Electro-Harmonix Superego+

The Electro-Harmonix Superego+ is a digital synth engine and multi-effects pedal that takes whatever you play, holds it, and turns it into a sustained pad you can keep playing over. At its core is what MusicRadar's review team calls "a polyphonic pitch tracking delay-based sustainer/freezer effect": it captures a chord or note and sustains it indefinitely, layers new notes on top, and can sweep the held pitch in fluid glissandos¹. Electro-Harmonix describes the platform as reinventing sample and hold and creating "oscillator like, synthesizer effects"².

The Superego+ arrived in 2017 as an expanded version of the Superego Synth Engine, adding a built-in effects section with 11 effect types, an EXP input for effect parameter control and preset recall, and an effects loop³⁴⁵. It sits in the broader family of synth pedals, but its freeze-and-sustain approach is distinct from the oscillator-based synth pedals most players know.

What the Superego+ does: freeze, sustain and glissando

The pedal's basic trick is freezing: it samples what you play and holds that sound for as long as you want, while your dry signal keeps flowing so you can play over the frozen layer. The Superego+ springboards off the original Superego's ability to create synth effects, sound layers, glissandos and infinite sustain⁴. Because the engine is polyphonic, it can hold whole chords, not just single notes¹.

The Gliss control is the other half of the character. It adjusts the speed of the glissando effect, so a held note or chord can slide from one pitch to another, slowly or quickly, rather than jumping². Guitar Interactive noted that unlike the original Freeze pedal, the Superego line added this new Gliss control⁷. MusicRadar's reviewers summed up the result: "The Superego+ does the atmospheric polyphonic glissando pad effect like no other. This 'plus' model really amps up the control and creativity overall"¹.

Freeze modes and the effects section

The Superego+ offers four foot-switchable Freeze modes plus a Live Effects mode³⁴:

• Moment: the freeze sounds only while you hold the footswitch
• Sustain: the held sound sustains and decays
• Auto: freezing triggers automatically from your playing
• Latch: the freeze holds until you switch it off
• Live Effects mode: the dry signal is routed through the effects section³

The effects section carries 11 effect types⁵; the ones Electro-Harmonix and its launch coverage name are:

The PHASE and FLANGE settings borrow the character of two classic EHX pedals, the Small Stone phaser and the Electric Mistress flanger, which gives players a reference point for how those effects will sit in the frozen signal³.

An EXP input handles effect parameter control and preset recall⁵, so an expression pedal can sweep the rate of the phaser, the time of the delay, or the pitch of the detune while a pad is frozen. There is also an effects loop for routing other pedals into the signal³.

The controls

The Superego+ carries seven knobs⁴:

The original Superego, by comparison, kept things simpler with Speed, Gliss, Dry and Effect controls and a toggle switch to select its mode of operation²⁸. The Superego+'s Attack, Decay, Threshold and Layer knobs are the additions that give the "plus" model its finer control over how sounds are captured, shaped and stacked⁴.

History: built on the Superego Synth Engine

The Superego+ is a 2017 expansion of the Superego Synth Engine, which Electro-Harmonix introduced in 2012³⁷. The Superego itself built on the Freeze principle, as Premier Guitar's reviewer put it⁹, and on the success of EHX's Freeze Sound Retainer, which Vintage Guitar called "the world's shortest looper"¹⁰. Guitar Interactive described the Superego as taking the technology from the Freeze pedal but adding "new, creative and inspirational features"⁷.

The original Superego used EHX's familiar metal chassis with chassis-mounted 1/4" input, output and effect loop jacks¹⁰. The Superego+ kept the same synthesis platform and wrapped it in the larger feature set³.

At the Superego+'s launch, MusicRadar highlighted a demo by EHX's Bill Ruppert running through tones from Floyd and Beatles style psychedelia to organ and harmonica-like tones, Whammy-like pitch shift, glissando, warped sweeping filters and 80s-style square wave tremolo, and noted the pedal has applications well beyond guitar and bass, including keys, vocals and drums¹¹.

What reviewers said

MusicRadar's review team found the core engine to be a polyphonic pitch tracking delay-based sustainer/freezer, and that although the pedal is geared toward guitar, any instrument-level source works: their review reports trying bass and monosynth through it to great effect¹. Their overall verdict credited the plus model with amping up control and creativity over the original¹.

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