Electro-Harmonix B9 Organ Machine Pedal

I've had mine for about a month now and gigged it several times. I play a Gibson Les Paul & a Fender custom Tele with coil tapped hum-buckers through a Messa Boogie Roaster with a 2x12 recto cab & a 2x12 quarter back cab. This is the only pedal that goes into the front of my amp and when played through a clean channel or a very slightly driven channel the sounds I get are really pleasing. I don't use the pedal very much through the sets (I play in two bands) I use it to simply add another texture to my sound.The pedal rewards clean precise playing and when you get it right, the sound is really big and sits well in a band mix creating a full bottom end to a cutting top. To me it's the cutting top that is likely to cause a few problems so if you can have a dedicated channel on your amp for this pedal you can EQ that cutting top to sound sweet. Playing full or arpeggiated chords with this pedal may put a grin on your face as to me I think sounds so convincing its especially pleasing watching the reaction from the audience, i've seen folks looking to see who is creating that sound. The pedal also tracks speedy single note passages surprisingly well but if you bend strings a lot you will may have to alter your playing to accommodate getting the best out of thus unit.The choice of 9 settings is a real bonus, they all sound good to me but for now I've been sticking with the No1 Fat n Full setting and having the ability to mix the dry guitar signal with the wet gives another added dimension. The controls are easy to set and work as expected. For me, this is a great addition to my set up, i'm having to do a little more tap dancing during the sets as I become more comfortable using it. If you can see a use for this sound on several songs in your set I would suggest trying one out at you local music store. I bought this without testing it and i'm not disappointed, I think this a really good quality pedal set at a reasonable price, it's a keeper for me.Mike

I've wanted one of these for years, and finally decided to buy one. I'm incredibly glad I did, and I've decided to do this review to explain how to get the best out of the thing, because most of the ones I found don't do it justice.Rather than going through yet another tedious explanation of what all the controls do, I'll dispel some of the myths and outright wrong assumptions about the pedal, and explain what it works best for.Most of the negative comments go something like, "huh, what's the point of that? If you want to sound like an organ, buy an organ".Well, that's an utterly moronic statement. I can't play the organ for a start. Even if I could, I couldn't play the guitar at the same time. Nor could I fit a Hammond Organ in the boot of an MX5.First myth to bust - this pedal isn't for turning your guitar into an organ. Yes, you can plug it into a clean amp and play dodgy renditions of 'Green Onions'. That stops being fun after about ten minutes (actually, it never stops being fun, but it does annoy everyone else). Using the pedal purely for organ sounds completely misses the point of it.Where it really excels is filling-out the sound, and adding organ-like textures UNDER your guitar.Another myth is that it's a 'studio-only' pedal. It's completely plausible to use it live, although it could be easier - as I'll explain in a bit.A friend of mine plays one-man-and-a-guitar acoustic sets, and I usually do the sound for him. At a recent gig I put his guitar through the Organ Machine, with dry guitar into one channel of the mixer desk, and the wet, organ mix into a different channel. This enabled me to bring in a small amount of organ as and when I wanted, and it sounded epic! I probably should have told him I was going to do it, but the look on his face as an organ joined in on 'Golden Brown' was priceless!Used sparingly, it's fabulous for giving a bit of girth to an acoustic set, and the pedal works perfectly with acoustic guitar. It works best with well-articulated, clear chords rather than the vigorous 'busker thrash' that you usually get from solo artists. I would say that it's not the easiest pedal to use live, because it works best if you can adjust it on the fly. I'll come back to that in a bit. You CAN use it on the floor like a normal pedal, but you can get far more out of it if you put it somewhere you can change the settings.Where it REALLY sounds magnificent is with electric guitar - and the heavier the better, which seems a bit counter-intuitive.My brother is a considerably better guitarist than I am, and when he visited last week we gave this pedal a full work-out into two separate amps. That is definitely the best way to use it - put it early in the signal chain (possibly after a compressor), send the 'DRY' output to your usual guitar rig and the 'ORGAN' signal into a volume pedal and on to either to a different, clean amp or to the mixer desk of the PA. The volume pedal lets you swell the organ effect in and out subtly, rather than just chopping it in and out with the stomp switch.With a lightly overdriven electric guitar playing blues, the Organ Machine really sounded great. It works best if you add it in gradually. As my brother put it, "when you get to the third verse, after the guitar solo, and you really want to give it some welly, turn that thing on."He's right. If you play in a 3-piece blues / soul / funk / covers band, this is really going to give you some extra oomph. Just don't use it all the time. We used it for all sorts of classic rock, 'Freebird' being particularly memorable. If you are the rhythm guitarist in a four or five-piece, you REALLY need one of these.Then we got silly, and tried it with some distortion. Wow! Lots of fun playing Ozzy's 'Mr. Crowley', and even more fun playing anything by Uriah Heep. 'July Morning' especially stood out.Bizarrely, where the pedal really shone was for doom and stoner-type rock. Spiritual Beggar's 'Wonderful World' sounded HUGE with the 'Church Organ' setting under the guitar. Massive, downtuned guitar with shedloads of distortion just never stopped being fun. You do have to be a little careful, as some of the settings add harmonic overtones which don't quite sit right when playing in minor keys - you get an amusing 'Scooby Doom' effect that makes it sound like an old B-movie score. Or like Ghost...Don't ever try and use this pedal under a guitar solo - or worse still FOR a guitar solo. At best it sounds weird, and if you bend notes it sound awful. If you play like a keyboard player would, it totally works, but most guitarists don't. Best to avoid it. In fact, this might be one of the few pedals that's strictly for rhythm guitarists.OK, so if it's so cool, why only four stars? In my case, because I feel it's compromised. This thing COULD be a truly awesome live tool, but by trying to fit it into a stomp-box case, they threw away too much of the functionality.There is no expression pedal, or even a switch, so you can't adjust the speed of the (awesome) Leslie cabinet on the fly. The Leslie ramping up and down is one of the most recogniseable and iconic features of the Hammond Organ, so it's a real shame we can't replicate it here. It doesn't have balanced outputs, even though it really wants to be plugged into a mixer desk. And so on.Electroharmonix, if you read this, please do a 'PRO' version of this device, with a swell pedal instead of the 'Click' knob so we can control the Leslie speeds (or at the very least, a footswitch for Chorale / Tremolo with a ramp up / down, not a sudden jump). Add an LED display so we can see exactly which setting (1-9) is in use, preferably with up / down foot buttons instead of a knob. Put balanced, XLR outputs on the back and you have the pedal this should be. It doesn't need to have programmable presets, it just needs to be a bit easier to control. Then it would feel more like a 'proper' tool for live use instead of a bit of a novelty 'toy'.I totally recommend trying this pedal. The sounds are really impressive. If you use it carefully and sparingly, it really fills out your sound, whether you are a solo acoustic guitarist, or a full band.

Ok, so my title might be self opinionated but I have quite a few from EHX and I've had no issues. I bought the B9 fairly much when it was first released. Decided to go for it when talking to someone about guitar synth pedals. Since I bought this I have acquired the Mel9 and a Boss SY-1 and will be integrating a guitar synth pedal board with the three pedals and an EHX Tri-Parallel mixer, a volume pedal and the Strymon Blue Sky. Back to the B9 though, I've had it for years now and it still works really well, produces some useful organ tones and I kind of wish I'd picked up the C9 as well now as the prices are really pushing up now (mainly for the Telstar setting). You can chain these on your pedal board with other pedals via the Dry Output and send the organ sounds to a P.A or mixing desk (as in studio use) independently. The best use for the B9 is as a secondary timbre to your guitar tone blended. There is a mix on the pedal between wet and dry to balance the two and sending the organ sounds externally means you can pan left or right if need be. The size of the box makes it economical for space on any pedal board if you are short of a keyboard player this is ideal. EHX always supply a PSU as standard.

Sonorités originales et réalistes, très bon tracking et qualité sonore digne d'un bon circuit analogique, j'adore. Je recommande aussi la C9 et la Mel9 dans la même serie d'Electro-Harmonix qui a fait un excellent travail de recherche sur cette série d'effets. On regrettera juste les footswitches qui sont un peu durs et bruyants (clicky) quand on les actionne.

This pedal just plain works. It tracks playing without having to change your style or get finicky, and most of the organ sounds are useful (the "chime" voice, not so much.) I've used everything up to and including guitar synths with multiac guitars, and the tracking on this is as good or better than any. The first week I had it, I used it on a special event background music gig, a pub gi, and a jazz gig. Each time, the other sidemen (who are extremely picky) not only didn't complain, they actually praised the sound. I'm not Jimmy Smith or Booker T, but I can get their sound now.

The switch on and off is so loud. and the sound only high note ( treble ) if they made the pedal that can change from bass keys, middle keys and high keys is better.

I've had this pedal a few weeks and have found it to be a great addition to my board. I play electric bass through it and - as reviews and company literature says - it sounds a bit squirrelly if you go below C on the A string (or the equivalent on the E string), but otherwise it sounds great. If you don't play with even attack it can get odd-sounding too. I can play fairly evenly but I still use a pedal compressor before it and my rig has a rack compressor - which helps in loud live situations. The jazz organ and the cathedral organ sound are favorites but they all have something to them. I think it's a great pedal.

ユーチューブなどでも紹介されているエフェクターなので、音はそちらをご確認してください。私は、ハモンドオルガンの音が好きで個人録音とか考えていましたが、ギター弾きなので無理と思っていたところ、このエフェクターと出会いました。中々、動画のようにはいきませんが、ギターでこの音を出せるエフェクターは無いのでもの凄く良いと思います。60～70年代のロックをやって、オルガンの音が欲しい個人録音の人やデモテープ（今はデジタルかな？）作りたい人には必要かもしれませんが、それ以外の人にはまた別な使い方を考え、新しい道を切り開く、面白い使い方も考えられるのではないでしょうか。ギターの出力もあるので、そのような面白い使い方ができる人にも向いている、チャレンジできる感覚の人にも向いているエフェクターです。