Xploration • Curation • Recommendation
PastFX's Deluxe Electric Mistress take - the Deluxe Elastic Mattress - is particularly lush sounding with a slightly richer and denser texture than the original Mistress & Mattress
The original EHX Electric Mistress was first released in 1976, and two years later we had a more touring-friendly and slightly more practical and consistent sort of ’modern’ Deluxe Electric Mistress - which was actually produced in parallel with the original circuit for a number of years through to the 90’s I think - in that particular circuit format.
The original Deluxe had a Reticon SAD1024 BBD onboard - which Verlie has replaced in her unit with a beautiful sounding original NOS Matsushita / Panasonic MN3007 BBD Chip.
The newer Deluxe Model was all about making the Mistress more gig- and touring- friendly - and more consistent in its output. And involved a slew of circuit improvements - including in the power supply and tone stack / tone filtering areas of the circuit. There were a numbed of Mods developed for the Deluxe Mistress over those earliest 70’s and 80’s year indeed including the Filter Matrix Switch - and PastFX’s Verlie has done her usual curatorial magic in bringing all those key mods together in the one sleek 1590B compact unit - much more practical still than EHX’s somewhat larger enclosures.
To my ears the modulation is slightly thicker and denser for the Deluxe Mattress therefore coming across a little more lush overall. The core voicing doesn’t run quite as bright as the very original pre-Deluxe Electric Mistress - while the 80’s Voicing push-button does brighten up the output significantly - but you don’t quite get the lightness of touch - and extra sparkle of the very original Mistress & Mattress.
External Controls - Rate, Filter Matrix (Static / LFO Bypass), Range / Manual (centre-point of Delay Line sweep), Blend, Volume, Color (Tone), Feedback : ↑ Positive / ↓ Negative, Filter EQ : ↑ 70s Darker / 80’s Lighter ↓.
Internal Controls - Delay Time : ← Mod / Stock →, Cancel Trimmer / Adjust, Gain Trimmer / Adjust, Color Trimmer / Adjust, Impedance Switch : ↑ High / ↓ Low.
As with all of Verie’s vintage takes - we have premium components onboard here, and maximum shape-ability for this particular Electric Mistress variant.
I personally did not find the need to adjust any of the internal settings - the pedal sounded gorgeous from the start. While I do liberally use the 70’s Darker / 80’s Lighter push button - and I even quite like the Negative Feedback Mode on occasion.
Everything dials in very elegantly - I found the Deluxe a very user-friendly pedal to deploy - and was indeed able to dial in a favourite setting particularly easily.
My current preference has Rate @ 2 o'c, Filter Matrix Off, Range @ 2 o'c, Blend @ 3 o'c, Volume @ 1 o'c, Color @ 2 o'c, Feedback is mostly Positive, and I typically favour the Lighter 80's EQ Filter setting too!
This is my 3rd PastFX Elastic Mattress - and all are wonderful and well worth owning. The stock / original Elastic Mistress has had 3 significant circuit iterations as far as I'm aware - with each subsequent release featuring one or two addition controls - inside and out! I own the V2 and V3 Elastic Mattresses, and this Deluxe model completes that trifecta for me!
On my original Queen of Modulation Visual I swapped out the V3 for the Deluxe - which was somewhat inaccurate and wrong of me as they are considered different circuits - so the follow-up features both of them (as below)!
Verlie is still the reigning Queen of Modulation - and no one really does extended features vintage effects better than Verlie - where I really love all my 5 principal PastFX Flanger Variants, as well as the 4 Choruses and 4 Phasers. That is one killer modulation section - and all of those are very much top-tier and dear to me. There's something really highly magical about those earlier BBD chips - they have a certain really lush warm flavour / quality to them which the modern reproduction BBD's aren't quite available to deliver - however good those sound.
I was hoping to do a collaborative feature with Verlie on BBD Chips - as a follow-up to my epic article on Capacitors. As I feel she is very much the expert in that area - having handled most of the super rare vintage varieties. Verlie very much values her free time, and prefers to remain somewhat anonymous - so I'm not sure how feasible the BBD project is - but I can't think of anyone better to collaborate with on an article about BBD's!
Any and all of Verile's modulations are highly recommended - they really sound top tier - with such beautifully warm and lush tones!
The Deluxe Elastic Mattress is $206 on the PastFX Reverb.com Store - there is usually a reference on the main PastFX site with and AUS$ value - but it's not coming up at the moment. Verlie is currently taking a break - and will be back in action again around Mid-October - so be patient!
There are some really neat touches for the Deluxe - including the lower LED switching when you go from Positive (Red) to Negative Feedback (Blue).
I'm not sure there are demos yet for the Deluxe - so I may need to reference something else for sound sample purposes - as below.
There's not question though that the Deluxe Elastic Mistress is yet another must-have modulation from the Queen of that domain!
Demos / Sound Sample Reference
