Electro Harmonix is the brainchild of Brooklyn resident Mike Matthews. Since its inception in the 1968, started with a bank loan of $5000 and $1000 of Matthews own money, the NYC based company has since passed into music folklore. Its pedals have graced countless classic cuts, the list of EH users literally reads like a who's who of rock and roll and thousands of pedal spods worldwide continue to frantically and endlessly scour the globe for old and rare EH units.
The pedal that broke EH bigtime was ofcourse the Big Muff Pi distortion/sustainer. Believe it or not, the Muff was actually a mistake - Matthews and co were attemping to build a distortion free sustainer but what came about was a soft clipping distortion circuit with massive amounts of sustain. The Muff was born and was unleashed upon the world at the tail end of the 1960's. It immediately, and not suprisingly, found favour with rock guitarists - even the man himself Jimi Hendrix is rumoured to have dabbled with a Big Muff, and although I've never seen any footage or photos to prove this, it is very possible. Hendrix though would never live to see the seemingly endless stream of quirky and generic pedals that flowed out of Matthews NYC factory in the mid 70's - Imagine if Hendrix had've gotten his hands on some of those later creations.....just imagine!
The Big Muff though lives on today and has appeared in many incarnations. Today it is reissued in yet another guise - a replica of the 3rd issue Big Muff that has the same graphics as the Deluxe Big Muff pictured above. Incidentally the Deluxe Muff featured a built in compression circuit. 
There were other EH effects before the BigMuff hit the world stage though - the impossibly rare AXIS fuzz, aswell as the little plug in tone boosters like the Screaming Bird and Mole Bass boost. Now with the world crying out for new guitar tones to keep the explorative spirit alive, over the next ten years, Matthews and his company set about creating some of the most mind bendingly strange and brilliant effects pedals of alltime. 
The sound of the seventies was phasing - Funk bands loved its swirlyness - ideal for getting the groove going, Concept rock bands like YES used it for creating lush and ethereal landscapes and reggae players dug its chilled out and soft, almost vocal, quality - the opposite to the harsh jet engine wooshes of flangers.
The Electro Harmonix company produced a number of phasers in its original incarnation. The Small Stone is/was the most popular and during the mid 70's the company struggled to keep up with the demand - Incredible when you think that 6,000 to 8,000 phasers a month were being produced! The Small Stone was not the only phaser EH ever made though - a strong supporting cast includes the Bad Stone phaser that came in two knob, three knob and rare Mummy Head versions and at the turn of the decade the Poly Phase appeared aswell. The Small Stone appeared in three incarnations - the 1st issue had thin wiry red lettering, the second (my personal favourite) had funky orange lettering and black paint around the footswitch and the 3rd version was the EH4800 model - this has been reissued by EH now and uses black and dark orange paint with squared white lettering. 
For guitarists who wanted something a little different to the norm, EH was always on hand to help out. The incredible range of new sounds covered by the flock of pedals produced from 1970 - 1985 remains unsurpassed today. Literally any sound you can imagine (and some you can't) was possible with a few EH pedals at your feet. From basic staple sounds like Chorus Vibrato and flanging - provided by the Clone Theory, Small Clone, Electric Mistress and Poly Chorus, Delay - courtesy of the Memory Man and later the digital Sixteen second delay and distortion/overdrive by way of the Hot Tubes, Muff fuzz and Graphic Fuzz to spaced out, groundbreaking and sometimes hilarious sounding pedals like the Talking pedal - a sort of Yah Yah foot controllable pedal, the Queen Triggered wah, the Y-triggered filter, the Golden Throat talk box, the Zipper, the Frequency Ananlyzer Ring Modulator, the Bass balls auto talk box, the Octave Multiplexer, the Doctor Q Envelope follower, the Attack Decay Reverse simulator, the Random Tone Generator, the Micro synthesizer and tons more, it seemed like EH had it covered. 
Those sort of things were too much for some, but if weirdness wasn't your cup of tea, then EH could always offer up something a little more conventional. Their range of compression and booster pedals was comprehensive - Disposing of the mini plug in devices of the late 60s, these effects now came in the familiar silver boxes like the rest of their big selling brothers. The Screaming Bird treble booster, Hogs Foot Bass booster, Linear Power Boosters 1+2, Silencer Noise gate, Full Double tracking pedal plus the Black Finger, Soul Preacher and Low Frequency Compressors, not to mention non-effect type units such as the Switch Blade line selector, Junction box and Mini Mixer, all enabled the more restrained guitarist to partake in the Electro Harmonix experience. 
EH didn't just produce effects pedals. The Dirt Road amplifier with built in Small Stone was a huge success. Novelty items such as the Domino Theory (a tube with lights inside that danced about) and 3 Phase liner are still fetching good prices today as EH afficianados look to amass every bit of memorabillia they can find. The company also produced percussion units such as the Space drum, Clap Track, Crash Pad, Panic Button and Sonic Boom aswell as the Digital Rhythm Matrix not to mention various samplers, vocoders and synthesizers in both rack and pedal case form. 
On top of this, other accessories like EH guitar leads, batterys, an acoustic guitar(!), stickers, a calander in 1977 and even an LP by Mike Matthews and his work band demonstrating his 'state of the art electronic devices' were made available to the adoring public. EH was making millions of dollars in profits each year but disaster was only around the corner. 
With EH at the peak of its powers, becoming one of the first American companies to be activly operating in the USSR and with worldwide demand for their products, the company folded in 1985.
Matthews took five years off before ressurecting his career in Russia with the Sovteck company. In 1990 his first new creation emerged - the Soul Kiss envelope filter. A strange and violent sounding device that featured a tube like a talkbox ,it could be triggered by the mouth or any other moving part of the body. 
The Red Army Overdrive came next - with its triangular layout of the 3 knobs and its big clunky design, it bared more than a passing resemblence to a certain distortion pedal that had made Matthews a rich rich man.
Before long the Big Muff was reissued by Sovteck. It was built like a tank and was coloured like one too with its military green paint job. Early models of the Muff were susceptable to breaking rather easily though, with poor soldering and shoddy parts. However, once sorted, the Muffs popularity was rekindled and before long finances allowed Matthews and his team to reissue the Small Stone phaser and the Bass Balls twin dynamic filter. 
As guitarists all over the world caught the bug all over again, and some discovered EH for the first time, the company began to slowly but surely establish itself as one of the big boys again. Finally with enough money at his disposal, Matthews moved some production back too New York. Faithfull reissues of the Memory Man, Electric Mistress and Poly Chorus, all built in the USA, became best sellers and the wheels were turning at a lick. New reissues and even newly created pedals appeared steadily until EH had a catalogue of well built, attractive and great sounding pedals again. 
The trio of Russian built pedals underwent another make over as the company disposed of the army green paint and opted instead for black cases, colourfull graphics and different switches and knobs. For me these pedals were a dissapointment and the build quality was certainly not as good as the green pedals. The sounds were still good though and needless to say they sold by the boatload.
By 1999 with more reissues appearing like the popular Micro Synthesizer, Small Clone Chorus and Bass Synthesizer, EH were truly back on the top of the pile. A year later and Matthews gave the people what they had longed for - Authentic looking, US built versions of the Big muff, Small Stone and Bass Balls. 
The 'Made in NYC' pedals were an instant hit and before long more pedals followed. In the last month alone EH released a new creation - the Holy Grail digital Reverb stompbox aswell as reissues of the Graphic Fuzz and Mini Mixer and only today I found out they have released another newy - The Worm! A Phaser/Modulated wah/Tremelo and Vibrato all rolled into one - see the pic!!!!!
The company is back where it belongs and we can only wait to see what they decide to treat us all to next.
As somebody once said - Electro Harmonix - Stoned, Cloned but never Dethroned. 
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