So this is it: Mike Matthews’ take on the legendary Klon Centaur Professional Overdrive, that famous, and famously overpriced, low- to mid-overdrive and clean boost of yore, found at incredibly exorbitant prices on Ebay and big city pawnshops.

First things first: The EHX Soul Food is actually available to mere mortals. The price here is far, far more reasonable. In fact, I’m not quite sure how Electro-Harmonix can get away with this: A decent overdrive, with a pedal power supply, for well under . Nicely done.

Next: It sounds the way it should: Lower the drive and boost the volume, and whatever distortion you hear will come from your tube amp. Thick mids, uncompressed amp-like distortion are simply a clockwise turn away on your drive knob. Compared to a Tubescreamer, the drive is a bit wild, threatening to push matters to feedback on a cranked Blues Jr. or utterly transforming a nice 6V6-powered Princeton or Deluxe. Boosting your favorite fuzz or metal-oriented pedal isn’t out of the question, either. You’re limited by your creativity, and that only.

Does it sound exactly like a Klon? Probably not, but so what?

Does it allow you to cop the feel and vibe of its overpriced forebear at a reasonable price? Indeed.

Plug it in, crank it up, wail. Good for your soul, and easy on your wallet.

5 stars for two reasons: 1) Price 2) sounds great.

With volume at 1 o’clock, gain at 8:30, and tone at noon this adds a pleasing lower mid smoothness with a slight boost. This is the Klon thing. It isn’t a TS nasal mid hump at all, it is more full and rounded. It is really great to be able to experience and enjoy this circuit at this price.

Tried the higher overdrive settings, but that is not what this is for, in my estimation. Usable, but there are better choices out there for that. Especially nice set as above with a Tele and a clean Fender tube amp, but sounds nearly as good with a Top Hat Club Royale EL84 amp. Focuses other overdrives whether before or after it. Sounds really good before compression also. Will probably evolve to become an always-on effect near the front of my chain with certain guitars, especially for clean and slightly overdriven sounds.

In late 2013/early 2014, EHX rolled a series of new overdrive pedals, some original (Logjammer), some reissue (Hot Tubes Nano), and some "inspired" by popular overdrives from other manufacturers (East River Drive, Soul Food, OD Glove). Even better, all these pedals were to become widely available, and retailed at about U.S. However, none of them generated anywhere near the hype and back-order feeding frenzy as did the EHX Soul Food.

The Soul Food offers an affordable, mass-produced version of the Klon circuitry, which is a mythical, limited run boutique overdrive coveted by tone snobs and people with way too much disposable income on eBay. While many overdrive pedals are inherently similar, the Klon’s alleged advantages were its exceptional transparency and clean boost capabilities. Since over 99% of the guitar playing public (myself included) has ever seen or heard one, we’ll have to take their word for it.

But with that background in mind, the EHX Soul Food seems to deliver much of what people claim the Klon Centaur does, or at least gets into the same ballpark at very affordable price. This pedal EXCELS as a clean boost. You will hit unity gain (output level equal for "on" vs. "bypass") with the volume knob at about 10:30. The remaining volume is additional headroom to boost your signal.

And thanks to the unique range in available gain, you can boost your signal in ways that range from almost completely clean to bright and raunchy. I suspect that it will work decently well stacked with other overdrives because there tends to be a loss of treble as you increase gain, so hopefully the Soul Food can increase those higher frequencies.

The Treble knob works very well, and is very important for this type of overdrive. It’s more of a Treble "cut" (similar to what you’d find on a Vox AC30) in that is muffles the high end frequencies without reducing bass. And while there is a slight bass cut when you turn this pedal on, this is not the same thing as a Tubescreamer. Tubescreamers have a transformative effect on your EQ (drops the bass, humps the midranges) at virtually any setting, and the low gain settings require you to turn the volume way up. Not so with the Soul Food – the pedal operates loud at low gain settings, and also in a way that allows more of your amp’s original tone to shine through. This is not to say that the Soul Food is "better" than a Tubescreamer, but just point out that they affect tone differently, and you are free to prefer one style of overdrive to another.

But for , I think there’s a good argument that it’s good buy for all levels and types of players. My only potential complaints/concerns I will monitor going forward (and post to my review if they become an issue) involve the switch and some additional noise. My Strat’s normal 60-cycle hum seemed more extreme running through the Soul Food as compared to direct in, even when the pedal was in bypass mode. There is an internal switch, which I believe defaults at true bypass, but can be switched to "buffered". I will be changing it to buffered, as I prefer this in most of my effects. Also, there is a bit of a "pop" noise when you engage the switch, but it seemed to get less noticeable after the first time I pressed it. However, if you don’t use the pedal in a live setting (or if it’s always on), you may not even care. The switch itself seems durable, and the build quality, overall, is excellent for a . Highly recommend the Soul Food, provided they’re ever in stock!