About Electro-Harmonix
Electro-Harmonix is a guitar-effects pedal maker founded in 1968 by Mike Matthews in New York City, and it remains headquartered in Long Island City, NY today with Matthews still at the helm. The company's breakout release, the Big Muff Pi fuzz pedal, arrived in 1969 and became one of the most recorded and copied circuits in effects-pedal history — the wall-of-sound fuzz behind Jimi Hendrix and David Gilmour, and later a defining tone for Billy Corgan and Smashing Pumpkins. A bankruptcy shut down original production in 1984, but Matthews relaunched the Big Muff and the wider EHX catalog in 1992, and the pedal has stayed in continuous production since.
Beyond the Big Muff, EHX's catalog spans some of the industry's most widely referenced circuits: the Memory Man analog delay, the POG polyphonic octave generator, the Holy Grail reverb, and the Small Clone chorus and Electric Mistress flanger, sold across full-size, Nano, and Pico enclosures depending on the pedal. In 2025 the company partnered with plugin maker MixWave to release the first officially licensed EHX plugins — digital recreations of the Big Muff, Deluxe Memory Man, Electric Mistress, and Small Clone — carrying more than five decades of circuit design into the DAW.
Brand website: ehx.com
What Electro-Harmonix makes
Electro-Harmonix's catalog runs wider than the gear we review. The lines we know best from our own testing are marked with a star:
Fuzz & Distortion
The Big Muff Pi and its many voicings — Civil War, Ram's Head, and Nano/Deluxe variants — featured on House of Octave
Delay
Memory Man analog delay line and the digital Canyon delay
Reverb
Holy Grail reverb — spring, hall, and shimmer modes
Modulation
Small Clone chorus and Electric Mistress flanger
Pitch & Octave
POG2 and Nano POG polyphonic octave generators
Sustain & Utility
Freeze and Deep Freeze sustain pedals
Why we recognized Electro-Harmonix
The House of Octave Top Brand recognition isn't paid for and can't be applied for. We award it to the brands whose gear consistently stands out in our player-tested category guides. Electro-Harmonix earned it on the strength of the products below, judged the same way every product on this site is: assessed on build, tone, and playability, weighed against what players actually report over years of use, and ranked on merit.
Electro-Harmonix gear we rated highly
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Guitar Effects Pedal
The distortion pedal that flirts with fuzz — massive, creamy sustain and a genuine wall-of-sound tone that nothing else in the roundup delivers. Its three-knob layout (Volume, Tone, Sustain) and true bypass switching dial in fast, and it's uniquely suited to thick, sustaining leads and heavy riffs where density matters more than articulation.
Read the 10 Best Distortion Pedals of 2026 (Metal, Rock, Blues & Budget) guide → Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Fuzz Pedal
The definitive fuzz — a huge, sustaining wall of sound instantly recognizable the moment you hit a chord, and a genuinely different tool from any overdrive or distortion on a board. Simple Volume, Tone, and Sustain knobs take it from creamy lead sustain to a roaring fuzz wall entirely by ear, and the tank-like EHX chassis holds up to years of touring abuse.
Read the 11 Best Guitar Pedals of 2026 (One Pick for Every Effect) guide →What earned Electro-Harmonix the recognition
- Earned House of Octave recognition in two separate categories, distortion pedals and guitar pedals, with the same pedal, the Big Muff Pi, independently rated the standout fuzz/distortion-hybrid tone in both tests
- The Big Muff Pi has been in continuous or revived production since 1969, one of the longest-running unchanged circuit designs in the effects-pedal industry, and remains the sound behind Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, and Billy Corgan recordings
- Founded and still led by original founder Mike Matthews, headquartered in Long Island City, NY, since 1968 — rare continuity for a legacy pedal brand
- A broad catalog beyond the Big Muff — the Memory Man delay, POG octave generator, and Holy Grail reverb are each considered category-defining circuits in their own right
- Recognized widely enough across the industry to be the first brand to license official plugin recreations of its classic pedals, partnering with MixWave in 2025 to extend the analog legacy into digital production