Love the old Mistresses. If I had guessed when I was young that by 2024 pedal culture would go all micro, I would have bought and kept every big box EHX pedal they ever made. Give me all the giant pedals. ALL of them. Now.
I own an original V1 UK spec (with the captive mains lead) one of these. Very noisy, but the most glorious sounding flanger ever! My bassist friend owns an original EHX Bass Balls.
I owned one of these in the early 80’s. Had a ridiculously thick power cord, and was a beast. But, damn, was it inspiring. The filters were great, the flanger was so clean
Serendipity! I just took possession of a 1980 Electric Mistress. I am pleased as punch that it functions at all, and with surprisingly low noise for its age. But I would say it has a bit more noise than your Deluxe does. The jet noise gets pretty whistle-y when the color is turned up, but I still love it. Great video! ✌️😌🎸
Nice, glad to hear you're on team Old Electric Mistress. I bet a recap would solve at least some of that noise, although having a transformer in there right next to the board can't be that great for noise. Either way, that's rad and I'm glad you're keeping one of the survivors safe!!
I had one of these and loved it. Had to sell it to cover rent years back. I remember trying the newer versions and they sound great, but definitely not the same in a way I couldn't really place.
Ah yes, the video I've been waiting for! I have both the smaller XO and the big box v5 - same as yours in the video. The v5 has that "other territory" you mentioned - that ghostly, 3-dimensional character that makes the Electric Mistress such a legendary flanger - that the XO just doesn't capture. The XO is a great pedal in its own right, however. It's cheaper, has a lower noise floor, and its 9v power and smaller footprint make it much more pedalboard-friendly than the 24v big boxes. Both pedals are *similar enough* that you could get away with swapping one or the other in a live setting. Oh, and regarding the EHX Reddit comment: while the XO is the successor of the v5, certain things have definitely changed along the way. My XO is a Revision C, which utilizes a 5-trimpot circuit layout and features an Xvive chip, as opposed to the 4-trimpot layout and Reticon chip of the v5. I've played with the trimpots on both. The XO is 1) much louder and factory-set to self-oscillate where the v5 does not, and 2) can go much lower in Range than the v5. In fact, the v5 at its lowest Range trimpot setting is STILL higher than the XO's stock Range trimpot setting! I calibrated my XO to match my v5 and turning the Range to a higher frequency eliminated the annoying squeal you get when you max out the Range in Filter Matrix mode. Funny enough, I tried to recreate this on the v5 and it just increases the pedal's noise floor, but doesn't squeal.
I have a lot of Flangers, including pretty much all of the holy grails, but the Electric Mistress is the flangiest flanger ever. It can do things that any other flanger does but it does things that no other flanger does. That Andy Summers "chorus" setting you use to start your video is my favorite. I have a red/blue V1, a green/black V2, a vintage Deluxe and a 200s Deluxe. All are magic.
LOVE your videos. Honestly if it was ALL boss and ehx I don't think anyone would complain. Congratulations on more gigs and day job success. Also if it was just flanger reviews I wouldn't be mad lol
I was saying to myself during the first half of this video, "I sure hope he shows us what's inside the box that makes it so big!" So, thank you for doing that. The sound on bass is killer. Keep up the great work!
Long comment but stick around to the end and it will be worth it. Around the same time that EHX produced this pedal, they also produced something called the "Hot Foot". Housed in one of those huge foot-treadle things EHX used for wahs and such, it provided for *physical* expression control, at a time when electronic expression control was comparatively rare. Using a flexible shaft, similar to a bicycle brake cable, connected to the shaft of a pot in the pedal, you'd remove the control knob and attach the free end of the cable to the shaft of a pot on whatever pedal you wanted to control. Move the foot treadle forward and back, and you physically rotate the pot on the 2nd pedal. It had two major shortcomings (I know because I owned one). First, there was SO much torque that unless the pedal you wanted to control was very large, or was secured in some fashion, the Hot Foot cable could easily flip it over. Second, the free end of the flexible shaft was kinda big, such that you needed enough space between pots to attach it. Believe it or not, I used it to control the volume on my Univox Uni-Comp compressor to push my amp into overdrive. But that's another story. The "killer apps" for the Hot Foot involved a pair of time-based EHX pedals. First, as many know, if you rapidly change the delay time of an analog delay pedal, such that something gets sampled *out* at a different rate than it got sampled *in* at, you change the pitch. Twenty years before the Digitech Whammy, that's how we did it. You plug into a Memory Man and quickly rotate the Delay knob with the Hot Foot to either bend the pitch *up* (by setting the longest delay time and quickly reducing it with the Hot Foot) or *down* (quickly go from shortest to longest delay, using your foot). The other killer app was to connect the Hot Foot to the Color control on an Electric MIstress, with the switch on Filter Matrix. Many people treat this as simply a static comb filter. BUT...using a Hot Foot pedal, you could achieve manual flanging, similar to the Tychobrahe and Mu-Tron Pedal Flanger, and insert sweeps of the form you wanted, during the guitar phrase you wanted. It may have even permitted a *wider* sweep. Given both the size/weight of these two effect pedals in their bent-steel enclosures, and the spacing of the controls, the two drawbacks of the Hot Foot, noted earlier, posed no problem whatsoever. Indeed, my gut sense, in the complete absence of any other evidence, is that these two "killer apps" probably guided the development of the Hot Foot, and did not encourage them to consider any usability issues with other manufacturer's products. Several decades after the Hot Foot disappeared, the Tone in Progress company made the Third Hand, which was a more compact, and less problematic, foot controller. It also used a flexible shaft, but the manner in which it was implemented side-stepped the pedal-flipping problem, and the manner of securing the free end of the shaft also allowed it to be used with things like Boss pedals, whose controls were too close together for the Hot Foot. I suppose as more and more manufacturers began to include expression-pedal jacks in their products, the need for something like the Hot Foot and Third Hand disappeared, with neither of those units in production. I do miss my Hot Foot, though.
I remember the Hot Foot, but I only knew of the concept of it having only ever seen one in a mail order catalog way back in the day. Thanks for clarifying my cloudy remembrances!
Thanks for this! I have a faint memory of the Hot Foot, in my mind it was just a prototype or concept pedal or something. That's pretty amazing, being your own LFO.
I had the same version. It works with 24V. Very important modulation pedal model with each version at the rock history. Nice to see you pay attention. I wish you used also after Big Muff.
Great video Man! My thoughts about the comparison are: - if one want a slice of THAT vintage sound (without kill your credit card in the real vintage ultranoisy realm)... well... the BIG BOX is a MUST! In a modern setup one can compensate the drop in volume in many ways. - the small box well... is a "kind of"... that so many modern multifx/modeler can do... but it stay more in the background The BIG BOX say: HEY... I'M THA FLANGER!!!
Size or layout or color or even feel of the materials all can have a profound effect on how we approach the pedal. You have to admit this effect exists with cars, people, even fireworks, gotta be same for pedal. In the words of Taco, "it's a law, like water, or dinosaurs"
The quality of your videos never fails. Always top-notch! I suppose I'm something of an EHX fan so everytime you do an EHX pedal there's an extra bit of excitement. But all pedals are good. This video reminds me though, must get a decent flanger!
Thanks so much. I have to admit that I haven't been the biggest fan of EHX when it comes to some of their newer pedals, but I do always admire a company willing to put something out there, at a grand scale, which may or may not find a loyal audience. They're a big "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" kind of company, and some of their pedals only stuck once they weren't available any more. My all-time favorite flangers are the MXRs. The Micro Flanger is always good on bass, and works pretty well on guitar, but when I need a no-doubts-about-it flanger sound for a song, the EVH117 is my go-to. Supposedly the same as the regular big-box MXR117 but with a preset on it (and the paint job) it's just so deliciously thick.
@StompboxBreakdown Thanks, you've given me some serious ideas for my flanging adventure. A cheap one that I've considered is the Fender Hammertone flanger, although saving the pennies for something grander is also an option.
This one pedal has that 70's vibe so strong that I can recognize it among others...I have a harder time with the Mxr m117 and even more with Boss or Ibanez flangers. It's got so much personality that is in the same league as the Phase90.
Makes me nostalgic for the early 00s, before XO. It does sound fantastic, and it is noisy…par for the course with EHX sometimes. I’m not necessarily interested in side by sides, but it would be cool to see your take on some of the PastFX offerings.
Agreed sounds great and I own some decenf Flangers I do like this one and represented If you can get your hands on a MXR 126 Flanger/Doubler take that for a test drive I have one if you want try take it for a spin
Man I REALLY wish you wouldn’t have don’t this video. This is my favorite flanger ever and after about 18 years sold it. Swore I never. I’ve owned every iteration of the original green Electric Mistress but have always preferred the big box Deluxe. I’ve even owned the boutique Mistress clones but nothing beats this. Instant Gilmour. I used to set everything around 9 and let her go unless I wanted a faux Leslie. I thought the mooer elady would scratch my itch but it doesn’t. It’s close…but no. How does this one compare to the new DEM and stereo mistress? Can you get the big box tones from the new small box DEM?
Would like to see the difference in schematics, my intuition is that the big model just have better filters that emphasis some frequency and attenuate others.
I have a V5 reissue big box Deluxe Electric Mistress and it sounds great! But it also causes a few issues so i mainly keep it as collector's piece, on the board i use stuff like the Elastic Mattress. Also tried the new EHX Walking On The Moon flanger and it has not only the same sound but also the same volume drop like the vintage ones, so they did a great job not changing anything it's literally the same trouble.
@@lovecraftmusic8717 My V5 is a bit noisier than "modern" pedals but not as terrible as some of the really old versions. My main troubles with the pedal are the volume drop and currently a slack joint which i should get fixed. Also it's a bit odd on the board because i want my board small and practical. That "Big Box" is kinda too big, needs a special power supply, the printing goes off easily and i have no status-LED mod.
@@Leychen that's why it only gets used when I record...it's a bit too incovenient for these days; on my board I have an Ibanez FL9/FLL or a micro flanger by Mxr.
I know you're just kind of kidding but I'm interested in if big pedals, for any specific effect (but mostly fuzz, 'cause I have the micro muff) really do serve a purpose for tone, or if modern technology has made them obsolete, and there is no difference. Thanks.
My friend is a bass player. He’s always worried about busting a pedal with bass frequencies. How about a vid explaining which effects cannot take bass levels.
I got the new walking on the moon version sounds just like the little green mistress and is probably my favorite flanger I dunno the eqd pyramids is pretty good
I swear I’ve seen a SolidGoldFx pedal on your wall at a point. I’d love and recommend a demo of their Oblivion (Quad Flanger) or Nu33 (Chorus/Vinyl) if you have time.
