Electro-Harmonix Soul Food Settings Guide
The most popular Klon Centaur clone on the market. Transparent overdrive with natural high-end clarity and smooth clipping. Used the same way as the Klon — primarily as a clean boost or light overdrive into a tube amp.
Used by: John Mayer, Brad Paisley, Stevie Ray Vaughan
The best Electro-Harmonix Soul Food settings start with: Drive at 2/10, Tone at 5/10, Volume at 6/10. Adjust from there based on your amp, guitar, and room volume. For Blues (Clean Boost): Drive 0/10, Tone 5/10, Volume 7/10.
⚡ Start Here — Recommended Settings
| Control | Starting Position | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Drive | 2/10 | Clean Boost → Overdrive |
| Tone | 5/10 | Dark → Bright |
| Volume | 6/10 | Silent → Loud |
These are universal starting points. Adjust based on your amp, guitar, and room. Scroll down for genre-specific settings and artist-documented positions.
What Each Control Does
Recommended Starting Settings
Safe starting positions for any style. Adjust from here based on your amp and room.
All values on a 0–10 scale. These are starting points — fine-tune by ear.
Settings by Genre
Drive at minimum — the Soul Food as a pure clean boost into a tube amp. Volume above unity pushes the amp input harder. Unlike the Tube Screamer, this setting does not cut bass frequencies — it boosts the amp without changing its low-end character. The SRV approach: clean boost into a cooking amp.
Light Drive adds harmonic colour without heavy saturation. The Soul Food at Drive 4 produces an edge-of-breakup quality that responds to picking dynamics — play softly for clean, pick hard for grit. Tone at 6 adds the high-end transparency that distinguishes it from a Tube Screamer.
Near-clean boost with bright Tone — the Soul Food as a transparent tone enhancer for Telecaster playing. Volume above unity pushes the amp harder; Tone at 6 adds presence without the Tube Screamer's mid-hump. This is the pedal's natural country application.
Moderate-high Drive for a more committed overdrive character. The Soul Food at Drive 6 produces smooth, harmonically rich clipping that retains note definition better than most hard-clipping distortions. Tone at noon prevents excess brightness.
Artist Settings
Documented settings used by professional guitarists on this unit.
Mayer's Klon-style approach — Drive low, Volume above unity, boosting a clean Fender Twin into the front end. The Soul Food reproduces this approach at a fraction of the Klon's price. He uses this type of pedal always-on as a tone enhancer, not as a footswitched effect.
Country-style transparent bright boost — minimum Drive, high Tone and Volume to push a clean amp without adding colour. The Soul Food's lack of bass cut (unlike the TS) preserves the low-string fullness of Telecaster playing that Paisley requires for his chicken-picking technique.
SRV's Tube Screamer technique applied to the Soul Food — Drive at zero as a clean boost. The Soul Food at this setting is actually closer to what SRV was doing than a TS at Drive 0 because the Soul Food lacks the TS's bass cut. Volume well above unity. Into a warm Dumble-style amp this setting produces the pushed, full-bodied clean overdrive SRV is known for.
Tips & Common Mistakes
- The Soul Food sounds best when the tube amp it drives is already warm — cold, clinical solid-state amps won't respond the same way.
- Drive at 0 with Volume at 7–8 is the most used setting — it's the Klon approach that made the original famous.
- Unlike the Tube Screamer, the Soul Food does not cut bass — this makes it a better choice for players with heavy-gauge strings or humbuckers where bass preservation matters.
- Stack a Soul Food (boost) into a Tube Screamer (OD) for a layered approach — the boost pushes the TS harder, which pushes the amp harder. Three levels of saturation stacked produces a smooth, compressed lead tone.
- The Soul Food is true bypass — this is an improvement over many Klon-style pedals that use a buffer. True bypass means zero signal loading in bypass mode.
FAQ
Electro-Harmonix Soul Food — Common Questions
Best starting settings for Electro-Harmonix Soul Food: Drive at 2/10, Tone at 5/10, Volume at 6/10. Adjust from there based on your guitar, room, and playing style.
For Blues (Clean Boost): Drive 0/10, Tone 5/10, Volume 7/10. Drive at minimum — the Soul Food as a pure clean boost into a tube amp. Volume above unity pushes the amp input harder. Unlike the Tube Screamer, this setting does not cut bass frequencies — it boosts the amp without changing its low-end character. The SRV approach: clean boost into a cooking amp.
For Blues (Light OD): Drive 4/10, Tone 6/10, Volume 6/10. Light Drive adds harmonic colour without heavy saturation. The Soul Food at Drive 4 produces an edge-of-breakup quality that responds to picking dynamics — play softly for clean, pick hard for grit. Tone at 6 adds the high-end transparency that distinguishes it from a Tube Screamer.
Drive: Amount of clipping. At Drive 0–3 it acts as a clean boost; at 4–7 it adds light overdrive; above 7 it becomes a standalone OD. (Clean Boost to Overdrive). Tone: High-frequency content. Unlike the Tube Screamer, the Soul Food does not cut bass — Tone shapes the highs without affecting low-end. (Dark to Bright). Volume: Output level. Set above unity for boost application. As a boost: Volume at 6–8; as OD: match unity. (Silent to Loud)
The Soul Food sounds best when the tube amp it drives is already warm — cold, clinical solid-state amps won't respond the same way. Drive at 0 with Volume at 7–8 is the most used setting — it's the Klon approach that made the original famous. Unlike the Tube Screamer, the Soul Food does not cut bass — this makes it a better choice for players with heavy-gauge strings or humbuckers where bass preservation matters. Stack a Soul Food (boost) into a Tube Screamer (OD) for a layered approach — the boost pushes the TS harder, which pushes the amp harder. Three levels of saturation stacked produces a smooth, compressed lead tone. The Soul Food is true bypass — this is an improvement over many Klon-style pedals that use a buffer. True bypass means zero signal loading in bypass mode.
John Mayer settings: Drive 2/10, Tone 5/10, Volume 7/10. Mayer's Klon-style approach — Drive low, Volume above unity, boosting a clean Fender Twin into the front end. The Soul Food reproduces this approach at a fraction of the Klon's price. He uses this type of pedal always-on as a tone enhancer, not as a footswitched effect.
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