty straight-forward, just tones generatec by the pedal that match the guitar's note and goes one octave below it. The guitar fader determines how much of the actual guitar sound gets in the mix, though it sounds like it loses some of its vitality and life to my ears. The square wave is a modifier for the other three voices, turning their pulse waveform into a more square waveform.

Now I've heard a lot of squealing and whining on here about the square wave not sounding like a square wave at all, just a fuzzed up guitar sound. However, if you hook up a fuzz box to your guitar and play it through an oscilliscope, you'll find that your pulse wave is decidedly squared off in shape. So basically, yes, the square wave does fuzz up the signal, but if it did anything but that, I would have been both surprised and disappointed. This is not a misnomer or a malfunction, it's simply the way a guitar sounds when its pulse waveform is converted to a square wave.

Anyway, on to the filter section. As far as guitar effects are concerned, this is the closest thing to an ADSR envelope I've come into contact with. It doesn't nail the ADSR effect right-on, but it's versatile, precise, thick, and meaty. The best part of it is the resonance control, which sounds like solid gold to me. That's what really sets this thing apart from most of the other filter pedals I've worked with. To me, a synth sound starts at good sound generation and stops at good filtration and enveloping, and this unit takes care of it all in spades.

Overall, it's a gritty, analog sound, and it sounds great. It seems to play nicely with modulation effects like chorus and flange, but it sounds better after the effect than before it. I've heard that these things really suck tone when the effect is disengaged, but I use it exclusively for studio work so that's never an issue for me.

The case is a bit thin, and the power plug is at a funny ange. The faders feel a little weak, and are not especially confidence-inspiring. However, half of reliability is how you take care of your gear, and since this never leaves a studio, it's not much of an issue.

One piece of advice, though: take the 'stomp' out of 'stompbox' and you should be okay. And don't be an idiot and move the faders around with your feet.

*shrugs* no EHX pedal has given me any problems...

I've been playing guitar for over 10 years, and I've been on a synth kick for the last 3. This device has abated my craving for a synth that plays like a guitar, and it's capable of an amazing array of sounds. If it were lost or stolen, I'd have to replace it. It sounds stellar.

If I had my 'druthers, I would have added more voice generation options, like something that generates sawtooth waveforms, but given how much you can do with 10 little faders, this unit is without peer.

It came down to either this pedal or the Line 6 FM-4, and I ended up going with this one based on layout alone. They both provide good sounds, but this one was very similar to my Juno 60 synth in layout, which made it appealing.

One thing to consider when emulating a synth with your guitar is that this pedal provides only the sound generation and filtration. It doesn't have an LFO or any other modulation or delay, all of which play a big part in synthesizers. However, I recommend that you use this pedal in conjunction with as many of those effects as possible, and all after the Micro Synth itself. For an LFO, use a vibrato pedal. For chorus and delay, there are plenty of pedal options out there to cover that. The main thing to remember is that playing with just the synth pedal is like playing guitar dry. Part of care and feeding of the Micro Synth is plenty of other effects to emulate the components found on keyboard software.

An update to my previous review - I want to TB this pedal and have had little help from EHX - they stated in an email to me that they "Unfortunately do not have instructions as to how to make the unit bypass from a non bypass unit. Try Analogman.com. He may be able to help."

So can anyone help with this? The unit is great otherwise. Please, email me if you have any idea how to perform the mod - someone mentioned it earlier but his email address is not there.

The sound when bypassed is awful, it is thin and scratchy. Need true bypass!

It seems reliable enough, transporting it locked up in a pedalboard is concerning though.

As I said they couldn't advise on performing a standard and non-risky mod on one of their own products.