Electro Harmonix C9 Organ Machine

This little box claims to turn your guitar into something else...one of ten classic organs. Before I made this purchase I watched all of the demos that are available on line. As a result of watching these demos I was pretty confident that it was going to deliver in terms of sound and functionality. Did the little box match my expectations? Here is a breakdown of my findings.

Construction: I own many Boss pedals but have never owned an Electro Harmonix pedal. The construction of the Electro Harmonix pedal looks good in photographs, but it's not as solid as I expected. The build is quite good (a metal casing) however, I don't think that it is as sturdy as the boss range of pedals, it is lighter than it looks. There is no battery option either. It has to be mains powered. 8/10.

Playability: It's easy to use the controls on this pedal. Really easy. The sounds are all pretty impressive. However, the tracking isn't always spot on (it's accuracy seems to depend on the speed at which you are playing and what you are playing, or trying to play!). 9/10.

Conclusion: It's potentially a really useful pedal. The sounds are very good - but in use the pedal takes some getting used to. To get the best out of this pedal you will have to experiment and adapt your playing a little. Also, be realistic in your expectations. The guitarists in most the online demos are pretty good and show the pedal at it's best. My playing is probably quite a bit above average but sadly I couldn't make it sound as good as what I'd seen on most online demos. It's still worth keeping this pedal though as it's such a unique stomp box. 9/10.

Thomann Service: 10/10.

The pedal is good, the tracking of the guitar signal is excellent, but you need to adopt a very straight and clean picking style - no bends or vibratos and I recommend a compressor ahead of this pedal to clean and sharpen the guitar signal. That said - this is a great addition to my 3 piece band. I use a A/B-Y pedal to select signal path and either send the guitar signal to the guitar amp or output the C9 directly to the PA desk. One thing I DON'T like is the lack of dynamic control on the vibrato. I can't hold a chord and bend down to speed up the "leslie" effect and I can't keep my balance for one of these "horn" type of replacement knobs. EH should really incorporate an expression pedal jack for this. I also seem to have "lost" the Clavioline sound. Some way of reloading factory presets would be very nice. My apologies for not writing this in Spanish, no sabe los palabras tecnicos.

Delivered quickly, looks good, sturdy. Easy to 'dial in' a sound. I use it for thickening my acoustic guitar sound for worship music. I wouldn't reccomend to use as a substitute for a keyboard player but as a 'modulation' and 'fattening' the sound it's superb. Dry on full and just mix in a little bit of organ or shimmer and you're away. Only downside for UK user is the 2 pin crap PSU, although it doesn come with an adpater. Other thing, I've got no idea at all wht EHX use a 9.6v PSU instead of a 9v one - no one on planet earth seems to be able to anser that question....

As advertised, the C9 produces electric organ sounds. If you don't have space for a dedicated organ/keyboard this might help you but it's not without some issues.

Tracking is good, and it handles complex chords beautifully which was something I was worried about before trying it. As other reviewers say though, it's best paired with a compressor to maximize tracking. Sound can drop if your attack is too gentle, or you let the strings ring.

In terms of features there are nine presets modelling different kinds of organs, and each preset has two unique adjustments possible with the mod and click dials. These range from basic tone adjustment to chorus effects and key clicks.

The case is sturdy, but the device feels a bit light. No battery -- it's mains only. The price is a bit steep in my opinion, but if you'd rather not invest in a keyboard, it'll satisfy your fix for organ tones and then some.

Yes this beast is very very sweet and savoury indeed. I was expecting it to have more dynamics in the lower volume levels whilst mainting its sensitivity, so if you like playing loud even when you don't, it's hard to explain, the sample doesn't track very well with soft picking, that's why I only set the "handeling" as 3 stars.

Otherwise the Mellow Tone setting is the best!! as well and the LedZep sound too, the others all resemble, well eachother quite alot, with the diffence being a click , tone and modulation setting which alternates between settings, still I love it on my board because it's great to sound like boss when rehearsing with new people, But go with caution!

Also this thing likes you play upper triads or diodes not big block chords or note bends, it sounds all screwy, it places lower octaves and 5ths all over the place so let it do the bass notes for you.

Place this before your reverb/mods and after gain stages/tuner for best results!

peace!

Luke