Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork review

In a nutshell, the Pitch Fork is a polyphonic pitch shifter and harmony pedal that offers up to three complete octaves, plus a selection of closer intervals that can be set both above and below the dry note. Its trio of modes – above, below and dual, which combines the two – can be selected via the dedicated three-way microswitch, and the 11-way rotary pitch control selects the interval.

Another cool feature of the Pitch Fork is the Momentary function, which you can use for those times when you just need a quick blast of shift effect. It transforms the on/off switch’s function to an unlatching operation, and you can drop the effect in and out as quickly as you need to.

Real-time whammy-style glissandos can be achieved by plugging an expression pedal into the dedicated input. The EHX version goes for around £55, and is probably the best option should you wish to get the very most out of the Pitch Fork, but the pedal is designed to be compatible with most expression units out there, including the offerings from Roland and others.

The Nano chassis shouldn’t take up too much room on your board, and it comes supplied with a dedicated 9V power supply. You can also use it with a single PP3 battery, should you desire.

In use

As with using any pitch shifter, it’s vital that your guitar is perfectly in tune before you start playing around with the Pitch Fork, but once we were tuned up and ready to go, we found the intervals to be satisfyingly accurate.

There’s not a huge amount of tone sucking going on either and, whether you experiment with clean chords or single notes, the Pitch Fork keeps up effortlessly. Don’t ignore the Detune setting either, offering – as it does – a passable impression of a Small Clone.

We were especially impressed by the performance of the low octaves, both cleanly and with a touch of drive. Intrusive fluttering is kept to a minimum and string bends are duplicated authentically.

Dual mode can transport you immediately to Steve Vai world, especially with the shift set to M3. Add in a touch of delay, pick some suitably major-flavoured chords and Passion & Warfare’s Ballerina 12/24 twirls away again.

Used with higher gain settings, full chords can mush up a tad, which we can live with, but single-note riffs are, again, pitched perfectly. Dropping high octaves into metal solos via Momentary mode can be very effective, while the double octave below rattles both the room and your fillings.

PRICE £97 CONTACT www.ehx.com