Hello there, and welcome back to yet another guitar pedal review! As you may have noticed, I have been publishing several guitar pedal articles and demos as I started purchasing guitar pedals, mostly overdrives, distortions, and boosts, to test with tube amps and reactive loads in a direct recording setup.
Table of Contents
I wanted to try as many pedals as possible and document my experience here. So, this time, we will look at one of the rarest distortion pedals: the Egnater Silversmith distortion pedal! I acquired this back in Türkiye and was really pumped up about this as it was very difficult to find this on the internet.
Like I always do, I will do my best to provide as many details as possible about the Egnater company and the Egnater Silversmith distortion pedal and a brief demo video in this Egnater Silversmith review.
TL;DR
There are some guitar pedals which stand out with their feature set and build quality out there, but it’s a rarity! Egnater Silvermith was one of them at first sight! Right after I acquired mine, I was very impressed!
Egnater Silversmith is one of the guitar dirt boxes that belong to company’s long-released and long-discontinued pedal line up. It’s a distortion pedal with a separate boost function.
Basically, you get two pedals in one enclosure. Distortion and Boost section can be ordered as you desire using the mini switches on the pedal and it also allows you to add other guitar pedals in between these two independent circuits using the patch jacks!
The pedal is built like a tank and one of the heaviest pedals I have ever seen! The Distortion and the Boost section features the same characteristics. You can take it as a two channel amp with lots of tweaking available!
The boost section was my favourite and really worked great with any setup whether it’s a clean, an overdriven or a full blown distortion channel on my amps. The distortion section wasn’t my cup of tea as it needs a clean channel to operate at its best in my opinion.
I’d definitely buy the boost section if they sold it separately! However, I don’t think I would use the distortion as I rely on amp distortion most of the times and personally love to add overdrives/boost on top.
cigilovic.com can not blindly suggest you go and get one for yourself. Instead, I’d suggest you should really study your needs and only get this pedal if you want to build your rig around a clean amp with Silversmith distortion characteristics as well as some additional drive which you should also test along with Silversmith.
By using the patch input and output features on this pedal, you can really custom build your rig but it will require some time and money to experiment with different flavours of drives that may work well with Silversmith.
About Egnater
Bruce Egnater founded Egnater Custom Amplification in 1980. Egnater started out like many amp builders: he was looking for a certain tone out of a guitar amp, and no product existed in the market, so he set out to create his own.
In the 1970s, true tube saturation was only achieved by running a Marshall amp wide open. Egnater took a small Gibson amp book and replaced the speaker with a resistor, and inserted the output from the Gibson amp into the input of a Marshall 200-Watt head that allowed the guitarist to add distortion without turning up volume.
Egnater later came up with a channel switching amp that could produce both clean and overdrive tones from the same unit. Egnater received a patent for his modular musical amplification system, where the pre-amp sections of an amp are modular and can be changed out of an amp. Thomann Music Days Summer Sale - 65% OFF until 22/07!
In the late 2000s, Egnater introduced a full line of standard tube amplifiers. They currently produce custom modular amplifier combos, heads, pre-amps and speaker cabinets.
Even though Egnater is best known for its boutique-style tube amps, the company also manufactured various guitar pedals back in the day. I tried to gather information on the company, however, it appears that the Egnater Amps is not actively manufacturing products anymore. I often come across posts by Bruce Egnater on Facebook about the builds he’s been working on and releasing.
Based on my quick research, I also found out that the Egnater company might have been acquired by Boutique Amp Distribution. However, there’s only a link to the official Egnater website (egnateramps.com), and the website is down! Other than that, I can’t find any specific information on the current Egnater product line anywhere!
One last note regarding Egnater Amps is that there are many Egnater Amps listed on Reverb for very affordable price tags. I’d expect crazy prices as the company is a US one, and these products are not easy to source anywhere. But weirdly, you can even get their flagship amps around 1000€ in the EU.
Egnater Silversmith Distortion
The Egnater Silversmith is a versatile, all-analogue dual-function pedal that combines high-gain distortion and a flexible boost in a single unit. Designed by amplifier guru Bruce Egnater, it offers a wide range of tonal options suitable for various musical styles.
Basically, it’s two pedals in one! A boost and a distortion circuit in the same enclosure, which you can combine while allowing you to insert different pedals in between!
Boost
The Boost section offers not only a transparent, tone-enhancing clean boost, but also a wide range of semi-clean/crunch tones with total control over the Tightness, Brightness and Gain parameters.
There are Drive, Colour, Tight and Level controls on the boost section. With the Drive control, you can set the amount of “Grit“. For lower settings, you can utilise this as a clean boost, or you can increase the amount of grit and get into the rock’n roll crunch territory.
The Colour adjusts tone from smooth and mellow to a glassy high end without ever getting ice-picky.
The Tight control allows getting a more focused low end (with Tight on + position). In the – position which is the normal position, you get a fuller and fatter tone.
Distortion
The Distortion section offers an impressive range of medium to very high-gain tones. The parameters are pretty much the same, but there are some extra parameters at your disposal. You have your typical Gain, Tone, Tight, Volume controls as well as the Contour parameter here.
The Gain control generates the amount of distortion from classic crunch to over-the-top high-gain, while the Tone control allows adjusting the high-end from mellow to glassy. Check out the best guitar pickup company, Seymour Duncan here!
There is also an identical Tight switch on the distortion section, as mentioned. When Tight is on the + position, you have a sharp low end, while on the – position, a looser feel. It’s recommended that the Tight switch be enabled when using a lot of gain in the distortion section for a better punch and clarity.
Last but not least, there’s also the Contour control, which is basically a mid control. You can cut the mid frequencies below noon or boost them after noon positions. There’s also another switch to further control this Contour pot. This switch allows you to choose one of two different frequencies.
D<B Setting
There’s also a very unique feature that stands out, considering this pedal was long discontinued (released in around 2014). You will see another mini switch between two sections. This D<B switch allows you to configure the individual Boost and Distortion pedals to be in the order of your choice. With the Path set to D<B position, Boost is before the Distortion in the signal path.
Imagine you have two separate pedals, with the Boost being the first. When the Distortion is on and the Boost is off, the Distortion pedal functions independently.
Same with Boost. Turning on the Boost before the Distortion results in the Distortion pedal becoming even more overdriven and compressed. So, not only is there more gain on tap, but you can also affect the overall tone of the Distortion by adjusting the controls on the Boost. Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
For instance, you could set a fairly bright somewhat lower gain Distortion sound and use the Boost to push the gain and use the Colour knob to impart a smoother solo tone. Note that, with the Boost before Distortion, there may not be a substantial volume increase because you are coaxing more gain and distortion, not volume out of the Distortion.
Setting the switch to O>D reverses the order of the two places and places the Boost in line after the Distortion. This creates a totally different effect. The Boost can now function as a volume/solo boost for the Distortion pedal.
You can be playing through the Distortion alone, and switching in the Boost will allow you to have a preset solo volume and tweak the solo tone, also. The possibilities are endless! Music Plugin Deals at Pluginboutique.com
As expected, when combining the Distortion and Boost pedals, there’s a limit to how much gain you can realistically use before noise and feedback become problematic.
Patch Jacks
In addition to the normal guitar input and output jacks, there are also a pair of jacks labelled IN-PATCH-OUT. These jacks offer a method by which you can separate the Boost and the Distortion into two separate pedals.
This gives you countless possible ways to configure your pedal rig. For instance, you could plug your guitar into the Silversmith Input, come out of the PATCH-OUT into your other pedals. Then take the output from your last pedal, plug it into the PATCH-IN and connect the Silversmith Output to your amp.
You have now arranged your setup so that the first pedal in your chain is the Silversmith Boost.
Your signal then passes through all your other pedals, and the Silvesmith Distortion is last in line. When you use all four jacks on the Silversmith, it effectively separates itself into two individual pedals that you can insert anywhere in your pedal chain. Just reverse the hookup described to put the Distortion first in your signal chain and the Boost last!
Before we jump to the review section, let’s first have a look at the tech specs briefly.
Egnater Silversmith Tech Specs
| Egnater Silversmith | Tech Specs |
|---|---|
| Pedal Type | Dual-function Distortion and Boost |
| Channels | Distortion (left), Boost (right) |
| Bypass | True Bypass |
| Power | 9V DC (center-negative), ~100mA |
| EQ | 3-Band EQ (Distortion); Tone Control (Boost) |
| Boost Type | Clean to slightly colored, independent |
| Stacking Options | Series or Parallel via toggle switch |
| Controls | Gain, Level, Bass, Mid, Treble (Distortion); Gain, Tone, Volume (Boost) |
| Enclosure | Brushed aluminum, rugged build |
| Dimensions | Approx. 4.75" x 3.75" x 1.5" |
| Weight | ~550g |
| Inputs/Outputs | Mono In/Out (standard ¼") |
| Made In | USA |
| Street Price | ~150 - 200 EUR |
As you can see, it’s one of the most unique dual pedals, and it was definitely ahead of its time! I don’t know any pedals that give you this many routing options in a single pedal. Considering that this pedal was released around 2014, I think Mr Egnater proved that he was the innovator!
Egnater Silversmith Review & Sound Demo (no talking)
For the demo, I used the loops that I had already recorded in my Boss RC-5 looper pedal, as I just wanted to do a quick demo. In these loops, I used my FGN Boundary Odyssey, Cort M600, Fender American Standard Strat, Ibanez AR300 and Epiphone SG Custom Ebony guitars.
Apart from the guitars, I used my usual setup featuring my Marshall JVM410HJS, Two Notes Torpedo Captor X SE, RME Babyface PRO FS and Genelec DP8020 DPM.
For the effects, I only used Wave Alchemy Magic7 as my reverb plugin. I also experimented with different channels on my JVM 410HJS to show you what this sounds like on a clean channel, as well as crunch and overdrive channels as a boost.
Egnater Silversmith Review
As I mentioned, I had the chance to acquire this pedal when I was in Türkiye for my vacation. I was really lucky because I found this pedal listed by someone I knew online, and the pedal was in really good condition. I received the original box and the box content along with the pedal, a lucky find! 🙂
Silversmith comes in a pretty fancy box with all these figures shown above. I think they used this box for the series of pedals in this product line. There’s only labelling on the side that helps identify the pedals.
As you can see below, mine has the serial number #SLVERSMITH-08141042. I think this indicates the month/year, but I’m unsure; I’m just taking a guess here.
Inside the box, the pedal is surrounded by foam on each surface. There’s also another piece of foam for the top surface as well which is not shown here.
The box content is pretty simple, nothing fancy here. There’s a small manual and 3M pads for the bottom chassis. The manual talks about all the features that I mentioned above.
As you can see from the front page, there are two more pedal names mentioned. Egnater had also released Goldsmith overdrive and Black Metal distortion pedals, along with Silversmith distortion.
The manual talks about the Silversmith distortion naturally, but it also includes common features, which are stated above, such as the D<B function and Patching features.
On the bottom chassis, you have your set of screws and the battery compartment. Yes, it works with a 9V battery!
There’s also another small LED indicator for low battery on the top left front panel. This is to indicate low battery, but it also blinks when you connect it to a 9V DC adapter and then remove the connection.
Egnater Silversmith is probably the heaviest guitar pedal I have ever owned! I’m not talking about the sounds here. It’s more like a brick and is built like a tank. It’s the only pedal that doesn’t move on my pedalboard, just sits on the board and dominates! 🙂 No wonder why I still received the 3M pads brand new with a pedal which is 10+ years old!
Silversmith is pretty intimidating at first glance as there are many knobs (big and small) and also many switches as well as four jacks on top. Although it looks complicated, when you think about the features on their own first, and then try to combine them, it starts making a lot more sense. Ads - Check out these ads to support this web page
As I mentioned in this series of articles which I feature different distortion and overdrive pedals, my main goal was to try different pedals to add flavour to my rig whether to a tube preamp or a tube amp.
The Boost section is perfect! I can confidently say it’s one of the best boosters I have ever tried, and it works with any guitar that I own and any channels on my preamps and amps. You have tons of options to adjust the character of the boos,t and it adds sweet flavours to your already overdriven sounds.
I would say the boost section, when pushed versus the distortion section, sounds very similar in the sense that Mr Egnater designed a pedal that has a character. These sections sound very similar, just like the channels on a well built amp going from clean to crunch and distortion sounds.
You can basically use the boost as a clean boost or even drive it further with the drive control on the boost section. I can also confidently say that I’d buy the boost section as a separate pedal without a single doubt!
But the distortion section wasn’t really my cup of tea. I think it has a very unique texture, and since it’s a distortion, it’s not easy to add it to your already overdriven sounds. I think it would make a lot of sense to just use a clean amp for this section.
As you can hear from the video, when I use the distortion section, the sounds I was getting become more dense and squeezed. On top of that, imagine you can combine these together. That did not work in my case. I think it’s overkill!
Sound-wise and character-wise, I would say Egnater Silversmith is a very unique-sounding guitar pedal. I couldn’t find a term to share with you, such as “It sounds like a Marshall” or “It sounds like a Fender!”. It has a very unique, silky high without piercing one’s ears. And even with tight switches engaged, it’s not that tight.
I can normally work most dirt boxes with crunch and distortion channels on my Marshall amps, but Silversmith wasn’t easy to adjust on already overdriven channels. There’s a little room for adjustment on the distortion section when used on such channels. But boost section was pretty easy to adapt to any sound and I really dig the results! IK Multimedia Tonex - Cutting Edge Guitar Tones!
As mentioned, there are tons of options to change the order of the boost and distortion, as well as being able to inject other pedals into the signal chain using patch input & output jacks. These features are pretty unique, and I have never seen anything like this. But are these needed for most players? I’m not sure about that. I think Silversmith is designed for professional, touring musicians, considering these excellent and gig-friendly features. For bedroom players, these features are definitely overkill.
Overall, Egnater Silvermith is one of the best-built guitar pedals with tons of unique and innovative features I have ever seen! The build quality is out of this world, and the feature set is ahead of its time!
However, I would not blindly recommend this to anyone without really understanding your needs in a pedal rig. The distortion side is pretty sweet, but I think it requires a clean channel rather than a crunch or overdriven channel. So, if you want to base your rig around a clean amp and like the distortion texture of this pedal, it may be a good option to get this and add a couple of different drive pedals, even by using the patch input and output to have a custom drive/boost rig.
Where to Egnater Silversmith?
As mentioned, Egnater Silversmith was released around 2014 and is long discontinued. It’s not even clear whether even Egnater Amps company is still active. It seems like Bruce Egnater is active on Facebook, selling some of his work as well as arranging tube amp workshops, but I don’t see an active webpage with a healthy distribution network of Egnater products anymore.
So, finding Egnater products and the Silversmith is pretty tough these days! Your best bet is to check out Reverb regularly, as there are multiple Egnater pedals listed there.
Check out Egnater Silversmith on Reverb here
You can also check out my used gear for sale section, as I have listed my Egnater Silvermith here as well as on Reverb (only shipping within the EU zone)
Check out my used gear page here
Thanks for visiting my blog and supporting me so far! I will hopefully see you in the next review here!
Osman Cenan Çiğil – cigilovic.com
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