Electro Harmonix East River Drive Reviews

Love this pedal

It provides just a classic overdrive sound. Looks very good and quality is awesome.

perfect od/boost pedal

I wanted a tubescreamer like pedal and this one is hard to beat for the price, the knobs are responsive and still usable in extreme settings. great headroom and plenty gain.

great for bluesy drive on a clean channel or for tightening up an already dirty amp!

The EHX Tube Screamer

If you’re looking for a non-expensive TS, this is probably the one. Good sound, easy to use, well built. Typical EHX approach, they take an old circuit and upgrade it into a modern device. Value for money, one of the best Tube Screamers out there. If you want something premium, check the Walrus Ages, otherwise this will not disappoint you.

Very nice overdrive.

Nice, tasty tone. Bought this as my first pedal and love it. But if you are looking for a high gain pedal this is not it.

very nice pedal compared to the price. it's like a more modern clone of the ts. Easy to use. Every button is where it should be. and of course made in nyc ..

Amazing TS clone!

I bought this pedal because I read so many great reviews about it and boy were they right! First, I've owned a TS and the Harley Benton Vintage overdrive as an affordable comparison. The HB pedal was very nice as well but I am a huge fan of Electro Harmonix so I wanted to try the East River Drive for myself.

The overdrive is very transparent and sounds amazing with my VHT Classic 6. The drive boosts the tubes nicely and can give you that classic rock / blues sound you are looking for. The pedal also cleans up nicely with a roll back of your volume pot.

All in all, this is an amazing TS clone for a nicer price. Sounds great and it's built like a tank, what more can you ask for?

Great price for a great sound

I have always loved the sound of the original tube screamer unfortunately they are very expensive so I bought the East River Drive and I wasn't disappointed.

Pros:

- It has a wide range of tone for an OD pedal, you can easily get a subtle clean boost or a dirtier distortion sound. Very versatile.

- Great tube screamer clone for the price.

- It works well when stacked with other overdrive pedals.

- Pedalboard friendly.

Cons:

- You wont get a fully transparent drive with this pedal

- As all of EHX pedals the switch is a bit noisy, when you press it you'll hear an hard clicking noise.

versatile and useable Overdrive TS style

I bought this to warm up my cleans and drive pedals and amp harder when needed.

As the TS inspiration suggests, it does this job very very well.

A bargain when you look at just about any other TS clone, and this one is designed by someone who is a guru when it comes to modding them so its a great example of this classic pedal.

if you need a TS or similar, give this a shot...total bargain very nice looks too.

This is one of the best pedals i have used infront of amp drive or other drive pedals, very very god, really blends great

i really like the newer EHX range i have this, OD glove and a Hot Tubes, all great at what they do, and all a fraction of the price of what they are based on, and just as good (although Hot Tubes is a reissue)

Awesome

This is an amazing OD tubescreamer, i use it as a clean boost and makes my tube amp really sing. i can't be happier.

Oh... and price was 50 Euros.

Excellent TC clone

I wanted a tubescreamer type pedal to use as a boost for a valve amp to get some additional gain from my amp.

So far I have used it with the gain at minimum and level at maximum. Then I can use the tone to either keep a similar sound to the bypass (this seems to be about 10 o'clock) or make it a bit more trebly for solos.

My amp is single channel (Hayden Mofo 30W) and I didn't want to use a distortion or OD pedal to get clean/distorted sounds.

So I have the amp set at a mild crunch setting which I can clean up with guitar volume. Then when I kick in the ERD with gain at zero it produces a great classic rock tone. So I get a 2 channel amp from this pedal.

The gain sounds from the pedal sound pretty authentic, but I'm not planning on using it this way much.

I'd prefer if it was easier to change the battery (you have to open up the whole case), but no big deal.

In summary, a very good value tubescreamer clone with nice stylings and a very solid build.

nice tone nice price

a quality ts style pedal for under £40 yes please.

what you get is great warm sounding green overdrive that can function as a nice clean boost with the drive low to a moderate to heavy crunch with the drive maxed.

lead lines sound great and you can dial in some real nice rhythm tones.

the only small gripe i have ( and it is a small gripe) is the foot switch has a real clunk and you need to press pretty hard i would have preferred a smoother feeling switch. the clunk isn't audible through my amp and for this little money its not a problem. however the rest of unit feels really well built

great product very happy.

I didn't like it at all...

Noisy and not so an 808 style (to my ears at least)...

Great TS Style Overdrive

So this is the first Pedal built by Electro Harmonix like the famous green overdrives by a well known japanese company. I was looking for a Ts-808 Style Overdrive for quiet a while but did not find a really good sounding OD that sounds the way the old ones sound and respond.

The EHX East River Drive does also not sound like an vintage tubescreamer and first I was really disappointed and thoughr about sending it back. But then i tried the east river driver in front of my very good sounding Rockbox Boilingpoint. And in that combination the east river drive gives my sound the boost I was looking for. The great thing about this pedal is, that it adds this mids to the sound that cuts through the whole bandmix.

In my opinion the east river drive is absolutely great when you are looking for a boostpedal that colourises your overdriven sound and gives you this SRV Sound. It is also great for clean sounds when you look for that midboost for a little bit of flavour.

I do not recommend it if you are looking for a standalone overdrive for crunshsounds because it does not sound open and fresh.

Another solid product

The East River Drive is a great unit. The drive it adds is quite subtle, suitable for use in bluesy rock but cannot deliver highly saturated and distorted tones. It is very responsive to velocity, so if you dial it in right you can have a clean tone which begins to drive if you hit it just a bit harder, very useful for moody solos.

Has the usual EHX build quality in sturdy metal box, very small as well. Three knobs provide all the shaping required.

On the downside there is very little variety of tones available, so would have to be alongside a selection of other pedals in a versatile rig. However since the mini EHX range is competitively priced you can have a few set up together. Also the tone knob doesn't really provide enough variation so would recommend having an equaliser alongside.

On an entirely frivolous note, I love the graphic on the front! Really atmospheric.