The Electro-Harmonix Hell Melter, as you may have guessed, is not a pedal for the gentle electric guitarist. Catering to the metal crowd (those who use their 6-string to “melt” stuff), this stompbox is a love letter to the “chainsaw” tone made popular by a string of Swedish Death Metal Bands – a distorted sound that is explored and widened in terms of flexibility through an expanded set of controls.
These include a semi-parametric EQ section with sweepable mids (and regular low and high controls), a Dry Level knob to reintegrate the clean signal for added clarity and dynamics, a Gate knob to tame unwanted noises, and a separate Boost footswitch.
A Norm/Burn toggle on the top of the pedal delivers two different clippings: the latter is the classic chainsaw sound and the former a more open clipping option.
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Electro-Harmonix Hell Melter
With its take on the cult-classic, chainsaw distortion pedal, the EHX Hell Melter takes distortion to its extremes. The Hell Melter features expanded controls and tonal capabilities, allowing the already in-your-face sound of the pedal to broaden by switching to more open clipping options and boosting the internal voltage for increased headroom, less compression, and more attack.
Originally designed as the ultimate in high-gain tone, this world-famous distortion circuit is known for the death metal sounds of Sweden’s Entombed and the shoegaze wash of My Bloody Valentine. It’s even found a home in the rig of David Gilmour!
The EHX Hell Melter’s expanded control set includes Gain and Level controls, and a powerful active EQ featuring with parametric mids for improved versatility. The Dry level control allows for blending your input signal for improved low-end when used with a bass or even blending in other distorted tones.
Boost Footswitch engages an input gain boost and volume boost which is internally adjustable. The Normal/Burn switch toggles between the classic chainsaw sound and the more open clipping option.
FEATURES
- Classic Heavy Metal circuit with expanded controls
- Increased overall output volume
- Active EQ controls expansion with parametric MIDS control
- Noise gate and dry level control
- NORMAL and BURN modes
- Footswitchable boost section
- Independent distortion and level knobs
- 9V power supply included
