Well, my birthday present to me arrived today in the form of an EHX Hot Wax. I haven't had a ton of time with it yet. I hope to get some clips up eventually. Here's my initial review/thoughts.

It is really two overdrives in one. The left side is the EHX Hot Tubes which is a reissue/nano version of their original Hot Tubes CMOS FET pedal from the 70s. The right side is the EHX Crayon which some online have said is a similar circuit to the Xotic BB preamp pedal. Both sides have their own dedicated volume and drive knobs. They share a bass and treble control which are active boost/cut and flat at noon. There is plenty of oomph from both sides. Unity gain is at about 9:00 on the volume with the drive at noon when using my bass with active EMGs. The party piece is the blend knob that blends in your dry signal. At noon it's 50% dry and 50% wet. Not sure how much guitarists might use this, but it's almost a necessity for bassists so we aren't robbed of our sweet, sweet low end.

The Crayon side is pretty much what I would expect from an overdrive. Even at max drive, it's not in distortion territory. It is pretty transparent. There's no serious Tube Screamer-style midrange boost. Obviously the bass and treble controls will color things. This is what I was looking for in a pedal. It adds a nice rock grit. The drive, bass, treble, and blend knobs offer you almost limitless tonal variety.

But perhaps, you prefer something a bit . . . ruder. That's where the Hot Tubes side comes in. It's darker/warmer than the Crayon side and definitely more like a fuzz. People have described it as the sound of a small amph about to blow up. I think I agree. If you want the "Hey, Hey, My, My (Into the Black)" bass tone, you can get it here. Unlike the original pedal it doesn't have a switch to bypass the tone stack, but I think that the discreet bass and treble controls more than make up for the loss.

But, perhaps, you prefer something ruder still. Well, turn on both sides and fasten your safety belt. You will scare the children. If you thought it could get loud before, it's REALLY loud now. In this case the Crayon side is driving the Hot Tubes side. The Crayon volume controls how hard you're driving the Hot Tubes side. The Hot Tubes volume sets the overall effect level. The result is some kind of Frankendistortion the likes of which I've never heard before. With all the chaos, though, you lose a good amount of note definition although the blend knob can help fix that somewhat.

The pedal comes with an EHX wall wart, which is nice. The lead is kind of thin (much more so than my 1-Spot), so I'm not sure how much abuse it would take. Since it's going to sit in my office, it should be fine. It's a nice addition.

Initial thoughts: I'm very pleased. There's lots of flexibility in this little box. You can use it from everything from simple tone shaping, to clean boost, to overdrive, to fuzz, to leveling nearby homes. At US$111.70 it's a pretty screaming deal. I look forward to also trying it with my guitar.

One caveat for people who are concerned about such things: the pedal is not true-bypass. There's a buffer. It won't bother me, but it may bother some. If the tone was dulled at all by it, I did not notice.