Soul Food : Solid performer but not perfect

I chose to purchase the Soul Food pedal over other overdrives having listened to many online samples and reviews. I was particularly interested in this pedal for it's transparancy and solid clean boost sound with a crunch tone for lead. I'm not a heavy metal player so high gain overdrive was not a priority for me. Overall I was not disappointed with the sound. It gives a very nice fat crunch with nice sustain over lead riffs when needed, without interfering too much with my guitars tone. I play an Amercan standard strat with fat 50's pickups through a clean channel on a quilter 101 mini head. The pedal has enough tone control to roll back the highs when using the bridge pickup and tame the higher notes. The sound is warm and dynamic with a nice blend of harmonic overtones. As a clean boost it also works very well which makes it versatile in use if you are using a seperate pedal for distorsion on your board.

I have two negatives to add to this review based on my sample. One of these issues may be just a sample variation but it does point to poor quality control which is dissapointing. At first it was impossible to fit the battery. The PCB board inside is so close to the void where the battery is fitted that it was impossible to close the back with a battery inserted. It took numerous attempts to get the battery in and after approx 30 minutes and carefully routing the battery cable with a small screw driver I finally got the back to close! If you are a player that likes to use pedals on batteries then this could be a potential issue for you. I would not like to do this on a dark stage before a gig!

The footswitch button is also quite stiff and requires quite a lot of pressure to engage. It also makes a loud audible click when pressed and sometimes (not always) makes a pop through the amp when engaged! It's a shame EHX didn't use a quiter switch.

Since I now use a board with seperate power supply the battery issue is not a deal breaker for me. I'm getting more used to the switch with futher use. Overall I like the tone that this pedal can produce and enjoy using it with a little reverb added for lead tones. It will remain on my pedal board for now! The battery issue may well be a sample issue on my copy as I have not seen this mentioned on other reviews.