Electro-Harmonix Superego Polyphonic Synth Engine Pedal Reviews

The original egx HOG (grandfather to the pog2) had a quirk where if you set the sliders perfectly, you could create this is harmonic noisy feedback that would still be in tune with what you were playing. I loved that feature, and it made it worth owning the $ pedal (which also took up the real estate of 8 normal size pedals). I never got into the freeze pedal because it seemed boring in comparison, but this pedal gets me to almost the exact same tone as the HOG did. I've honestly never used the auto--I use it as an embellishment or to give more feeling, or sometimes just more noise in a song. It works especially well during any buildups in a song, taking things from whisper quiet to a wall of noise. it's the one thing I consistently get asked about after playing a show--everyone wants to know what I was using to get the sounds I do.

Allows you to play a chord and sustain it indefinitely. Unlike structured backing tracks, you control when the chord changes and what it will be. I am sure there are other uses for this pedal, but I haven't had a chance to explore them yet.

When I first plugged into this pedal, I was underwhelmed. It is NOT a plug and play piece of gear. However, once I kept playing and adjusting the levels, the sounds got better and I began to like it asca result. Then I hooked my spare delay into the loop and, it came alive! Use the loop, it takes the unit to a whole new level. I have a nova repeater set to reverse mode and the vibrato set pretty high, kill-dry on.

The feature that took the most getting used to was the Auto mode, though. But again, stick with it and you will have an awesome expression tool on your hands.
Also, I am not an ambiance guitar player by trade. I do not use this to achieve synth tones. The way I use this is to have a pseudo organ/keyboard in the background. As that, it shines for me.

There is a copy of just about every effect. I don't know of anything that is like this pedal. To be able to play and sustain a chord and then play over it is probably specific to this pedal and could be an effect that sets you apart from other guitarist.

First of all, The reason I bought this pedal is that my pedal board needed a shoegazey, ambient sound. The numerous analog delays, some digital delays, reverb pedals, chorus and other modulation pedals, plus a bunch of pedal I made were not giving me the sound I wanted. But then magicaly, a week later new superego pedal came out on the electro-harmonix website. Once I heard it, I was amazed that it would give me the sound in my head that I was looking for. So I spent some money and bought it.
I have played with the electro-harmonix freeze pedal and loved it, but what made me want to spend the extra money was the extra features such as the Momentary, Latch, and Auto mode toggle switch, the Speed / Layer knob, the Gliss control, and what I find the coolest, is that the send and return jacks allow you to modify the wet signal with other pedals, making your options limitless. And you should experiment with other instruments through this pedal, like a synth, sampler, bass, yuke, or whatever has a 1/4" output.
The only minor cons I would say this pedal has is one, it doesn't have true bypass but only because of the way the stomp switch works, such as in momentary mode where once your foot is off the pedal, the frozed signal starts to decay. But it would be nice if the put a second stomp switch that was a 3PDT so you could truely bypass the signal. The second con, which really doesn't matter to me at all but may matter to other people is that you can't put a 9v battery in it. But it comes with a 9.6v DC 200mA power supply, which is pretty much the standard for most guitar pedals. The two cons are so minor that I would still give the pedal five stars.
There is no other pedal like this and it will add so many more options on your pedal board or synth setup . I pensonally love this pedal, and many of the guitarist who record at my studio love it too. Watch the videos and give the pedal a listen before you get it, but the videos can't even show you 1/100th of what you can do with this pedal.First of all, The reason I bought this pedal is that my pedal board needed a shoegaze, ambient sound. The numerous analog delays, some digital delays, reverb pedals, chorus and other modulation pedals, plus a bunch of pedal I made were not giving me the sound I wanted. But then a week later new superego pedal on the electro-harmonix website.

If you like EHX's freeze pedal, you will be getting the SuperEgo. The core concept remains the same: granular sampling of a few milliseconds that sustain one note or chord endlessly - then you can of course play over these drones-
The SuperEgo does that and also packs a lot of new features, such as:

Layer/time control: controls the attack and decay of the effect, allowing you to layer/blend drones.

Glissando: this knob crossfades and pitch shifts successive effected notes/chords (yes, the SuperEgo is polyphonic) and it sounds incredibly musical.

Last but not least the Auto mode is great to add a synthy color to your sound or make other worldly textures by layering chords or notes as you play them, without the need to press the pedal over and over. It can sound as an organ or an analog synth or even a theremin-esque instrument. Very, very cool!!

The pedal comes with send and return jacks, so it's possible to send the wet signal to a pedal loop. I tried this with my Moog Murf and it works great!

My only complain is that in auto mode, a note has to be fairly loud to be effected. I have a rather light touch and I found myself playing considerably harder to get the pedal to respond. However, a volume booster prior to the SuperEgo in my pedal chain took care of that nicely.

Like the Freeze, the SuperEgo's sound has this very glassy, icy quality to it. It works great for some types of sounds, but, if needed, you can use a compressor, EQ and/or some kind of modulator to smooth out or make the sound more alive. It sounds delicious with my Zvex lo-fi junky pedal, for example. Chorus, and especially vibrato work awesomely with the SuperEgo too.

I loved the Freeze and the SuperEgo takes it to another new level. If you want to explore with synth and pad-like sounds this is no doubt the best option out there - other than a Moog guitar -

As a guitarist that enjoys producing ambient guitar soounds I'm always on the look out for cool pedals. I recently added the EHX SuperEgo pedal to my board and can tell straight away it will be used frequently in the future. There is so much potential with this little box! The SuperEgo is super cool!

This pedal has more sounds than you can imagine. I have not went thru all of them yet. The instructions are a little complicated, so I just keep playing with knobs. However the basic set up included does great! Once again, thanks to Jared and Sweetwater. I get my gear in 1 to 2 days, after ordering. I will get this pedal down!

This is a new type of effect pedal altogether. The Auto mode "smears" your sound in a manner that no other type of effect can. I have analog delays and even a ring modulator, none can do what this pedal can in the Auto mode.

I've always secretly wanted my guitar to be an analog synthesizer, and though many pedals have helped, nothing has done what this has. One reviewer has said that on certain settings, this should be called the Supereno, and that is spot on: the ethereal pad-like sounds that come out of this thing are astounding, and the possibilities it provides given the effects loop are utterly exciting. Of course, I'd love to have a Moog guitar, but sans that, this thing is phenomenal given the cost.

An absolutely crushing pedal. Sounds that could until now only be described as either "translucent ambiance" or a wall of beautiful sound as powerful as a movie theater action scene.

I use this pedal with a split signal to an effects amp (separate from my dry signal) and I usually keep it on (auto mode) when playing with fuzz overdrive tones. It seriously makes my rig sound like a moving behemoth of tone.

Have used it for months now, recording an album and live many times, and I am still finding amazing uses for such an incredible pedal. A MUST for any with an interested mind in alternate and soundscape style tones.

This pedal seems to be a totally over-the-top follow-up to the EH Freeze pedal of a couple yrs ago. You can capture a tone & have it sustain indefinitely. This upgrade has several new functions and features that really make it worth the $. There's a switch that toggles between latched & automatic mode. In auto mode, the pedal senses your playing, & pretty much follows along, filling between notes/chords as you play. In latched mode, the pedal acts much like the Freeze: you hold the button down & the pedal holds that note/chord until you release it. The sleeper feature is the built-in effects loops which lets you alter JUST the held sound, then mix it with the dry signal. You can put a chorus, vibe, delay, phaser, etc in that loop, & come up with some insane real time mixes. With a little tinkering & practice, you can pretty much sound like 2 instruments, playing together. It's not a pedal that you'll just leave on all the time, but it may just lead you into some new creative places, and inspire you to try new things. Note: I would've given this 5*s, if you could adjust the auto mode sensitivity. I play fingerstyle a lot, & it takes a pretty firm touch to trigger the capture in auto mode. But if you use a pick, ignore this note, & get yourself one of these. Be warned: you WILL want to buy some pedals just for the effects loop. Luckily I had an extra delay & vibe laying around.

This really is a new kind of pedal, and it offers unique creative options to each musician. I run send/return through a Strymon Timeline (ice) with my Breedlove OOO acoustic. This provides a lush pad s for performing ambient tunes. I control the decay and effect levels so it doesn't get out of control, even in the automatic mode. It's a new permanent fixture in my kit.

I bought this pedal to enhance my guitar tones. This box allows for a very wide array of sounds. You won't run out of sound possibilities with this pedal. It is my best kept secret.

Cool sounds but very difficult to manipulate in a live situation. Requires precise timing of the foot.

hopefully this review will tell you some of the things the product description and youtube videos don't.

i bought this pedal so i could make analog synth sounds with my guitar. it does that and more. to start with, the tone is awesome. synthy and somehow very organic and alive. the gliss feature is really cool. if you turn the gliss and the speed knobs all the way up and the dry signal all the way down, you can make some really creepy haunted house noises. unfortunately, although it's great for making weird sounds, it's not very useful in most live situations.

this pedal has a mind of its own. you play something and it interprets it and plays something else. if you want to play fast melodies, it will only catch some of the notes and do what it wants with the notes it does catch. there is a method to it, but it's really only reliable for sustaining chords.

i'm primarily talking about the auto mode. i don't really see the point of the layering mode. but i'm also the kind of player who doesn't use open tunings or capos because i can find ways in standard tuning to play what i want to hear. i'd rather spend practice time developing my chord voicings than spend stage time switching or retuning guitars. similarly, i don't see the point of keeping a pedal on my board that does things i could have just done with my hands without a pedal for free.

the speed knob adjusts the attack and decay of the effect. it would be awesome if you could adjust them independently, but you can't, so if you want a long (or infinite) decay, you can't get a fast attack.

also, i was powering this pedal with a 1-spot, daisy-chained with a few other pedals and it made a buzzing noise when it was off. i think it's because i had it on the same power supply as my morley bad horsie wah, which takes center positive power, but doesn't affect my other pedals in the same way.

another irritating feature of the pedal is that you have to tap it twice to turn it off. i know it's not that big of a deal, but i just like things to work instantaneously when i'm playing live. i'm also the lead singer in my band, so i don't like to be too focused on my pedals when i'm performing.

i sent it back in and got the ehx micro pog instead. the micropog is great because it responds to everything you play, and unlike most octave pedals, it's polyphonic, has an upper octave and no fuzz. pefect for synth sounds. mine is placed after my byoc lazy sprocket, which slows the attack time of initial transients. i turn my dry signal on the pog to zero, throw on a little tremolo from the boss tr-2 and it really sounds like an organ. now i have the organ/synth sound i wanted, and it can keep up with me no matter what i play.

the one thing the superego does that my new setup can't do is sustain chords while i play another melody with my dry signal, but i don't need that because i usually play with other musicians.

the infinite sustain can be cool, but it's not worth having to wait a few bars to get to full volume on each chord.

in short, the superego has lots of really cool features that are only applicable in very rare circumstances. it is really great for making awesome noises by yourself in your bedroom, but hard to use for playing songs, or playing live with other people. i can see how it would be useful for recording, but in that circumstance actual synth keyboards and midi sequencing offer more flexibility.