Electro-Harmonix Micro Synthesizer

You know the deal with this pedal- separate pitch transposer/fuzzbox/mixer, attack delay, and filter sections. This pedal is not the easiest to use. Like any other analog synth product, you have to experiment with it to get really useful sounds out of it. Of course, you can get gimmicky sounds out of right out of the box, especially with their presets. But for really USEFUL sounds, be prepared to spend some time, and frustration, to get some sounds that are really rewarding.

Problems- very noisy, noisegate that can be very annoying and obvious,sound quality is only soso, can definitely be temperamental, and definitely keep it out of your signal path. When I first got it I tried to return it, but decided after trying the moogerfooger lowpass filter to hang on to it. This box definitely ha some good things going for it. First off is the ADSR properties. The attack delay is really useful at about 1.5 for taking off the telltale pick noise of the guitar signal. And the filter, when set for fast decay, and zero for the cutoff freq acts can really change the decay fo your sound. The octave up and fuzz sounds combined can get a really good timbre, and when you use the attack delay and set the Q control of the filter to around 5-7, you get rid of the obnoxious harshness of the fuzz, and just get a really unguitarlike warm round sound.
So what am I really saying here? There are some real possibilities here for cool sounds. But keep your mind open. Theres a lot more here than porno synth sounds. in combination with flanging, ring modulation, delay, and other effects, there is a lot of possibilities. Having said all that, though, the sound quality of this unit will never be as good as a pro-level filter. Sounds like a love/hate relationship, eh? It is- short of going full midi, there is no sub for the microsynth that I know of, but damn, I wish there were.

Very finnicky machine. The real problem with it is the sensitivity of the input. With an uncompressed guitar, it can be hard to play at consistently the right volume level to make chords trigger the filters, etc. And, it is shoddily enough built that I would expect it to break down on me at any time. But, it hasn't done so yet, which I guess is pretty good. Until I can afford a sherman filterbank or a mutator, the microsynth will be right next to me.

Never dealt with em. *Hope* I don't have to.

I play acid jazz/ drum'n'bass stuff, and in a lot of ways the microsynth is really useful. The filter is pretty decent, not real high-end, but still useful. Some of the lead sounds I've gotten have really kicked ass too. As long as I have it and it works, I will use it. But as I upgrade, I plan to use it less and less. If you are a guitarist interested in electronic sounds, you owe it to yourself to try one out.

This effect definitely is not real easy to use. The 10 controls are very interactive as one slider will often effect how another reacts. But once you figure out what each control does, (which becomes obvious after awhile of fooling around with it and from looking at what the controls are called) the unit becomes fairly easy to use. It just has a bit of a learning curve. For me one of around a few hours but for some it may take a few days. Still even so it's pretty easy to come up with something very cool sounding by just randomly moving around the sliders. Mine was used so it didn't come with a manual, but come to think of it, I don't think they come with a manual new either. However I hear that the Sovtek customer support is quite good.

Mine is one of the reissues and I must say that the sound quality is OUTSTANDING. I tried a MXR Blue Box which was recommended to me as a good guitar synth pedal, but I found it to sound horrible with very little control or use for more conventional forms of music. The MXR Blue Box sounded more like the DOD Buzz Box I used to own. What I've been looking for years for was a device that would allow me to play fast, hard hitting analog synth sounds on a guitar for techno and industrial type music. NOT something for just making noise like the Blue Box and Buzz box seem to be made for. I bought a Roland GR-1 but the tracking just sucked way too bad on the synth sounds (though the tracking was alright on some sounds like the flute and trumpet patches). I spent months fooling around with different settings on the GR-1 as well as trying different guitars but I just couldn't seem to improve the tracking.
So I sold it. Then about a month ago I stumbled upon a EH Microsynth at a guitar shop in Austin TX. I had heard good things about it, but had never seen one played or tried one out before. So I tried it. WOW!!! I fell in love with it right there. That was the processor I've been searching for. The tracking is fantastic. No long delays between the time you hit a note and the time you hear it. You hear the note right away. Thus it allows me to play big fat analog synth sounds along to fast paced rhythms very nicely. You have to set the attack and other settings properly for that type of sound of coarse. The beauty of this pedal is that it's capable of more then just fat analog synth-bass sounds. You can get all kinds of other useful analog synth sounds as well and the sound changes a lot depending on the pickup you use and if you palm mute your notes. If you turn the trigger slider all the way down and raise the square wave, sub-octave, octave, and stop freq. controls all the way up, you get a massive fuzz from hell that will put a smile on any Smashing Pumpkins fan's face.
Also what amazes me is that the unit is dead quiet and there is no pops when you hit the bypass switch. Ok a few negative comments. The bypassed sound sounds kinda dull so it's probably not a true bypass.
But it's not too bad and probably not noticeable if you're not doing any ,major clean guitar stuff during gigs. My other gripe is that this thing is delicate. (see below)

I bought it used and two of the slider tips were broken (which the seller told me about) They still work and all but their top half is gone. They really should have made metal sliders or something a little sturdier. Aside from that it seems fairly robust and many of the originals are still out there working just fine. As far as a backup...well I can't afford another one and no one makes anything like this pedal in it's price range or cheaper. But if I could afford a backup I would have one just because it's good to have a backup of any essential item during a gig.

I haven't needed it though I will contact them soon regarding future possibilities for an improved Microsynth pedal. I've heard that Sovtech is a very responsive company

If you're into Techno, Industrial, or Industrial/Metal type music, this pedal is a must have. Seriously. Once you hear it I almost guarantee you'll fall in love with it. The charm of EH products is that they not only sound good, they just feel good. They have a very organic sound to them. It's been described as "a high quality cheezy sound".
I sold my original EH Small Stone Phaser pedal awhile back and have been regretting it ever since. But I am extremely happy with this pedal. I also have an original '83 Big Muff pedal that I wouldn't trade for the world.
Overall the Microsyth is really an outstanding product if you like analog synth sounds but want to play them on a guitar. It just feels absolutely incredible slamming out viscous analog synth-bass lines on my low slung Flying V guitar through a cranked bass amp. I play keyboard as well and my Ensoniq SQ-80 has great analog type synth sounds but I much prefer to play my guitar through this pedal. Plus during gigs it'll make guitarists in the audience wonder what in the hell you are using to get those bitchin' synth sounds.
So if you want to add a new dimension to your sound on stage, or if you want to spice up your recordings then definitely check this pedal out. Just try one out, play around with the sliders and you'll hear what I am talking about.

If you want to hear some MP3 sample recordings that I recorded of the EH Microsynth in action, check out my Microsynth web page at:
http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/chrisg/EHmicrosynthMP3samples.html

If you check out the samples try to play them through some decent speakers because they have alot of juicy bass frequencies on them.
Let me know what you think of them.
Thanks!

Chris G.

This is a review for the reissue model. I've not touched or seen an original.

I consider myself pretty savvy with stuff like this, getting down to the nitty-gritty of sound generation and whatnot (i learned to program on a yamaha 4-op synth, so analog stuff is normally cake). So my perception of ease of use may be different than a guy who just plays guitar and owns a few stompboxes... Nonetheless, I have to admit that I had difficulty getting the filter to work right initially. Once I figured out what was going on with the trigger threshold, no problems.

This box really isn't as complicated as it looks, so once you have a basic concept of how to set your trigger level, what the filter controls do, and what sound comes out of each voice in the mix section, you should be set. I would guess you're looking at a couple or three hours playing with the thing, it's not a plug-it-in-and-go kind of setup. You'll need to fiddle with sliders for a while before it will make you go "hmmmm."

The Micro Synth sounds pretty damned good. Since it is an analog device, and it's being driven with a pitch signal only, you can expect a bit of breathy grunge at times as the gate opens and closes on a signal. But it sounds way more hi-fi than my MXR Blue Box (not necessarily a good thing).

Triggering of the waveforms and filter is pretty fast, if not 100% accurate, but again, what do you expect? A lot of people WANT this thing for the unpredictability... but I find it disappointing in the random-music arena. You can expect a little bit of low-end FWOOHOFOFHWOOO and wacky filter retriggering if you slam down a full A chord and hold it, but this thing really isn't as much of a "synth" as it asserts, so the "what the hell is it doing?" factor is lower than some might assume.

What do I mean, it's not as much of a synth...? As best I can tell, only the sub octave wave is truly generated, and that's not very useful by itself-- the filter has very little effect on it. The "octave" voice seems to be the guitar signal through some sort of bandpass filter, and the octave doesn't really kick in until you're up fairly high on the B or E string. The "square wave" is really just a highly compressed fuzz (sounds good, though). The other voice is, well, straight guitar, and I don't find that to be terribly affected by the filter either. Manual claims that the three "generated" voices can only track monophonic lines, which is as it should be. But this is an outright lie. You can play chords through just the octave or square wave sections and hear multiple notes instead of the mono-analog indecisiveness that my Blue Box exhibits when you try such mean tricks. This tells me that there's not much true synth action going on here.

One thing that should be mentioned: I'm getting a lot of pops and clicks on initial attacks with the sub octave wave. Not sure why, adjusting technique hasn't helped it any. But it does track REALLY fast.

I find two other niggles with the basic controls: the attack delay ("swell," if you like; even at max settings it doesn't slow the envelope down as much as i might need at times), and the filter rate (good range but doesn't allow quite as slow a "turnover" as i would like). I also wish that the retriggering of the attack delay was adjustable time-wise-- you have to leave a pretty significant gap in between each fingering if you want a long string of swelling chords; otherwise it just leaves the envelope, and your natural right-hand attack, hanging wide open for perusal. Oh, and maybe the filter could be more sickeningly resonant and wide-sweeping, at risk of taking out a few speakers here and there.

Ok, blah. What kind of sounds can you get out of this thing? It really is more limited than EH wants you to think, but the sounds you get are dope and pretty much unavailable on any other stompbox in current production. You can, as I mentioned before, run straight guitar through attack delay for swell sounds, or through the filter for auto-wah effects. You can factor in the sub-octave for, well, an octave effect. Take out the guitar and put in the square wave and it sounds a lot more like an analog synth. Run this through the filter and adjust to your liking; this gives you a range of sounds running from "BONK BONK BONK" synth bass sounds and "ZAP ZAP ZAP" leads to "EEEEOW" on up to "EEEEEEEEEEEEEOW," and the other way around: "OOOOOOOOOOOWEEEEEE." You can put those sounds through the attack delay and get "ooooooOOOOOEEE." You can take out the lower octave, turn "octave" up, play high on the neck, and make things a lot more harsh and grating: "sQUEEEY!@#" And so on and so forth. (I hope you like onomatopoeia as much as I do.) All this stuff sounds great.

What's missing? True analog synth functionality (it's just not very flexible, let's face it), multiple oscillators with tunability, global pitch shifting, ADSR, a VCO to control the filter... but I guess you can't ask for too much at this price (or can you?). Experi

I keep hearing that these are built more solidly than the originals. But I absolutely HATE the wallwart-- 24V? Come on, guys. If that tiny little 26AWG wire breaks, and you've gone out of business for a SECOND time...

EH is great.

OK, soapbox time: EH is reissuing these old boxes at premium prices when they could be making something REALLY innovative a la their golden era. Why no one is presently making a synth-stompbox with more flexibility is beyond me. My only other options, if I really want to do this "right," are old Korg boxes like the X911 and the MS20, both of which are presently waaaaay out of my price range for this application, or dropping even more money, putting an ugly-ass hex pickup on my prize Hamer, and running it through a MIDI brain and a reasonable fascimile of an analog synth (or an analog synth connected through a MIDI-to-CV converter, which adds even more dough to an already greens-rich recipe).

Right now, the Microsynth RI is the winner in the "affordable analog guitar synth" arena, but, jesus, this is the 90's. So much more could be done for $300. Even something digitally based! Anything so that I don't have to carry a rack full of gear and/or an expensive outboard synth to the gig just for a few "DEAR GOD" sounds. Somebody stand up and take responsibility for making these things. I know that EH reissued this for the profit potential, seeing people willing to pay $$$ for the originals... but just THINK what they'd do for a box that would do TRULY weird things with TRULY configurable behavior, "vintage" or no.

Off the soapbox. This thing is a lot of fun and it's (sadly enough) unique on the present-day MI market. Check it out.

Ya know the funny thing is I got the perfect sound out of this thing the first time I used it. Moved six sliders, played, and it was perfect. I haven't been able to get a better sound since!
On the down side it took a while to get this thing working on my unit at least. The manual recommends a guitar with single coil pickups and all I have are hums. So you have to adjust this little screw at the bottom of the unit.
THEN I was having problems getting the thing to come on, but I found out it needs a load up time like a television or something when you turn it on after a long period of time. Really weird but like I said it was probably just my unit. Still and all it was a pain in the ass.

...But like I said once I got the unit working: POW! I got *my* tone on the first try. A really lush/envelopey thing that would be impossible to describe other than to say: "It sounds like Rock and Roll." And really phenomenal with distortion.
Therein lies the beauty of this pedal. EVERYTHING sounds great with distortion.
I bought this pedal on recommendation of fellow musician and Chicagoan Billy Corgan. (Who I've recently discovered we have a lot more in common than I would've imagined.) And everything he said was right. You really can get a "BIG" sound with this thing. But one.
(And welcome back Jimmy.)

Since I made the adjustments it's been working fine. But like I said I was really freaked out before I got it working. If everything is as I explained it above, then I don't anticipate any problems. Although the people at New Sensor tell me it's 50/50. Still and all mine is the first complaint I've ever heard about this product and reliability. So I won't give it a low score.
It is still working after all.

These guys are great. Sent them an email wednesday night and they got back to me Thursday morning. (At eight AM!!!) They got my vote whenever they need one.
11!

This thing is great. If you play rock guitar: Get it. If you rock: Get it. If you suck, or if you like Third Eye Blind: Then don't get it. (And drop dead at your earliest convenience.)
I play Rock. Not alternative. Not alt-corporate. Not... Well you get the idea. And this is the rock pedal. There are so many different settings to chose from it may take some time, but you WILL find yourself somewhere in this pedal. I know I did.
Look out Billy...

Well, as most of the other reviews pointed out, this is not a simple effect pedal. But, after you know what each slider does, it's easy. From right to left: Trig (sets the sensitivity requires to start the non-voice mix effects), Sub Octave (-1), Guitar, Octave (+1), Square Wave (fuzz)-controls teh volume of each voice, so they are completely mixable, attack delay (swell effect, like in the Experience pedal, cuts attack to simulate a type of reverse effect)--how long of a delay, resonance (depth-like?), start freq, stop freq, rate-selects 2 freq points and sweeps between them at the rate selected with the resonance you selected.
Bascially, it just takes time.

The sound quality is really good. It sounds like many effects depending on how you use it. Has Ocatve/swell/fuzz/envelope filtering/sliding tone sounds and more. If you get a bad sound out of it, your sliders in one section are probably either set at a muffling point of quaking area.
The ocatves are great, you just have to balance them out with guitar volume. The fuzz is nice. I don't really use the attack delay much, but it is nice to have. The filter section is great, nice slides and bleeps. Just a fun pedal!

Has worked graet so far. I don't expect it to die on me. Of all the EH reissue stuff I own, only the Small Stone had to be sent back because of a problem with the rate nob that I discovered after I moved.

They are great, always answered my emails.

This is a great pedal. It really has some great sounds in it. All I wish it could do more is a decent ring modulator tone, but i might be able to with some more fiddling around!
If any other MicroSynth users would like to trade slider positions, I will love to hear from you, maybe even start up a MicroSynth page!

I'll save the good stuff til later, and mention this first: This effect isn't as simple to use as most pedals. But, then again, this "pedal" (if you want to call it that!) is unbelievably different than any other pedal I've ever played. The difficulty comes from this- in addition to your usual on/off effect in/out switches, there are 10 sliders, each coloring the mix of "effect" into the sound. As its name implies, its more of a guitar "synth" (I dare you to try it with drums, voice or keyboard.. wow! nice sounds!). In this age of button pressing, screen scrolling and an impatient need to "dial in" a sound, the sliders on this effect make it quite intuitive as well as interactive. As a clarification, it is easy to use, but hard to master, if you know what I mean. The patches diagrammed in the manual get you off to a good start, though.

Nothing sounds like this effect. Not to sound to glowing or enammored, but I have to be honest- this pedal sounds wonderful. Have you ever heard a song or some unbelievably expressive guitar passage and wondered "WHAT in the WORLD was used on THAT?". Well, chances are good you can recreate it with the microsynth, if you spend enough time with it. This pedal is that good. Trust me. As far as noisy, theres a slight click when the pedal of the unit is clicked on, and thats it. The filters in the filter bank are pristine, and the voice mix is also clean. The sound can get muddy if you twiddle with the sliders while youre playing (i,e: while the signal is going through the effect) but this can actually be cool. My unit looks pretty rough from use, but remains remarkably in "tune" and un-noisy.

I keep reading on here things like "this baby's built like a tank", etc. This simply isnt the case with this effect. It is by no means fragile, but it does require some care. Its rather large (8x6x2") and its sliders seem like they could break if you stepped on them accidentally... but then again, who really carelessly stomps on a vintage Electro Harmonix pedal? Finally, though, the parts of the effect seem sound and well-working. I anticipate absolutely no trouble from this effect, nor have I had any to date.

Electro-Harmonix is actually very helpful. I've spoken withy the company at their NY address, and they are not only friendly but actually interested in helping you. They even offered me very fair rates iof I ever needed future help or repair. Nice. (If you're wondering, they can be reached at E-H, care of New Sensor Corporation, 20 Cooper Square, NY NY, 10003).

Overall, this pedal IS my sound. Yes, I got lucky and was able to purchase it cheap from someone who thought they were unloading some antique, useless electronic device on some sucker for a good price... well, call me a sucker. This pedal is amazing. Try it out if you can get your hands on one!

This is basically an analog synth type effect for guitar, and is therefore much harder to use than a standard guitar pedal. It has ten controls, which are divided into two main sections with four slide pots each and then two addition controls. the first is the trig, which sets the volume where the envelope effect cuts in. next is the voice mix section, with sliders for sub octave, guitar, octave, and square wave. next is a control for attack delay. then finally there is the filter sweep section which consists of resonance, start frequency, stop frequency, and rate sliders. there are also two internal trim pots, one for the threshold of the built in noise gate and one that sets the overall gain of the unit. I have about 15 guitar effects, and this one was definetely the hardest learn how to work it. it comes with an AC adapter, no batteries. The manual is short but gets to the point and helps a lot in learning how to use this. It goes over the functions of all the controls, and has 12 sample settings to get to know how the controls work. this is the reissue model.

I am using this with fender guitars into a marshall amp, with about 5 other pedals usually. This has got to be one of the greatest guitar effects ever made. It can do anything from bass similations to percussive sounds, to lead synthesizer tones to just being a standard fuzz pedal, plus much more. The octave have probably the best tracking for any analog effect pedal. The square wave is pure square wave fuzz, unlike regular fuzz pedals which are mixed with the sine wave. This means that chords dont come all that great. it also means that it only gets really fuzzy in the treble range. chords cannot be played when the octaves are in use either, but this is more of a lead type pedal anyway. The attack delay is hard to use well to create reverse guitar type sounds, because you have to mute the strings between notes. It is good for softening out the attack to give it more of a synth sound. The filter is the greatest part of this pedal, and creates sounds unlike anything else that I have heard on a guitar. Also this unit is totally quiet when not playing notes, which I think was a problem on the originals.

Very well built like all electro harmonix products. have heard that the sliders broke off easily on the originals, but havent had any problems with that yet, hopefully they fixed that on these reissues.

contacted them a few times by e-mail, and they responded within a day or two. 1 year warranty. shouldnt have a problem with them.

Great pedal for many different types of sound, and one of a kind too dont know of any other company making a comparable product. If it were stolen or lost I would definetely get a new one, but would probably look for a used reissue, since they are kinda expensive new, and ever more for a vintage one. My favorite feature is the filter section, though it works best using some of everything at the same time. Nothing else sounds comparable. It helps me make music. it is a very unique sound and sounds almost like a different instrument on many settings, so I have written synth type parts for a few of my songs. One last thing, dont buy this pedal if you are looking for just a good octave effect or an an envelope filter. It does all of these thigns great but it works best making its own sounds, away from the standard envelope or octave type effects. If you want a new great sound different different from everyone elses, or if you want to get an analog synth type sound out of a guitar, then you need to give one of these a try. If anyone else has this that is reading this review and would like to trade patches for it, e-mail me.

I bought it used without manual but I had been taught by a friend how to use it before.If I hadn't I'm sure i would have had problems figuring out how it was working.It's neither a conventional pedal nor a conventional effect.

I'm using it with Marshall 2203 head,an original Big Muff and a US std Strat and it sounds like the end of the world.Be sure to put it before the distorsion unit and you will have an apocalyptic filter sound!I use it ponctually when the song starts loosing dynamic(a la Billy Corgan in Siamese Dream)and it sure wakes up the audience! Of course it's noisy,even if it has a built-in gate(what if it hadn't!). A friend of mine uses it with some old Roland synth(TB 303,TR 808 etc...)and keeps asking me to sell it to him.

Mine is in excellent condition so it's very dependable but if you find an old looking one,try it carefully before buying it.Nevertheless as I use it ponctually,I gig with it without back up.

I've e-mailed EH a few times and Mike was always very friendly.Nevertheless,I don't know if they could repair old stuff.As they are reissuing the Micro synth,I think they can but not for all the old EH units

I play a Korn/Smashing Pumpkins crossover and it produces the weirdest sounds I've ever heard.I've been playing for 5 years and tried a lot of weird old stuff and this unit beats them all.The sound quality is amazing and it's a lot less noisy i tought it would be(but it's nearly in mint condition).I wish it also had a 1 octave up feature but it's not necessary and you can always buy an Octavia if you're into analogic octaving.Really helps me creating weird atmosphere. Also really really good for gig-end noise.

Once you get used to it its pretty straight forward

Although the quality is pretty poor the soung you gan get from it are amazing, I am constantly finding new sounds that sound wicked

For a really old pedal it is pretty reliable, however it sometimes needs a little kick to ensure its intended setting occurs

Never tried to get any, wouldn't know where to find any anyway

Quite simply the most amazing thing I have ever used

For who knows about analog synth, it's easy. For conventional guitar player, ???....

If you are looking for some techno rock sounding effect, this is it. Chemical Bros. use this pedal a lot. (actually, they use a BASS MICROSYNTH, and I have this one, too. The difference is that the microsynth has good filter for high note and bassmicrosynth has one for low note)

My one has never broken electronically....But the sliders is so easy to break that you gonna miss some sliders after a gig.

I hope they could repair my sliders...

I have a ton of keyboard analog vintage synthsizers and NOTHING sounds like microsynthsizer. I just love it. Maybe the street price is too expensive though...