Electro-HarmonixElectro-Harmonix
freely. “One of the other ideas I had around
that time was a guitar that had a speaker
that was in a ceramic case that screwed
into the guitar. So the guitar output would
go to an amp, but part of it would bleed
into a separate amp that would feed the
signal back into the ceramic speaker that
would give you some actual real feedback
right into the guitar.”
As for the funky names on Electro-Harmonix gear, the story behind them is
predictably circuitous. “What happened
with the Big Muff is that, we had this
treble booster, our bass booster, and then
we had a fuzz. It had a muffled sound, so
I called it the Muff Fuzz. Later on, when
we developed the superior distortion-sustainer unit, because we already had the
Muff, I called it the Big Muff. That’s how
it came about—it evolved. But I also like
those names with a double meaning. And
the Bad Stone was just trying to play off
the name of the Rolling Stones and Bob
Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” hit. I came
up with most all the names.”
Not Your Everyday Big Muff Pi: When Premier Guitar was brainstorming pedal manufacturers to approach about being part
of this special four-cover/collectible-custom-pedal issue, Electro-Harmonix was a no-brainer because of its place in stompbox
history and the quality of its products. Here, senior quality control technician Zaida Sojos tests one of the custom PG “Pedal
Issue” units seen on select November 2010 issues.
With Hendrix and Santana using Big Muffs
at the height of their powers, it’s no wonder
the devices did so well. “We were building
3000 Big Muffs a month,” Matthews says.
“We quickly followed it with some variations. We had a little treble booster, a bass
booster, a Little Muff . . . and there wasn’t
that much competition.”
A Fistful of Firsts to Finance Immortality
For decades now, stompboxes from a pleth-
ora of manufacturers have been available in
such variety that we take them for granted.
But Matthews says it was his company that
pioneered distortion, delay, modulation,
and even sampler pedals. “The old Electro-
Harmonix, we had great sounds—we were
very innovative. We were first with a lot of
things. I mean, we were first with a flanger
that wasn’t something you created for the
studio. We were first with analog delay.
We were first with low-cost samplers—the
Instant Replay and Super Replay. I took
those to Ikutaro Kakehashi, Roland’s found-
er. He liked the technology. He flew me to
Japan and wanted me and David [Cockerell,
designer of the Small Stone] to be part of
Roland. But his chief engineer thought they
could do it themselves, so I made a deal
with Akai. Kakehashi told me it was his big-
gest mistake, because Akai samplers ruled
the industry.”
and broke down easily. That was not our
bag, at that time. That was back in the ’60s
and ’70s. Now, of course, our products are
built rock-solid.”
Matthews continued his overall quest for
immortality in the early 1970s with a trip
to Haiti and dalliances with the powers of
mental telepathy. Fortunately, the quest
also involved making effects pedals. Lots
and lots of effects pedals.
140 PREMIER GUITAR NOVEMBER 2010
But that didn’t last long. “MXR came along
and they were a big competitor. We bat-
tled. They came on big with the Phase 90,
and we were really working hard to come
out with a phase shifter. As we were work-
ing on it, the problem was that there was
some feedback. But that feedback turned
out sounding good, so we captured it. You
could have regular phasing or, with the
flick of a switch, you could have feedback
and get this really edgy sound. The feed-
back would sharpen the notes. A lot of our
competitors, they hate noise. Anything that
has noise has to be taken out. They’ll work
their asses off filtering out every ounce of
noise to the point where they filter out the
feeling. I mean, playing music is really . . .
it’s getting out feelings. So I always want to
leave the feeling in.”
While Matthews may come across as pretty
bold, he’s also honest about some of the
company’s early setbacks. “Instead of really
focusing on the chassis and the mechani-
cal construction, we moved on to the next
thing. A lot of the early pedals were flimsy
www.premierguitar.com
“In order to whip death, I had to grow the
business,” Matthews explains. “Double it in
size every year. If we missed that goal and
only grew by 50 percent, we’d have to make
it up the next year. Again, it was back to
my ex-wife and this goal—it was absurd—to
whip death in my own lifetime. I was always
interested in expanding, in coming out with
more stuff so I could make more money, hire
more engineers, and have a great scientific
think tank that would help me eventually
whip death.” Considering the time period,
it’s easy to assume this exceedingly lofty
goal was all some sort of flower-power pipe
dream. But Matthews says, “I wasn’t a hippie, I was a loner. I had long hair, but I wasn’t
really in any group. I was just into making
money, having fun, playing in the group.”
