Electro-Harmonix Tube Zipper

Easy And I mean easy. If it wasn't easy then I wouldn't say it was because it is. you're gonna love it. Turn the knobs and your heart will... well it'll probably still beat... but it sounds damn cool and it is easy. So ease-of-usey.

Fender gear to give this beast wings to fly and soar and kill all the peasant-vermin-bad-tones out there with its glorious, awesome super blinding white tone! what a monster. not one but two juicy power cells under this hood(especially if you swap them out for tung sol's. Let your ears runneth over with pure cream. And if you like weird, well guess what...you're already there!

Be nice to it and it will be nice to you...just like an eastward breeze on a western bent hot summer day with big mosquitos and even bigger mosquito gyms! Oh what a breeze soft and gentle and that's the way you should treat this pedal.

I don't think there's anyone you can contact about this pedal. And if there was, you definitely would not want to anyway. the bad-ass that made this pedal would probably chew you up on site and spit you out later, somewhere off site maybe. i wouldn't want to find out, soo....(the rating is to deter you from seeking the master. Don't do it

i don't really play a style of music anymore. I play tube zipper. simply tube zipper. all else falls away in a haze of wash-about noise and vermin fecal decal murmurs. Tube Zipper has changed my life. For the better I can't say but the impact is equally catastrophic. If only I could rid myself of this horrible curse of a pedal that has possessed me and caused my oatmeal to turn into maggots of melody in the mouth of my musical soul. I've taken it too far. The Tube Zipper was the edge and I've plunged over. Leave it alone. it's bad news man. Bad, bad news

The top 3 knobs (resonance, frequency & sensitivity) are highly interactive and slight adjustments produce big changes, like previous reviewers have stated. They'll all behave with varying degrees of sensitivity in relation to the amount of input gain and drive dialed in as well. The number of possibilities is enormous. There really is a big learning curve associated with the use of this pedal--I've had it for 8 months now and have found great sounds using it, but I feel like I've only scratched the surface of what's possible. The manual's suggestions for settings are useful starting points for exploration.

This pedal sounds incredible to me. The envelope is smooth, nuanced and oh so tweakable. The tube driven overdrive/distortion/fuzz section produces a huge range of superb distortion sounds from light overdrive to sizzling, ultra-saturated fuzzy distortion (vintage though--not modern metal sounds). In higher gain settings there is noise of course. With the drive and input gain all the way down and the master volume up though it's totally transparently clean and dead silent--you can hear just how good the envelope filter sounds when playing this way. I usually use it just as an envelope filter and use other distortion or fuzz units in conjunction with it. The filter sounds excellent with distortion and/or fuzz after it. After digging in and experimenting, and finding sounds I like I'm finding I use a wah wah pedal less often and leave the envelope filter on a lot of the time. It's sooo responsive to picking strength that I feel I get better, more controlled wah effects with the filter than I can using my foot on a wah wah pedal. The envelope filter is quieter with fuzz or distortion than a wah wah pedal as well.

My current setup (which has gone through a lot of changes in the last year or so):

Les paul > ernie ball volume pedal w/ tuner out > Snarling Dogs Super Bawl Whine-O-Wah > Tube Zipper > Fulltone Distortion Pro > Fulltone Ultimate Octave > Marshall 60 watt combo amp set to light breakup with guitar volume all the way up.

I'm really digging my current setup. Everything is all analog with true bypass. I just need an analog delay in there to really round things out. I also want a good univibe effect.

I have a hard shelled pedal board (by MKS) that the Tube Zipper has been permanently affixed to for 8 months. It's still working and always has. I try not to throw the the pedal board around. I couldn't afford to have a backup of the Tube Zipper or any of the pedals I own for that matter. I wouldn't want to drop the Tube Zipper, it has tubes in it.

I've no experience with Electro-Harmonix customer support.

I'm a bluesy guitar player with a fondness for psychedelic sounds. This pedal is great for what I do and inspires my playing. I believe, like other reviewers have said, that the Tube Zipper could find a niche in any genre of music.

I've played a Q-Tron and a Mini Q-Tron at the music store, and once briefly owned a Boss AW-3. The Boss was a piece of ****, and the other Electro-Harmonix pieces didn't sound as good as the Tube Zipper.

I wish it's overdrive/distortion section and it's envelope filter section were each seperately footswitchable. I like to be able to leave the filter on and turn a distortion sound on and off without bending over and twiddling knobs. This necessitates the use of another distortion device.

Overall, the Tube Zipper is a fabulous device.

With six knobs and two switches there's enough here for any technophile guitarist. I thought this would give me huge scope to create a wide variety of sounds to give different voices to songs, but it quickly became clear that minor adjustments to any one of the knobs can have a dramatic impact. This causes two problems: first, if you find a good sound you've got to find some way of recording the exact positions of the knobs on the Zipper. Second, it's going to be difficult to find a proper musical use for 90% of the noises this thing creates unless you have hours of free time, and have developed a decent method of recording the settings.

What I've done is found a pretty good sound I'm happy with, adapting this with minimal alteration of the settings between songs. I'm sure there's a whole lot more to discover with this piece of kit, but I'm not sure I'll ever have the time to do so.

The Tube Zipper offers a high quality overdrive/distortion sound that can range from a mild, tube-amp crunch to a real bumblebee-in-a-sack-type sound. The envelope filter offers sounds that range from auto-wah effects to sounds like loose elastic bands over a cardboard box. Again, getting the most out of this is going to depend on having the time to experiment with it.

Overall, the sound is great. I particularly like the ease with which feedback can be achieved.

It's worked without problem so far, although I haven't gigged with it yet. I'm pretty careful with my gear, and when it's not being used I keep the Tube Zipper in its box, in the bubble-wrap and plastic bag it came in. I would gig without a backup Zipper (I'm not buying TWO!) but I would have a spare set of tubes, just in case.

I emailed once to ask about maintaining the Tube Zipper and when the tubes should be replaced and got a friendly reply within 24 hours. That's pretty good in my experience.

I recently formed a band having been away from playing music for 17 years. We do dark indie-pop along the lines of Nick Cave and Bad Seeds, Echo and the Bunnymen, that kind of thing. As I sold a lot of my gear (everything except the guitar and amp) in the intervening period, I've had to buy new cabling, effects, etc, hence the Zipper.

I don't use much else, just a BOSS DD3 and a George Dennis GD120. This is partly to keep the complexity of my setup down, and also due to the fact that the Tube Zipper offers such wide ranging possibilities. When I want to adjust my sound between songs, I tweak the Zipper, mainly the distortion and input gain. I haven't yet used it on the trill setting or the down envelope.

If it were lost or stolen would I buy another one? I don't know. I would probably try something less complicated, to be honest.

Well, you got a total of 6 knobs and 2 switches and a decent amount of exploring to do. Sometimes with these Electro-Harmonix pedals a simple nanometer twist of a knob creates a big change. Plus the switches [envelope up/down and tron/trill] change the sound to a great degree. Plus there's two tubes and the drive knob.

The envelope filter works great, you can get any number of wah wah sounds, plus I think it does react to how hard your attack is. It's not particularly noisy. With a bit of tweaking, and add a slight delay [analog], and you can make some nice sergio leone western sounds. Also if you turn up the drive, these tubes are hot, man, it produces a niiiice distortion/fuzz, almost to a synth-like extent.

I think it's dependable, got it new with a warranty. It seems reliable, just don't damage those tubes.

Never used it...yet.[fingers crossed]

I've been playing music in general for 10 years. Right now, I play something like shoegaze, alternative, americana, experimental. I use some interesting pedals, I'm kind of selective. This thing is valuable, as an envelope filter, it's wonderful and as a fuzz, it's really great. Just wish, you could switch between the two with a foot switch. But if you mix the two, you can produce some nice sounds. Also, it could be a bit easier to use. Overall, I'd use this for a long time.

Six knobs and two switches either intimidates or excites, depending on one's point of view, but I found it to be less a learning curve than a graph representing the unique joys of guitar/sound expermentation. The manual is helpful in its way, but itself states that the Tube Zipper is designed to be experimented with, and "truly outrageous" -- not unlike a certain cartoon rock-staress we children of the 80s all know and love. The Tube Zipper is ADVENTURE. The Tube Zipper is EXCITEMENT. But I digress. The point is, there is something in this pedal for every player, every style, every genre, and unearthing those tones is half the fun. Be prepared, in mad-scientist boy-scout rocker fashoin, to write down settings you blisfully stumble upon, as this pedal is analogue to the bone. It will make you want to play guitar more, and better. That and the ability to create sounds and textures you've never heard before are what, to my mind, mark a truly great pedal.

The Tube Zipper is driven by two 12AX7 vacuum tubes. It's an envelope filter with adjustable frequency, resonace, and sensitivity, which basically means that effects can be triggered by how hard you pick. In adition, there is an input gain knob which works during the filter, a drive knob which works after it, and a master volume control. This thing would get a 10 for the mind-blowing tube distortion it produces alone (it can be used purely for distortion), but when combined with a flexible filter such as this the results are utterly unique. I play several guitars through an early-70s SG tube amp. My effects include a noisy but mean Maestro phaser built into the amp, a Boss PS-3 pitch-shifter/delay, a Boss Loop Station, DOD EQ, and, most recently, an Electro-Harmonix 16-SECOND Digital Delay. I may as well toss my Tube Screamer clone out of the proverbial space-pod escape hatch. The sustain, cascading warmth and harmonic response of the Tube Zipper's distortion is unlike anything I have ever owned or played with. The Tube Zipper seems to do somethin cool and weird to every effect thrown at it. It flirts, teases, drops funky analog-synth laser-beams of orange sunshine into the drink of, and gently but deftly finger-bangs other stompboxes, or straddles and rides them to shared bliss til the break of dawn, depending on how you turn the knobs. Four control perameters for the envelope: Up/Down and Trill/Tron. One of my favorite things to do is to crank the gain and drive, turn the resonance up until the pedal begins to self- oscillate, and then "tune" the frequency knob til it matches the pitch of or harmonizes with the feedback produced. With an E-bow and rythmic switching of the pickup selector, note sequences become pinballs in a machine whose spiraling maze of psychedelia was just too much for most hippies. If you open this thing up, i am fairly certain its circuit-board looks something like the blueprints for said machine. With the master volume control you can achieve this and other awesome feedback-driven effects at any output level. Taut vowely wahs, burbling rollercoasters, dying battery decays, my bottom end is in a space-ship attacks. I tried matching the sweep of the envelope to the sweep of my phaser and listend in awe as the buzzing noise from the phaser bagan to appregiate, and nearly ejaculated when i found i could control the pitches of the appregiation by further tweaking the resonance and frequency knobs. Endless hours of a more fun word than fun...

Just whatever you do, for God's sake, do not drop your Tube Zipper. It may be built like a tank, but it's like a tank whose engine is protected by a flimsy plastic guard-rail. It also gets real hot real quick. wish it had a little fan. Still, it works and it works WELL. Be careful.

Haven't had to deal with them, but a company is only as awesome as its product line.

I've beeen playing guitar and experimenting with effects for 13 years. As stated, the Tube Zipper encompases everything I love in an effect. It's versatile and responsive. It plays with, not against or for you. I am also a big fan of pedals that allow you to "play" them like an additional instrument. When it oscillates you can get trippy, and completely controllable. theremin-like tones. i've had this pedal 3 weeks and have only touched its ice-berg's icy icy tip. Awesome. Buy it, you crazy guitarist you.

ok, im a BASS PLAYER, so everythong i write is related for using the zipper you a BASS.

its a very hard to use unit, since (i think) it was designer for guitar. very difficutl to get a good sound AND still have the low end, but NOT IMPOSIBLE. i have it for 2 weeks now and did some experimenting..... i manage to use 3 seting in which the effect is usable with bass.

EVERY LITTLE turn may change sound dramasically, so its hard to archive the sound you already had written the setting down.... the way for succeding using the pedal is practicing with t a lot, trying and trying, and not giving up. ITS NOT A PLUG AND PLAY PEDAL!!! dont expect to buy it and that it will magically sound good.

i give it a 7 cause i can do pretty good stuff, but its VERY difficult to use.

ok, here is what i manage to do: i made a couple envelope filters wich sound pretty good, and i did a distorion that blow my head.

usint the tubes i got this distorion that is worth buyin it just for this. (the 3 upper knobs at 0, vol at 12, dist at 12, and gain and 1 or 2 oclock) youll have to adjust the frq/ress it theres something you want to correct.

you can also archive a lot of weird-psycoidelic-noyse-space sounds, but it works better with a delay or looper or anything you can thet the sounbd coming in and start tweaking knobs....

also can self-oscilate, which can be awfull..... or great depending in what you are into.....

im giving it an 8 cause the envelops aren GREAT, or at least i coulnd archive this great sound for bass.

feels pretty fragil...... and the tubes ar semi-exposed so ill try not to drop it....

its a prettety expensive unit, so having a buckupo is not for everyone..... but if i was a pro touring i wold have a buckup for sure.

im giving a 6 cause i feel like if it fall it breaks.

no opinion here.

the only time i dealt with them was to ask them who was the official distributor of EHX in argentina (cause i was travelling there to get one) and they mailed 3 days later.....

for bass id rather go for other unit if i was in the search on an envelope filter, for it sounds SO good as a distrion that im not selling it. and also as im planning some experimental tripy prject , this will fit me perfectly

After reading the rave reviews about this guy I guess I'll be the odd one.
Controls are easy, after spending some minutes with it I was able to manage them with a comfortable understanding. However to get a convincing sound was a different thing.
The manual was not technically very helpful at all. The suggested settings are a good place to start from.

It is not a noisy pedal, dead quiet true bypass,excellent there.
Now, I was not keen at all on the drive,I always use the drive feature to the max unless not required, it is very reminiscing of that of the Hot Tubes, powerful but not very agressive, with not much attack resolution, warm but uncrispy, good for rythm though, nothing I will kill for.

The controls for the envelopes are fun to play with, however I didn't find them to be very musical, the auto wah results are good if you actually will use such treatment. The theremyn like results and pitch portamentos possiblities although kind of unique are also nothing I'm impressed with.
After a while of dedicated palying and tweaking results became very predictable and uninteresting to me.

I tried it for some guitar synth shapes or resonances but frankly I achieve better results using my other gear.

I have not run into any trouble w/Electro Harmonix equipment yet. I'm a happy EH user so far.

Never dealt with.

Although I assumed it was a good bet for the type of textural work we do I didn't find a reason for this pedal, so after a couple of days of giving a opportunity to it I returned it.

I own a variety of stuff ranging from modern to real vintage stuff, my other Electro Harmonix pedals (and I LOVE them) are: Russian PI Big Muff, guitar Microsynth, Frequency Analyzer, Small Clone and a Holy Grial

Not the easiest of pedals to get to grip with but all the same the controls are very well laid out and at least its all in front of you!
Manual provides a good scope of settings for beginners

Set up, Ibanez Gsx32(Guitar) into line 6 fm4- mxr distortion+ - Electro Harmonix Double Muff - Morley Power Wah - Electro Harmonix Tube Zipper -
Laney Vc30 112 (amp) Parallel Fx Loop - Mxr Phase 100 - Boss DD20 Digital delay
Sounds absolutely beautiful!!Really warm no matter what the settings,really great trashy lo fi distortion when cranked but also really rich clean boost if needed! Filter is out of this world,does things i could never expect of a normal envelope filter!!!With the resonance on max the unit goes into self oscillation with which you can get some great sound scape noises,especially with a delay placed afterwards!This can do any genre basically,it's that versatile!

Wouldn't want to chuck it around!Feels fairly light but sturdy enough to stomp on,like most electro harmonix pedals!If I take it out it goes in the wooden box!

Only time will tell...

No regrets about buying this.Its unique and like most ehx stuff fails to sound bad!Its perfect for my brand of space rock!Compared to the mu-tron model on my line 6 fm4 this wins hands down for warmth, if you're interested in the line 6 its worth it for the synths but thats about it,the filters are not a patch on this.

At first, you pretty much have no idea of how to use it. This is brutally analog, haha.
However, I recommend you follow the example settins on the blue "manual" (A4 folded in half, haha)
Once you know what each dial and switch does, it's plain sailing after that :-)

In a word: Immense!
There's nothing like it!
As well as being an autowah, it acts like a synth line, with sounds that Zappa and Fripp would be proud of.
It can also act as a tube distortion box too. Turn off all the goofiness (the top three dials then, haha), go onto your amps clean channel (gets way too muddy in lead channel, especially with tube amps) and it nearly rivals the Big Muff and the Hot Tubes for distortion quality.
I personally use it for a synthy type dive, makes it sound like a toy gun...... or an audio-nuke as my friend calls it.

My first one had broke in the post: long story short, the (gas filled) tubes had exploded on the courier plane, so that meant knackered tubes..... and one knackered volume dial.
No problem, Hot Rox UK did a straight swap for me. This one's good. Really good. :-)
I have a Graphic Fuzz pedal too, and nothin has gone wrong with that. so it's safe to say the "dodgy" EH of old has gone.

Swapped my first one no quibbles..... wasn't really their fault either!

I wanted this pedal for my ever growing "bizarre effect" section. It's great! I can't wait to get a Line6 FM4 to complement it, or an EH Micro Synth!
Works well with delay, flanger and tremolo too..... and with a fuzz boostin after it :-)

6 spots- alot to do and to find out
it takes some time.....alot of sounds are possible

best pedal i ever owned!! it cost's much but with time you'll see that there is nothing to compare with it!!!
i run it trough a 68 tele pink paisley-ibanez ts808-tech 21 sans amp classic-ehx tube zipper-ehx polychorus-boss bf3-marshall tsl 122.
i play indie, punk, experimental and with the tube zipper i'm ready to die. distortin is very dirty(i like it) and perfect for velvet underground, stooges style. but the filter is the heart of this stompbox!!if you like something NEW, buy it....you'll be surprised.
i have nothing more to say

metal box. have it for half a year and no problems.
i NEVER use backups...

never contacted them

with electro harmonix you can do nothing falsh!
it takes time to get in the spots but then you'll make big eyes (ears). i had a lot of fx in the past and most of it i sold but with my current setup i'm as happy as i can be
BUY IT (if you have the money)