Electro Harmonix Hot Tubes Nano

I once read an interview to modern composer Max Richter where he discussed his setup and mentioned the HotTubes (possibly the original version from the 70s?) as a way of coloring digital sounds. At the time I was shopping around to put in place a small setup for doing electronic music, so I decided to give it a go, attracted by the low price. Since then, I used it to color a Moog Minitaur synth, assorted line levels signals from tape recorders and cd players, and also digitally synthesized sounds coming from my soundcard.

First impressions: the pedal is compact, so it won't take much space in your pedalboard, and it is very well built. It was obviously designed to resist muddy boots stepping on it, and that is probably the reason why the switch is a bit though. A minor nuisance if you are activating the effect using your hands (like I do) rather than your raging feet.

Controls: Volume, Overdrive and Tone. End of story. My approach is lot of simple effects, rather than huge overly complex pedals. The HotTubes is perfectly aligned with this philosophy. The Tone knob is activated by a dedicated switch, which I tend to activate more when I work with sounds on the higher side of the sound spectrum.

Sound: this is an overdrive, not a distortion pedal. If you're a guitar player, your setup is likely a Strato or a Tele jacked into a TwinReverb, if you know what I mean. You want to enrich your clean sound with harmonics, improve its presence, make it aggressive, but without trying to smash someone?s face. Combine the HotTubes with some ambient effects (I use it with a T2 reverb), and there will be magic.

Last note is about power consumption: I'll soon be moving to a power supply unit for my effects, but this pedal is still running on with its original battery after several hours of continuous usage. Oh, and the original battery is pretty cool, try googling for "Electro Harmonix batteries" :)

Great service from Thomann, thats 3 out of 3 orders from Ger to UK, that have been exceptional in service and delivery time...keep it up Thomann

i bought this pedal to add warmth to clean
I also bought the EHX east river drive for the same idea, and it was a matter of using the one i liked the most.

First off, it does exactly what i wanted it too, before 12 o clock the gain control just adds very natural warmth
after that you get the break up
its is exactly as the name suggests.

The East River Drive won the day though, for only one reason, it stacks a bit better than this pedal does, but if you want warm tube style overdrive even on a solid state amp...this pedal is great , and stacks ok if you keep gain really low
price is a bargain too.

edit: i have since changed my mind, the hot tubes is my clean sound now, it just sounds so good
I run this with a lot of reverb (from a Digitech Supernatural, i think the best reverb out there for under 300 euro) and its just stunning, just typing about it now makes me want to plug in and play right now

Let me just start by saying, since around 1997, I’ve owned around 50 guitar pedals, tried a bunch of overdrives, distortion and fuzzes. Never really liked any or they didn’t fit my band’s genre. Everything changed when I bought the Soul Food, just incredible, which I’m using as a booster. But like many overdrives out there, it cuts the bass, so when you change from your amp’s distortion to the overdrive to play songs that just need a bit of dirt, you always miss the body that the bass provides. That’s what led me to the Hot Tubes. In the reviews I’ve listened to, I noticed it kept the bass intact, and fortunately I was right. This is an underrated pedal. It’s incredible, and it sounds so good! I mainly use high gain in my band, but we have 4 rock “ballads” that need a more clean sound with just a touch of dirt for open chords, as I said above. This is the right pedal for that. I’m truly impressed. Amazing tone with just a few turn of the knobs. Give it a chance if you’re looking for something similar. It just took me around 30 years to find this pedal, don’t be like me.

I purchased this pedal because I always wanted the original version of this pedal. Since I never got that one, I can't compare them, but I think this is a pretty good pedal for the money. Especially excellent on the higher gain settings with the tone switch off for some really dirty, almost fuzz-like tones. I tried some lighter gain sounds but haven't yet found anything that really suits me in that regard. But then again I never found a pedal that does this for me so maybe that just doesn't work with my setup. I always use it with humbuckers so it is possible that the lighter gain settings could be obtained when using single coils!

I had heard about the original Hot Tubes pedal but never got to try one. After reading lots of review online I decided to give the Nano version a go.

I have to say, I was not disappointed. I use this pedal in front of my VHT Classic 6 and it sounds great! It can be used as a drive pedal or simply a boost as it offers a volume and tone switch so you can use it to boost your leads. The overdrive on the pedal can be a little buzzy if you crank it up but if you use it in a subtle way then it can give you a nice gritty tone. It more or less just drives the amp a little harder so it's best used with a tube amp.

It's definitely not a metal pedal though. I play blues and rock and would recommend it for that style!