The Mike Matthews' Soul Kiss is a filter effect pedal released in 1990 by New Sensor Corp., NY/USA, the company behind Electro-Harmonix, and sold under the name of the company's founder, Mike Matthews1. TONEHOME describes it as allegedly a derivative of the popular talk box effect for guitar, and it belongs to the wider family of filter pedals1.
What it does
The Soul Kiss is not really a talk box like the others. A conventional talk box feeds your guitar signal through a plastic tube into your mouth, so your mouth and a microphone shape the sound acoustically. The Soul Kiss takes a different route: there is no tube, but an optic sensor which you have to put in your mouth1.
The sensor works on light. As you open your mouth it gets more light and the filter moves1. In practice, that means the position of your jaw becomes the pedal's control: opening and closing your mouth sweeps the filter, letting you shape vowel-like movements over your playing without a microphone or a tube. It sits in the same territory as wah-wah pedals and vocal-style effects, but driven by your mouth rather than a rocker pedal or an envelope.
The name on the box
Mike Matthews is the founder of Electro-Harmonix, and MusicRadar has called him the company's charismatic founder2. His background is as a keyboard player and engineering student who promoted gigs while at college, as he explained in a 2012 MusicRadar interview3. He has remained the public face of the company into his 80s, according to a 2025 Guitar World feature4, and Electro-Harmonix's own history page lists the EHX products he plays under the heading "MIKE PLAYS EHX"5.
Putting his name on the Soul Kiss in 1990 placed the founder's identity directly on a deliberately unusual design: a filter you play with your mouth12.
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Questions
How does the Soul Kiss differ from a regular talk box?
A conventional talk box sends your guitar's signal through a tube into your mouth, and your mouth shapes the sound acoustically before a microphone picks it up. The Soul Kiss works differently: there is no tube at all. Instead, an optic sensor sits in your mouth, and as you open your mouth it receives more light, which moves the filter. Your mouth controls the filter rather than producing the sound itself.
Sources (5)
- TONEHOME, TONEHOME
- Andy Summers seems surprised his new signature pedal with Electro Harmonix is a flanger: "I would have called it a chorus", MusicRadar, 2023-09-18
- Interview: Mike Matthews (Electro-Harmonix founder), MusicRadar, 2012-05-28
- EHX Hall of Science: the futuristic guitar store that disappeared, Guitar World, 2025-11-11
- The Electro-Harmonix Story, Electro-Harmonix (www.ehx.com), 2020-01