The Visual Sound Route 66 American Overdrive is a pedal designed for electric guitar but can be used with any electronic instrument. The pedal has standard 1/4 inch connections and requires a nine volt power supply. The pedal isn't rack mountable as it is foot pedal. UTILIZATION The make up of the Visual Sound Route 66 American Overdrive isn't complex but there is a decent amount going on simply because this pedal has a lot to offer. The pedal has sections for both overdrive and compression, with parameters for drive, tone, and volume under overdrive, and sustain, tone, and gain under compression. The pedal also has buttons for bass boost and tone control options. The compression and overdrive are separate as there is a button to engage each of them. A manual isn't necessary in my opinion unless you are a beginner and are unsure of what these parameters will do. SOUND QUALITY The sound quality of the Visual Sound Route 66 American Overdrive is pretty impressive overall. I have used the pedal with a Fender Strat and a '76 Fender Twin Reverb amp for recording and have generally been quite happy with the results. It works great in tandem with a tube amp as it definitely has a similar type of sound even though this doesn't have an actual tube inside of it. It has a very realistic sounding tone and isn't all digital sounding as many modern overdrive pedals are. I also love having compression and overdrive in the same pedal as it makes for a compact unit that is also versatile in terms of tone quality. While compression isn't top notch in terms of its sound, it will do the job most of the time and is great for those who don't need to use compression all that often. OVERALL OPINION If you're looking for a versatile overdrive pedal, I would definitely recommend the Visual Sound Route 66 American Overdrive pedal as a choice to look into. It isn't too expensive considering you're getting both an overdrive and compression pedal in one and definitely provides a wide array of different tone. While this isn't my favorite pedal in terms of either overdrive or compression, both are definitely very respectable and do sound quite good. All in all the Route 66 is a great sounding that is compact, versatile and nicely priced.
This is an interesting take on delay pedals. It basically is a digital delay. There is a single input and output, which are both 1/4" instrument inputs. This pedal is not capable of being edited with a Computer. There are also no MIDI capabilities and there is no way to rack mount this pedal. UTILIZATION This is one of the more difficult pedals I've had to try and use. I find that quite often when I'm reviewing some pedals, I remark at how much I like the ease of use, and how I find the manual unnecessary. I had the complete opposite experience when using this. First of all, the manual doesn't explain anything, which would be fine if the pedal weren't so strange. SOUND QUALITY I don't really think this is my favorite delay. There are times when I love the tone that I get out of it (A nice, wet delay, not one that is marred by excessive echo, or one that sounds too huge). However, it seems as though the pedal robs me of volume as well as tone when I have it on. Beyond that, when I need to get loud, this thing is NOISY. I really can't have that as I tend to have enough noise problems as it is. Using a noise gate doesn't even seem to work well. Since I play rock music, and need distortion, I can't crank the noise gate up too much without robbing me of serious tone. However, that's exactly what I need to do in order to even remotely tame this thing. It's very frustrating. However, I will say that beyond the noise, this pedal has a unique and interesting sound. OVERALL OPINION I have found that I don't really need the sounds that I can get out of this thing anyway, which is why I ended up selling it back. I was surprised later to find that other people had reported having good experiences with this pedal. I would say that if you are interested, definitely try it with a power supply as opposed to a battery. I would also recommend buying a noise gate in tandem, so that you can tame the noise. Not every gate is going to work with this guy. This pedal is a risky purchase that probably shouldn't be anybody's first foray into delay pedals.
The Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde JH1 is a dual channel overdrive and distortion pedal. It has two channels that have separate controls, that makes for the ability to have two different distortion settings that you can switch back and forth from with a click of the button. It has a 1/4 inch input and output and is powered by the nine volt power supply that it comes with. It is not rackable as it a foot pedal. UTILIZATION The configuration of the pedal is pretty easy to follow. It has knobs for drive, tone, volume and EQ for the different channels and it has two foot switches to go between the channels and also has a switch for either sharp or blunt, which is compression. I don't have a manual for this pedal, so I don't know how well it is put together or if it is helpful or not when learning this pedal. SOUND QUALITY The sound quality of the Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde JH1 overdrive pedal is top notch overall. It has the ability to provide a wide array of distortions and overdrives, almost all of which sound full and professional. I use this with electric guitar - a Gibson SG or a Fender Stratocaster into '76 Fender Twin Reveb and can get some great results. It is perfect for rhythm guitar tones, and also provides some good lead tones as well. OVERALL OPINION I've been using the Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde JH1 pedal for about a year and have found it to be an above average distortion/overdrive pedal with a lot of versatility. While it is great in the studio or on the stage, it especially excels on the stage because of its ability to toggle between two different overdrive sounds. It isn't too expensive and is made well and will last a while if you don't do anything crazy with it. Its versatility and overall sound quality makes it worth price and worth a try.
