Great Eastern FX XO Variable Crossover

The Great Eastern FX XO Variable Crossover is a utility pedal that splits your signal into a high and a low frequency band and sends each out to its own loop chain¹. Plug into the input, run one set of pedals on the low send and return and another on the high send and return, and the pedal divides the full band at a crossover point you choose, processes each half separately, then blends the two returning signals back together at the output². You can also leave the loops empty and use it as a straight frequency splitter, sending the high frequencies to one amp and the low frequencies to another³¹.

Great Eastern FX launched the pedal on 10 April 2024, priced at $279 in the US and £229 in the UK⁴. It was designed by David Greeves, the founder of Great Eastern FX, who told MusicRadar it is the sort of pedal that will get players experimenting with their signal chains⁴.

What a crossover pedal does

Most pedals process your whole signal at once. A crossover divides it first. The XO uses a low pass filter on one side and a high pass filter on the other, so the low loop only receives frequencies below the crossover point and the high loop only receives frequencies above it⁵. Guitar Pedal X describes the result as combining one pedal's lower frequencies with another's higher frequencies through parallel blending⁵.

That opens up routing options a normal switching pedal or parallel blender cannot do on their own. Delicious Audio lists the possibilities: use different effects for each band and blend them back together, or send the two bands to different amps¹. Guitar Pedal X breaks the use cases down further⁵:

• Twin Pedal Splicer
• Twin Pedal Augmented Blender
• Twin Pedal Frequency Splitter
• High Loop Only Filter / EQ
• Low Loop Only Filter / EQ
• High Pass + Low Pass Filter

In practice that means, for example, keeping your low end clean through the low loop while running fuzz or distortion only on the highs, or putting a delay on one band and a dry signal on the other. Guitar Pedal X later called it the smartest variant to date of a signal blender and filter built this way, comparing it to simpler single-loop parallel blenders⁷.

The controls

The front panel keeps things simple: one large knob, one small knob, and three switches²¹.

The Phase switch deserves a note. Delicious Audio explains that reversing the phase of the low band can fix a thin-sounding result, but it can also produce a more hollow tone by canceling the frequencies around the crossover point¹. If your blended output sounds weak, that interaction is the first thing to check.

The two ranges serve different instruments. Premier Guitar recommends the 50 to 600 Hz range for bass and the 300 Hz to 3.4 kHz range for guitar²¹. With both loops engaged you can also use either of the High or Low Pedal Sends as an output instead of the main Output jack⁵.

Bass players

The XO has drawn particular attention from bass players. Delicious Audio notes that splitting the bands lets bass players apply effects to the midrange frequencies without affecting the bottom end¹. Guitar World quotes Greeves saying that for bass, the ability to process the high and low frequencies separately means no guitar pedal is off limits anymore⁶. Guitar Pedal X agreed in its year-end roundup of new modulation, pitch and utility pedals, writing that the XO "works particularly well for Bass players too!"⁷. For a player building a bass pedal board, the low range setting plus a clean low loop is the setup those reviewers point to.

What reviewers said

Reviews were positive but clear about who the pedal is for. Premier Guitar's verdict²⁷⁶:

Guitar Pedal X's reviewer was more enthusiastic, calling it "a wonderfully creative and experimental pedal splicer" and writing that "David's really delivered a killer pedal here"⁵. His one wish for a future version was TRS jacks, so stereo pedals could be combined across the two loops⁵.

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