Electro Harmonix Freeze Sound Retainer Reviews

Great for expanding crativity or just practicing over a chord

As a bass player who tries to explore different textures and ambients i find this pedal a great acquisition. Beeing in a instrumental rock/prog trio, It allows me to easily add another layer of textures and play over it, engaging and disengaging the effect whenever its needed. Also a great tool to practive scales or exploring melodies over chords.

Does a cool thing

Using this as a dirty sustain pedal for my honer, old honers don't have a sustain pedal. It gets the job done in a kind of trippy way.

DO NOT BUY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE!

This pedal, and all my other Electro Harmonics pedals all died. None of my other pedals did. This entire company is to be avoided at all costs. Worst build quality ever!

excellent

EHX a désormais mis un switch souple et silencieux qui change tout en comparaison de l'ancienne version que j'avais testée.

Great pedal, for what it is

The only thing it's missing is a softer release, a dynamic sustain pedal.

Great pedal

perfect pedal. Only if they manufacture it with silent switch

Great pedal

Nice idea for a sort of sustain pedal. You have to learn to use it to avoid some sort of "glitch"/"latency" if you don't synchronize to the millisecond your foot and your hand (no big deal, you only have to get used to it). Yet, you still can use that strange sound in some manner (Bill Frisell loves it).

I have to say that the switch is a bit noisey and can be a little annoying in silent environments (studio work while tracking isolated parts).

I also have to mention the fact that the switch failed on me (I never abused it, of course), it broke and I had to bring it to a repairman to replace it.

Again: great pedal indeed

Life-Changer

This pedal is simply amazing. I bought it after listening to some of my favorite guitarists use it live. As simple as its concept seems, it opened a new road for me to travel in - the possibilities of tone over tone, chords over chords that this device permits are never ending for me. It went from being an experiment to an essential pedal in the blink of an eye.

Pros: Built to last, simple yet unlike any other pedal i ever tried

Cons: None

Fun little pedal

It does exactly what it sets out to do... Fun pedal to have. Try putting it in front of a pitch shifter in your chain and play it like a synth with the pitch shifting knob of the pitch shifter. Entertaining and useful for some out there experimentation when you are recording.

Where have you been all my life?

This pedal is great. It does one thing - sustain a sound - and just that is enough to open up a wealth of possibilities and solutions. I started using it in the on-off position but have taken to using Latch mode. In this mode it functions like a sustain pedal on a piano. It adds a little compression, too, so the sustained sound swells just a little - this gives the pedal a distinctive sound. I really love it.

Great pedal to try out and explore.

Great but watch out for the sound changing

Excellent idea and excellent pedal, but be careful that the sound tends to alternate between louder and softer over the course of about 20 second intervals. I assume this is to do with the way the effect manipulates the sound, but it causes to sound to change slightly over time...

Does the job

Pros:

- function

- build quality

Cons:

- loud footswitch

Not much to say here; the Freeze does one thing and it does it well. Use it in the intended way to augment your music, or try and use it the wrong way to create some interesting noises. The three modes are useful and build quality is solid as usual from EHX.

One thing to note if you are not familiar with it is that it has the noisy clicky EHX footswitch. When playing something quiet or solo (which the pedal is great for), the switch noise is pretty loud. The switch is easy to replace though.

so-so

The intention is good, however it's hard to get a balanced sustain. Volume increases and some latency make it hard to use.

Nice pedal, change the switch

Everything about this pedal is great, sound, controls, artwork except for that horrible clicking noise. If you want this pedal, do yourself a favor and buy a silent switch.

Cheapest way to sustain chords and notes - works very well.

Depending on your creativity this pedal could well become indispensable. I bought it to sustain mainly notes on bass while playing higher things up the neck. In reality I found it hard to implement in my set up, so have only kept it for practising over 'drones'. Even then, I haven't really explored its possibilities. The switch is definitely worth upgrading to a silent 'push to make' type, otherwise the constant clicking will drive you insane. It takes a bit of practise to learn when to press the switch after sounding notes / chords smoothly. So, while for me this hasn't really been a great purchase, for ambient music and creative types I can see its potential.

Excellent pedal

Excellent pedal for what it is. Good construction and sound. Great for creating atmosphere.

the freeze pedal has great sound, and arrived without issue. I'm very satisfied with my purchase. the only negative about the pedal is that the button to engage the effect is quite noisy, to the point of being disruptive in intimate settings. other than that great quality

Nice and unique effect

This effect is very unique in kind what it does. I was using it extensively with my bass to produce all kinds of psychedelic sounds (just put phaser after it). However, I have only one complaint - in latch mode you have to stomp on it twice to turn da freeze off. I can understand, why it is done this way, however, sometimes it might be a problem - especially on stage.

It sustains any note or chord forever

You can play over the sustained notes creating beautifull harmonies