Welcome back Gearheads! Today I’ve got a really fun pedal from the extremely artful and amazing folks at LOE Sounds. Aisha Loe, the force behind LOE Sounds is one part artist and one part restoration creator. Taking salvaged components, parts and enclosures and creating artful and musical pedals is the just the tip of the iceberg. Everything LOE releases, whether it be a super custom “one-off” circuit in an unusual enclosure or one her production pieces… these pedals sound and perform amazingly. That is after all why we’re here right!?
Let me introduce you to the Electra Drive. A very simple… ahem… dead simple pedal that’s in a mini sized enclosure with one knob. One knob that allows you to tame or murder your sonic landscape. I never imagined such a simple and small pedal could inflict that kind of tonal damage, while allowing you to tame it and pull back the lion’s roar to bring in a myriad of tonal colors and gain staging. This pedal LOVES your guitar’s volume knob. It warrants a lot of time spent absorbing the MANY different shades of sound you can achieve by simply rolling it up or down. This pedal is also pink! I’m told it’s a somewhat custom color from LOE and I think it’s beautiful.
The Electra Drive is most likely based off of the 70’s Electra Distortion circuits that yielded a similar gnarled fuzzy distorted tone, with the exception that LOE added a whole other universe of tones available in such a small pedal. LOE mentions the Electra to be a great “stacker” having good results with combining it with other drives and boost pedals. I found this to be true mainly with the Electra Drive being first and another pedal after it, coloring it further. There’s a S**T ton of gain available in this pedal. It does not need to be boosted in my opinion!
“Features:
*Genuine Hammond 1590a size aluminum enclosure
*Built entirely by hand in the old-school, point-to-point style
*Micro Electronics brand silicon transistor
*Sylvania Germanium & silicon glass diodes
*NOS Allen Bradley carbon resistors
*NOS axial film capacitors
* High-quality Cliff and Neutrik jacks
*Wired true Bypass, using mil-spec Teflon-coated, silver tinned copper wire
*Vintage control knob from the seventies
*Custom Badges
*Easy-click foot switch”
In the demo below, I used the Electra Drive on all the stringed instruments including the bass guitar. It really gave a great grinding tone that worked well with the low end of the bass - not all drive pedals can do that well without changing the tone terribly. I will say that for a great majority of the tones you hear, I’m running the same setting on the Electra Drive… the one knob was set to about 3:00 to 4:00. I used my guitar’s volume knob to get everything from cleaner tones to full on roaring solo tones. I did max out the volume pot for the solo sections. The cool thing with this pedal is that if it’s too squishy from the compression or gain, just back off the volume a tiny/subtle amount and you’re in business. Dead simple, very reactive and very musical. For anyone who’s followed my gear musings over the years… you know I love that kind of interaction. No dead weight… just killing tones!
I highly encourage you to take a look at what LOE Sounds is offering, either from their standard production line or to reach out for a custom build. Really amazing work from Aisha and crew!
Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Electra Drive from LOE Sounds. If you’d like to learn more about LOE Sounds and their work please do check out these sites for more information.
https://www.instagram.com/loesounds/
Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!