Electro-Harmonix Reissues a Classic Rarity — the CMOS Hot Tubes Overdrive Pedal

Electro-Harmonix has reissued its CMOS Hot Tubes Overdrive pedal.

Originally released in 1978, the EHX Hot Tubes was designed to replicate the organic overdrive of a vintage tube amp. The reissue Hot Tubes is a faithful re-creation of the original design, but presented in a compact, nano-sized chassis.

From EHX:

The unique CMOS overdrive circuit can deliver a fattened tone at lower gain settings or transform your amp into a dimed vintage model with high sensitivity and a musical feel — all without compromising or coloring the original tone.

“With the price of vintage Hot Tubes soaring, countless guitarists requested that we re-issue our 1970s CMOS pedal," said EHX Founder and President Mike Matthews. "We've done this using the exact same design and miniaturized it, too. And the guitarist-friendly price of the new Hot Tubes is only a fraction of the cost of a vintage unit, if you can find one!”

The control layout includes Volume, Tone and Overdrive knobs plus a Tone On/Off switch. Volume sets the overall output level of the pedal while Overdrive adjusts the gain. The Tone control can add extra warmth or sizzle. The player can also disengage the tone circuit for a beefier, more transparent sound. True bypass switching is featured to preserve your signal integrity while the pedal is not in use.

The new Hot Tubes pedal is housed in a compact die-cast package, equipped with a 9-volt battery, can be powered by an optional standard 9.6-Volt/DC200mA AC adapter and carries a US list price of $71.87.

For more about this particular pedal, visit ehx.com.