Electro-Harmonix

Mike Matthews

As a child, Mike Matthews was taught to play classical piano by his mother, but by 11th grade he had become more interested in playing boogie-woogie and soon after rock and roll. Matthews later enrolled in Cornell University, where an all-black R&B group inspired him to play keyboards in a funkier style of music like Wilson Pickett and the Isley Brothers. Matthews made money during this time by promoting rock and roll concerts and noticed the growing prominence of electric guitar players on the nearby New York City music scene. Seeing an opportunity, Matthews took a job offer from IBM in New York City to stay connected to the city's music scene and eventually start his own business.

By this time, the Rolling Stones had scored a hit with "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", and Maestro was struggling to keep up with demand for their Fuzz-Tone pedal Keith Richards had used on the song's main riff. The owner of a local repair shop offered to go into business with Matthews producing fuzz pedals of their own only to drop out, leaving Matthews to contract out the work. Guild Guitar Company bought all of Matthews' stock and marketed the pedals as the Foxey Lady, in reference to the Jimi Hendrix Experience song "Foxy Lady". Matthews, however, understood one of the keys to Hendrix's sound was the sustain he created with finger vibrato, so he asked inventor Bob Myer of Bell Labs to design a "sustainer" effect pedal that would not produce distortion. When Matthews went to Myer's lab, he was instead impressed with the small, single-transistor preamp that Myer was using to test prototypes. This preamp went into overdrive when pushed, even into a clean amplifier, and Matthews opted to pursue this as a product instead.

Electro-Harmonix, first era

With $1,000, Matthews launched Electro-Harmonix in 1968 and exhibited Myer's preamp design as the LPB-1 Linear Power Booster at that year's NAMM Show in Chicago. The LPB-1 sold thousands of units, initially through mail order, allowing Matthews to quit his job at IBM and devote himself full-time to guitar effects.

Matthews capitalized on the success of the LPB-1 by releasing several more products using the same compact form factor of the LPB-1, including the Muff Fuzz, Screaming Bird Treble Booster, and Mole Bass Booster. The Muff Fuzz—named for its muffled sound quality—used a pair of transistors. This was updated to four transistors for the 1969 follow-up model, the Big Muff. Many notable players, like Hendrix and David Gilmour, began using the Big Muff and it became a major success for the young brand. Electro-Harmonix scored another major success in 1974 with the Small Stone phase shifter, which was the first design created for the brand by engineer David Cockerell and ended up outselling even the Big Muff. Other popular pedals EHX released in the 1970s included the Memory Man delay effect, which was updated several times, including with a chorus/vibrato switch as the Deluxe Memory Man; and the Electric Lady flanger. In 1978, the company grossed $5,000,000 and had offices in New York City, Toronto, London, and Tokyo.

By 1982, Electro-Harmonix employed around 200 people, but an aggressive campaign by a local trade union (that few of EHX's employees wished to join) caused an alarmed financial backer to pull their funds and Matthews was forced to file for bankruptcy. He purchased the company back after selling some property and resumed production only to begin losing market share to Japanese imports. The situation became untenable when a Japanese parts supplier began giving Japanese effects companies preference over limited stock and EHX, unable to continue manufacturing certain pedals, filed for bankruptcy again in 1984.

Matthews then turned his attention to business opportunities in Russia, where Matthews found he could take advantage of the significant price fluctuations of Russian-made integrated circuits to sell them to the West at a profit.

Return of EHX

By the late 1980s, vacuum tubes were a long-outdated form of technology, but they were still popular among guitar amplifier manufacturers, and Russia was one of the few places still producing them. Matthews founded the New Sensor Corporation and resold Russian vacuum tubes by himself out of his apartment. He then began contracting out the production of new vacuum tubes using the brand name Sovtek. The Russian military-industrial complex soon collapsed as the Cold War came to an end and an electronics conglomerate began selling off its individual companies, including Sovtek's contractor, ProPul, the world's largest vacuum tube manufacturer. Matthews purchased ProPul, giving him ownership of vacuum tube brand names like Mullard and Tung-Sol. Within a few years, Matthews became a major supplier to guitar amplifier brands including Marshall, Fender, and Mesa/Boogie. This success allowed Matthews to buy back the Electro-Harmonix name and take advantage of the growing vintage gear market, on which original EHX pedals like the Big Muff were selling for significantly more than the new prices had been.

Sovtek began releasing Russian-made versions of classic Electro-Harmonix pedals in 1992. Sovtek also produced amps like the Mig 50, a modified Fender circuit, and while the sounds were good and the costs could be kept low, reliability was poor, so Matthews ceased amp production by 1997 to focus on EHX's line of pedals. In 2000, Matthews returned production of Electro-Harmonix's pedals to New York City and continued releasing both reissued designs and new ones, such as 2005's POG Polyphonic Octave Generator. In 2006, the company introduced smaller "micro" and "nano" form factor effect lines using surface-mount circuit components. Circuit board manufacture was outsourced and the pedals assembled in New York.