Electro-Harmonix has collaborated with plug-in maker MixWaves to bring four signature pedals to plug-in form. Big Muff, Memory Man, Electric Mistress, and Small Clone are now coming to your DAW, not just your pedalboard, individually or as a bundle.
Shipping, storage, tariffs… plug-ins have some advantages. So the march of hardware into software continues. Six pedals get plug-in treatment here. (I do mean six — I’m not gaslighting you when there are only four. Big Muff Pi Fuzz models three different pedals in one plug-in.)
Here’s what’s on offer:
Big Muff Pi Fuzz: Big Muff Pi, Ram’s Head Big Muff, and Russian Big Head fuzz pedals.
Deluxe Memory Man Analog Delay: BBD analog delay that’s also a chorus, vibrato, and texture maker.
Electric Mistress Flanger/Filter Matrix: Full-blown modulator.
Small Clone Chorus: it’s a chorus, but it also shimmers.
You’ll see each has dedicated highpass and lowpass filters and gain for input and output, plus independent input and output knobs with their own signal display. And they really perfectly emulate the hardware, with the occasional extra like tepmo sync.
Best of all, these are not at all expensive — $39 a pop, or $109 for the bundle in the intro sale. I haven’t tested them yet, so I’m not recommending them, but I’m excited to see how they are — and Electro-Harmonix is a great independent company, so I absolutely welcome them to the fold.
Correction: the image shows mono, but these all support stereo processing — even though there isn’t explicitly the Stereo Memory Man modeled! So they process a mono signal if you give them a mono signal, but — perfect for a plug-in — stereo processing for stereo inputs.
This looks like a perfect addition to Roland, Universal Audio, Softube, and other software effects models of vintage gear. Already testing the Memory Man and… gosh, it’s beautiful.
The Big Muff, in all three variations, is easily one of the best software distortions I’ve ever heard.
64-bit VST3 / AU / AAX, macOS Intel/Apple Silicon 10.13+, Windows 10+.
iLok 2/3, iLok Cloud & Machine authentication. (Maybe also bad news for some of you, but I’m running a ton of iLok Cloud-authorized stuff on my machine, to be honest.)
A 14-day free trial is available.
Electro-Harmonix EHX Classic Bundle
Here’s their launch video, and the guitar I guess is part of your hint that they would be mono only (but they do sound like the originals, judging from these demos):
Why “Russian”? That’s a reference to Sovtek. Mike Matthews of Electro-Harmonix (and New Sensor Corporation) started working with valve producers in the central Russian Federation city of Saratov in the early 90s, and variants of Big Muff were for a time produced entirely in Russia. The pedals themselves were made in St. Petersburg, but it’s a rare case of a US producer in Russia, rather than a US importer, and EHX has long since moved all production back to NYC. Actually, wait, I shouldn’t tell you this story — Mike should. (There’s a longer version of the story that talks about some of what was frought about that collaboration, but I couldn’t find it just yet.)
Anyway, they really need to do a collaboration with Ukrainian pedal maker Drunk Beaver! (And maybe we can try again for production inside Ukraine.)