Electro-Harmonix Bass Soul Food Transparent Bass Overdrive Pedal Reviews

To whoever is reading this, let me start by saying, if you're looking for a heavy distorted, dirty or fuzzy overdrive, then this pedal is NOT for you. You'd be better of with a Behringer bass overdrive or a joyo double thruster (dark glass clone). I have both, and both sound heavier.
How I use it: it's always on, paired with a EHX battalion deluxe preamp pedal. I didn't get it for the OD, rather to get the bite, clank, and grit you get from the "bite" switch on a tech 21 fly rig pedal. Believe it or not, I'm selling my tech 21 fly rig, cause I managed to get the exact same sound for a fraction of the price, with this little baby.
My settings: Volume at noon, Drive at noon, Blend at 3 O'clock, and Treble(tone) at 3 o'clock. This gives you the clank and grit you need if you pair it with a battalion deluxe pedal. Of course it also depends on the settings you have on that pedal, which to me are bass and treble at noon, low and high mids both at 3 o'clock, with the volume halfway up.
My gear: I use a fender aerodyne jazz bass, with the precision pickup all up, Jazz pickup at 6 and tone at 6 (both low settings). I also use a BTB Ibanez 775 PB with all knobs at noon except for a bit of a bass boost. I use the same settings on my Ibanez 306 sound gear bass. Needless to say, I never use a pick, it's always finger plucking to me ( a bit of Steve Harris style).
Sound variations: I'm not saying this pedal can't be used as an overdrive, but I honestly wasn't that impressed when I put the drive all the way up. Also, truth be told, I didn't tweak much with the settings to see what overdrive sounds I can get. Still, it isn't as powerful as the behringer BOD or joyo double thruster. Also, you have to keep in mind that it says "transparent overdrive", so don't expect anything heavy. Anyway, that's my two cents on this running it through my ehx battalion. Who knows, you might have a different experience running it through a different pedal, or no pedals at all. Hope this helps whoever is willing to read this whole review :)
PS: shout out to Jeremy Kaiser, and Todd Kitchen previously, for always helping me out. In particular, Jeremy has been a great sales engineer, who's always there to recommend stuff for me. I love Sweetwater. Thank you
Rafi

I'm a total amateur who took up bass as my covid hobby. I've got a Squier Affinity jazz bass and a 25W Fender Rumble stuffed in the corner of the bedroom. This pedal goes a long way to make my budget setup sound good. Started with all the knobs at 12 o'clock and moved the drive up until I got the sound I wanted without too much buzz. It's not much to look at, basically an unpainted gray box with a sticker on top, but the sound is just right, and the bang for the buck is amazing. Another plus... it comes with a power supply. If you've got nothing on your pedal board, this is a great one to start with.

I didn't want a heavily distorted sound. I play classic rock covers. Makes my solid state amp sound like an old tube amp. Super warm, keeps the bottom end. It'll get way heavier than I'll ever need. My favorite od so far.

Great for punching up your bass sound, epecially in a worship service setting. This pedal is responsive to your playing and adds a little growl when needed.

You need to have this one for your bass; if you have it barely dialed in, it gives you more weight in the mix. And if you want to go crazy with it, you can pretty much get the sound of the bass on "This Love" from Maroon V with only this pedal (I don't know if they use it in the song but I can get the same sound with only this pedal.
Now, the cherry in the cake is that once you're all in with the knobs, you have the toggle switch that gives you even more.
And it is an EHX pedal, so it will last you FOR F... FOREVER!
Get it! Not a bad sound on it and one of my pedal with the most range.

This pedal did everything I expected it to. Over all satisfied with this purchase. Would recommend it to anyone wanting to thicken up their bass tone.

Very nice tones. I love subtle tone changes and this pedal gives both subtle and distinct changes to the tone. I've been missing the distinct part until now. Good addition to my pedal train.

Returning to bass off a ten year hiatus... Play a 2001 Mexican Fender Jazz....a NS Design upright...I just need to add a little punch to low. thick. warm bass tone...this is it...out of the box perfect...for my taste....running off an Amp Peg BA 210 combo....recommended.

When I first got this pedal, I thought I had misread the effects description. The distortion is very nondescript compared to other distortion pedals on the market. As you play with the controls, you realize that the power of this pedal is in the grit that slightly colors the dry signal. Its a very distinctive sound that I quickly have gotten addicted to. Now I never turn it off. I highly recommend all bass players to atleast try this jem, but spend more that a couple of minutes with it. Even if you play metal, you might want to look into it.

I wanna start by saying I originally bought this pedal just to kick on when the guitarist in my band went into his solos and that this would give my bass just that extra little grit that I needed to cut through the mix in practice and live situations. Needless to say, after receiving this pedal and playing at practice my band mates say that my P bass and tone has never sounded better. This pedal is on 99% of the time! If you want real powerful overdrive, this pedal may not be for you....but it does have an amazing tone and all the low end remains the same as before, just more grit and growl! Highly recommend

I have an ultra-clean amp and a 5-string with active electronics. What I get out of my amp and bass is some nice clean thump. It's great for most applications. However, my band has added a few songs lately where I really need some growl. Not fuzz, not distortion, but growl. I'm familiar with the Soul Food for guitar (and other klone pedals), so I thought I would pick up one of these and see what happens. Oh, baby! It's basically on all the time now - I did not know exactly what I was missing!

If this were lost or stolen I would most definitely buy another.

Sweater has the best customer service.
They actually care about the customer

I had been looking for a long time for something to add some dry grit and rattle to my bass tone without being overpowering or taking anything away from my established tone. This pedal does exactly that for me. I use it in an always-on fashion, and I couldn't be happier with the results. I've also been experimenting with it on guitar, and I've been far more pleased using this pedal than any other overdrive/distortion/fuzz. It feels very natural and uncomplicated to me. It's also incredibly reliable. I'm very happy to have added this pedal to my rig.

This overdrive pedal is awesome! You can add just a hint of overdrive(or more) and blend it with the original bass sound! Even better,you can adjust the treble for just the overdrive,thats the coolest feature ever!
I keep it on through my whole show!

I bought this pedal based on my own speculation. I knew the reputation of the regular Soul Food, and I know that to get most pedals to sound great with an analog synth, they need to have a "Blend" knob. This one fit the bill. It's sounds terrific on my Moog Minitaur. Similar to the filter overdrive on the Sub37, but it keeps all the low end of the minitaur. It's perfectly transparent, never muddy. Sounds thick and gritty when I want it to, and smooth and calm with just a bit of boost when I need it. Keeps all of the harmonics of the bass right where they are supposed to be.

I love this pedal. It is a fantastic parallel overdrive, just what I wanted. The drive tone is sweet and the blend control is priceless. I use it for electric guitar, but I would also highly recommend it for those who like to put distortion pedals on acoustic guitars and ukeleles.

For the price you just can't beat it. I will be using this for years to come!

The parallel blend control on this pedal makes it a super-valuable dirt pedal since you can add any amount of dirt alongside your original tone. Players like Billy Sheehan, Chris Squire, Geddy Lee and Dug Pinnick have used this technique for decades to achieve a wide spectrum bass tone that flatters power trios especially well. I use it on my bass to introduce additional frequencies to our live sound that essentially replace a rhythm guitar player. I do think that this pedal is probably best suited for pro players who already have experience developing good live sounds but I suspect that the "turn everything up to 11" type beginner could still learn and benefit from working with the powerful controls that are available on this device.

Best pedal for the price I've found that delivers that tube overdrive sound without the need to carry around that heavy tube amp. I've owned ampeg and mesa tube heads that were 40+ pounds and this pedal gives me that sound when I need it even playing through a modern class d head unit. Best feature is the ability to retain and balance your clean natural bass tone and add grit to it or go all overdrive. Really helps keep the bottom end as a bass should be with vintage grit. Fantastic pedal and Sean Geyer at Sweetwater really helped me find what I wanted.

I play in a three-piece rock band and was looking for an overdrive that added just enough grit and bite to fill out the sound when our guitar player when into his solos and this pedal fills the bill nicely. I wasn't looking for any modern distortion or overdrive as I was not looking to take it to the extreme. This pedal works perfectly for me. Whether I am playing my passive Fender PJ bass through my Hartke 1x12 HyDrive cabinet (another awesome product from Sweetwater) or a GK 4x10 MB cabinet, this overdrive enhanced my sound. I would highly recommend.

I've heard the guitar version, and played my bass through it.
I loved what it did to my tone, but wished there was a bass version.
Funny thing is a month later this came out lol. I bought it right away.
I really love this thing. It has basically replaced the SansAmp Bass Driver on my board. Don't get me wrong, I love the SansAmp. Is i definitely be keeping it. But this basically gives me the tone I have dialed into my SanAmp...But in a smaller case. My tone is basically a Diamond or MXR Bass Compressor, Bass Soul Food, and a Sadowsky Bass Preamp into my amp. That's it.
So all in all...I can't make ya buy this. But I will say definitely give it a try :)

This is a great pedal, and I'd highly recommend it. However, understand that it's range of possible tones, perhaps, isn't as wide as other pedals. It's really good at doing a heavy 70's vintage tone, great at doing a subtle early 90's alt vibe, and it gets some late 00's indie rock lo-fi type tones. That's kinda the general color-palate this pedal provides. By comparison to a lot of other overdrives, I guess it's fair to say Soul-Food is maybe a bit on the subtle side. I guess I'd wrap up by saying, while Soul-Food-Bass might be a bit of a one-trick pony, but it's really-really good at that one-trick.

This thing has been a nice addition to the board. Love the growl with just enough fuzz. Have to play with it a bit and you'll find its pretty amazing. Can be a little noisy at higher drive settings. The blend and eq are super effective. Great pedal with a staple sound.

Great range of usable drive from touch of hair to full on fuzz. Love the blend option. Other than an occasional pop when engaging it's just about perfect.

I really like this pedal , but not all 9 volt batteries will fit the case , they could have made the case a bit deeper. I used the adaptor , because I got tired of messing with the battery fit.

The bass soul food is my first foray into overdrive pedals. It adds just the right amount of tone and grit without getting into full blown distortion or fuzz. If you're looking for an overdrive that's easy to dial in, then this pedal is a good choice.

This is a great OD, lots of different tones available from clean boots to some crazy crunchiness. Only problem is a little bit of loss on the bass end, but that's easy enough to fix with the blend control. As always EXCELLENT customer service from Patrick Schaefer.

I'm using this in place of a Sans Amp bass DI lately. The clean boost on the Soul Food adds a subtle attack to the direct sound while letting you hit the amp a little harder, which has its own benefits. The tone control, only affecting the distortion side of the blend knob, is wide range and useful. The drive knob adds mids the more you turn it up -- it sort of pulls the mids up and does the distortion on that. But you can turn the drive down and use the tone control to good effect.

This is not a DI box. There is no XLR out or parallel 1/4" out to go to a DI box. You have to take care of that at the amp.

It is a good pedal for adding a controllable amount of grind to your bass sound and in general making the tone more definite and "there".

Great for the price, a little noisy but a sound that I like.

The footswitch clicks pretty harshly and I'm always a little anxious that it's gonna break one of these days. Stacks super nicely with my MXR Distortion III for some singing lead tones. Nice crunch on its own, but for my amp and guitar I generally feel the need to throw in some previously added gain. Wish there was a bit more gain on tap but I suppose if I want that I should have chosen a different pedal. For what it is (and for the price!) it's a great little box. Amazing customer service from Brian Leavell and Sweetwater as always.

This pedal feels cheaply made to be honest. It is very lightweight compared to other pedals I own. However, it does what it I want it to do for my needs and it has given my bass a nice fat and boosted sound that I've been looking for. I have only used it a couple of times so far. I will be interested to see how it holds up after gigging and moving it around.

Soul Food Bass has an excellent light overdrive sound. The slight break up just tweaks my tone instead of sounding like an effect that totally changes my sound. The treble dial is very useful. Rolling off the highs and turning up the drive gives the smooth break up you expect from a lot of late 60's rock. One of the reasons I bought this pedal was because of the video example mimicking Jack Bruce's tone. I don't really like the bridge pick-up sound on my bass. In order to get a good bright sound I roll the drive off a bit and turn up the treble. I am very impressed by how much this pedal can do. It also sounds great on guitar.

The only draw back to this pedal is that you can push it the way you can push some analog drives and a tube amp. This fact shouldn't be too surprising, but it is worth mentioning. This pedal works well as a boost for a tube amp, but if you try to boost before the pedal you will get harsh clipping.

This is an awesome small pedal with a ton of options that has really opened up my tone options on gigs.

The recommendation for this pedal came from the first timer editor of the Tone Report. It made my sound a little dirtier and added more base on my Bassbreaker 7 watt amp. I am pleased with the tone.

I think this pedal has a great SOUND for the money. I use this in my pedalboard at a church playing for 2,000-2,500 people in the congregation each Sunday. In my main touring pedalboard that I use outside the church, I use a Darkglass Vintage Tubes, which is awesome. The Soul Food is there in the sonic territory with the Darkglass although not as complex. However, when switching the pedal on and off at church, the "pop" from the switch playing direct through 100,000 watts is enough to make the congregation jump! I have not been using it due to these issues. On the same board I use an MXR Chorus, SansAmp multi channel Deluxe Bass Driver, BBE Sonic Maximizer and Boss tuner. I have no issues with the switching of the other units. Not sure why the switch is so abrupt...

The Bass Soul Food is decent. It would make a decent "always on" OD but it's not quite as transparent as EHX would like you to think it is. There's a substantial mid-bump. And there's a perceived low suck as well...which is kinda disappointing in a bass pedal. Of course you can EQ all that back to fairly "flat" but if that's the case it's not transparent is it?

All in all if you're looking for a well priced always on mild overdrive this might be what you're looking for.