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Sovtek pedals

The green Sovtek pedals seem to attract new fans these days. Here are two of the three available models (the third one being the Bass balls). They were very ruggedly built and came with a cool wooden crate. Long awaited in the nineties, these reissues of the most famous Electro Harmonix pedals were cheap. I guess it could be said that they were instrumental in Electro Harmonix's fantastic come back. (Note the difference in green shades and overall construction of the two pedals).

Although they are sturdy, the construction isn't top notch with flaking paint jobs, low quality stomp switches, "untrue" bypass, and average quality components. Nevertheless, the Sovtek BMP sounds VERY big and warm (some would a bit muffled) and was an instant success. The black Sovtek versions do sound different but not better or worse. The Small Stone has some very nice phase tones but it is again slightly muffled and therefore doesn't match my 70's EH Small Stone for phasing goodness (see the EH article). One great upgrade that can be performed on these is the modification to true bypass which the original footswitch thankfully allows.