Electro-Harmonix introduces the new East River Drive, an overdrive pedal designed around a JRC4558 integrated circuit.
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The pedal is named after the river that separates Manhattan and Queens, a tribute to New York City where EHX is currently operating.
Love it or hate it, the JRC4558 chip continues to play an important role in the manufacturing and development of guitar pedals, specifically Overdrive.
The JRC4558 integrated circuit was popularly used by Japanese pedal manufacturers primarily because it was among the cheapest dual op-amps on the market at the time. It has since taken an important spot in overdrive pedal manufacuring, sought after for how it pairs with tube amps. The chip’s sub-par audio performance ironically made it more suitable for use with overdrive circuits.
The Boss OD-1 and the Tube Screamer are just two of the many guitar pedals that incorporates this chip into their design. And now Electro-Harmonix decided to try their hand at providing classic solidstate overdrive sounds with their first JRC4558 overdrive pedal, the new East River Drive.
EHX describes the pedal “As bold as New York City, the new East River Driver delivers classic symmetrical overdrive with a natural, transparent quality in a compact road-worthy package.” It comes with three knobs that provide straightforward control over the output volume, input gain and tone. The lower settings of the drive knob provides subtle overdrive while adding more drive provides classic distortion sounds.
Since it uses the JRC4558 chip, the pedal is ideal for adding subtle dirt to a clean amp, or for driving an overdriven tube amp. Like all new EHX pedals, the East River Drive are wired to allow for True Bypass when engaged.
The East River Drive pedal comes with a tag price of $77.38. You can go to EHX for more information.
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