Visual Sound Jekyl & Hyde Ultimate Overdrive Red

Not plug-and-play, but neither is it rocket science.

I play a semi-hollow guitar into a Fender amp.

I have to say that I almost passed by this pedal after adopting both the Route 66 and the H20 for my rig. I auditioned the older (silver) Jekyll & Hyde and really didn't like its sound at all. But the red Jekyll & Hyde has a "meatier" sound that better matches my taste.

The Jekyll (OD) side is similar (but to my ears, not identical) to the OD in the Route 66. As on the Route 66 the bass boost switch can add some girth to the OD. This is really nice for playing at lower volumes.

To my ears (and probably having a lot to do with the way I set the controls) the Hyde side reminds me of a hot-rodded Marshall. I haven't had any use for setting the tone switch on "sharp", however.

The buffer sounds really good to me. I think I can hear a small difference between the buffered signal compared to plugging my guitar straight into the amp, but it's subtle and not at all unpleasant. The complaint that I have about most buffered pedals -- that the high-end is veiled -- is definitely not present with Visual Sound's buffer.

The other nice thing about a good buffered pedal is that you get absolutely clean switching with none of the glitches or pops that seem to be unavoidable with true-bypass switching.

It's too early to tell how well this'll hold up with long-term use.

I've had no occasion to call upon customer support for this pedal. However, I had a question about two other Visual Sound pedals and was pleased with the rapid, courteous and thorough responses to my emails.

I play improvised fingerstyle guitar, drawing freely from old-school rock, folk, jazz and classical styles. I first picked up the guitar in the mid-`60s, and have been playing "seriously" for the past six years.

My main rig is a Koll Custom DL Thinline through a Fender Vibro-King. I have a small assortment of special-purpose pedals in addition to the recently-added Visual Sound Route 66 and H2O. If the Visual Sound pedals hold up under regular use, I may consider selling the rest of my pedals.

The most important things to me are that the pedal sounds good and is easy to adjust.

The real stroke of genius is packaging two related effects in a single pedal with the stomp switches close together. With one press you can turn either or both effects on or off or toggle between one effect and the other.

The "home plate" shape of the pedals may also be useful. I have both the Route 66 and the H2O and have experimented with placing them at 45 degrees to each other so all the stomp switches are in a cluster. I've been able to toggle useful combinations of three or four switches at once.

Not a problem getting nice tones from each channel, but when you combine them you need to experiment with the settings for each channel, and this depends a LOT on the guitar and amp used. I get wildly different outputs with my Les Paul Jr and Tele.

No idea about version, but mine is made in China. No mods done.

My setup is a Fender tele or Epi les paul through the J&H, going to a Marshall stack. Both channels do sound good, but it's a bit noisy compared to my other od/distort pedals. Even my Tele sounds a bit chunky and warm so I need to bump up the tone to compensate for it, there is a loss in the trademark Tele jangle, feels like a little something (character?) is lost in the process. It's a nice pedal overall, but for not really "boo-teek" territory.

Don't know about that. Mine is made in China, and I'd expect something better for this price. I don't have any information about the quality of components they use.

Never needed.

It's an ok pedal if you're experimenting with od/dist pedals. Nothing really fancy or unique about it. I can conver the same range of tones using my Boss SD-1 and modded MT-2. If stolen, I'd pay a little more and get a true "boo-teek" pedal with true bypass and better components, and LESS noise.

let the knops at 12 o clock and dail only youre choice of volumen and gain. I thing its easy.

The Jekyll is great, Its the reson for buying this unit.
Smooth overdrive sounds from very mild chrunch to fat Rock sounds.
I have a Boss Sd1, Nobels Odrs and a maxon ts 9 to compare with and this is my number 2, I like the Ts 9 a bit more. But with playing in my Band I have only a Roccaforte Plexi full stack ( only clean ),
so I need the Jekyll to have chrunch sounds.
The Hyde is a distortion, Its a mix of a ds 1 and a guvnor. I like that for grunge, punk, metal attacks !! Very good Hard Rock sounds.
I never have the Jekyll Gain over the 2 o clock !! No one needs that ( maybe for you Slayer guys !? ).
Both sounds bad over my Transistor practise amp at home, but shining with the tube Plexi. You can also use both at the same time to get some Santana cream sounds very hot for lead lines.
For live gigs and studio works, I have a Engl screamer + Mesa 1 x 12, with the Maxon ts9 as clean / lead booster a Boss DD3, a Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe and a GCB 95 F. Thats all.
Works good with my Paula, but a bit better with my 70?? Strat.
So I give the Jekyll and Hyde a 9 for sound.

Have it 1 1/2 years and sometimes you must stomp on the chanel selection
knops, two times, the ligths are on but its still clean, thats tricky but for my Band practising its ok. Never would use this at gigs.
Maybe I have a psycho unit ( the hyde is fighting against the Jekyll ;-)

? never dealt with

I play 20 years and the last 10 as a session player in studios ( radio and Tv commercials ) also as Privat Teacher and sometimes at Festifals with oure own Stuff for fun or with Covers to earn money.
So I must be in, at every style. And I can use it in every style.
BUT NOTICE. First you need a realy great sounding Guitar, than a great tube amp. and than the most effect Boxes sounding good.
Second ; the best equipment is only as good as the human that is playing over it !!
When you need a good overdrive AND a nice distortion in one box, forgett the rest and spend youre money on this one.

Considerably easy to use, a couple of knobs and switches here and there, not really a need for a manual.

I use a 1960's Les Paul into a BOSS TU-2 - TS808 - Jekyll & Hyde - Bixonic Expandora - Radial Tonebone - BOSS DM-300 - BOSS OC-2 - Jim Dunlop TS-1 - BOSS DD-5 and then into a Roland JC-120.
It's not bad for value, 2 pedals in 1. Jekyll side has that sweet Tubescreamer sustain and the Hyde side can get just about any kind of distortion.

The Jekyll side is really nice, but the Hyde side isn't as great. The Hyde side doesn't have as much volume as the Jekyll side.

Combining the channels wasn't as great either. They feedback too much.

Haven't had any problems with it yet.
A little big though, kind of difficult trying to put it in the right spot on my board.

I e-mailed the guy in customer support (can't remember what for) and he replied the next day. He was real friendly too.

Play rock with it and it's probably the thing I use most. Been playing pro for about 3 years. I love the sound of a tubescreamer with delay. mmm...

It is way to easy to use, two chanels, very simple. adjust till you get yor proper sound, and thats it!

I use a Fender stratocaster American standard through a Fender PA 100, and this pedal really sounds amazing. I have played guitar for 10 years, and I do matter in tone, and having experimented with several gears, I conclude this pedal really gets what its said.
I also use a vintage Teisco, and it really gets great sound with this pedal. Very versatile, and cheap for its price.

I do depend on this pedal, if lose it, would buy another one inmediately.
Its a tank

Great costummer management. They do respond to any question.
Never had problem with the pedal for 2 years

Over all, just love it. Have played guitar for 10 years, and this is the pedal I had always wanted. Dont really know why some guys here didnt like it, you really can get a very versatil sound out of the pedal, going from soft rock, to heavy metal. I think that analog pedals are the real thing. Not making any promotion about this company, but "real sound, for real people" slogan, I think really fits with the quality of the Jekyll & Hyde. Had tried Pod 2.0 for 2 years, and guys! its plastic sound! After trying to get a nice sound, I finally sold it. The jekyll & hyde pedal is real. Digitals are false tone units for me.

This is a strange pedal and I will explain in the 'sound quality' part of this review.
Ease of use....it's a guitar pedal for crying out load, not a space shuttle.
I bought it new so got all the settings etc on a bit of paper.
Green channel has 3 knobs, gain, tone and vol and bass boost switch
Red channel has 4 knobs, gain, tone, eq and vol and sharp/blunt switch

I reason I'm writing this is because a friend of mine was looking for a new pedal. I mentioned that I had a J&H and he asked how it sounded etc.
I gushed forth with praise about this pedal, and how much different sounds I could get out of it etc. So I thought I would look up other peoples views on this pedal.
I was surprised to see so much bad press about this unit. I'm not sure what these guys want out of a pedal like this, but it does everything and more what I want.
What I have noticed though is that it is important to get your amp sound set up first. I say this because I have a DSL 50 and if I play the RED channel through the clean amp channel it makes a very distorted/fuzzy sound (some might like this, i do for some punk stuff) however, if I play it through the crunch channel it changes the sound completely. Try giving the channel you are playing through a little more gain and it will fatten up a treat.
The GREEN channel is awesome, i love it. Great for chords or solos etc. It works well with Red channel for boosting solos etc.

I know play this through a VOX AC30 JMI and is sound great.

I've had a small problem with the bass boost switch. It was a sticky connection but it seems to have sorted its self out now.

N/A

I play everything from 70's uk punk, Led Zepp, BRMC, Thw Who, The Kinks etc, and get all the sounds I need from here.

Both channels have 3 knobs ? for volume, tone and gain, plus Hyde channel has EQ knob for midrange. On top of that, Jekyll has a bass boost switch, and Hyde has a Sharp/Blunt (more/less compression) switch. For each channel separately it's not that difficult to get nice sounds outta this box, but when it comes to combining them, you get numerous variations ? sometimes it?s confusing. Though the manual with suggested settings was somewhat helpful.

I use this unit with both my US Strat and a Les Paul copy and this is my only OD/DIS unit. The thing is noisy when compared to other boutique pedals, but what can you expect from made in china ?boutique? pedal... Jekyll sounds nice, but I?d say it?s on the bass side, so I almost always keep the tone knob past 2-3 o?clock. Otherwise it?s just another Tubster copy. Hyde channel is not bad either, but I think it doesn?t cut in the mix easily. This channel can get really nasty, if you use it with Jekyll. Overall, this units sounds really usual to me, on top of that, it?s not true bypass, it says it?s ?PURE BYPASS?, but believe me it sucks tone ? my Strat looses some sparkle when the unit is not engaged. I think I could get these kinda sounds with Digitech Dad Monkey and Boss Super Overdrive (or Blues Driver). Really nothing to hype about.

Not sure, had it only for 2 month.

Never dealt with ?em.

Overall, it?s a nice unit, it has a lot of features and I think this effect can cover a lot of music styles, but the sound quality didn?t ?WOW? me. So if you need just usual OD with plenty of variations, this is for you. If stolen, I would definitely NOT buy this unit again, I?d add few bucks and buy a real boutique OD, probably Fulltone Fulldrive, which doesn?t have such a range, but has a great sound and is true bypass.

Two channels just read the other comment from belows

The sound is different from the silver one. Yes it has more gain but it is less crunchy. The new one is more like AC/DC Powerage, Let there be rock era while the old one could go has far has Metallica. The hiss from the silver one was part of the sound and the removal of it did not help the sound I guess. The sound also his definitely more compress and not has soft and subtle has the old one and that is on both channels. I have both and I must admit that I they have a totally different sound. Even if the customer service rep at Visual sound did not think so, obviously he does play guitar and by the tone of all his email he did not really care. I guess this new format could be use has a signal booster.

I had the old one fix once for a cold solder. I will sale this one before that because I do not like it.

Very bad, I?ve spoken to someone call Dave Mullins and he was very arrogant and rude and all this on email (available on request). I?ve send my new pedal there and he said that he has compare it to the old one and that he did not se a difference. Obviously, he did not even compare it. The pedal came back without warning, note or nothing. I will surely not buy anything from this company anymore has it seem like the customer support suck

No I would not buy it again and even if I was considering getting their H2O pedal my latest experience with then has put them on my black list of company. Again feel free to ask me for the email exchange that I had to go through and you will wonder how real that is because it is simply unbelievable.

Anyway there is better pedal out there and have I mentioned I preferred the grey one which has a nastier overdrive. I guess mr Hyde went pop?

The knobs are intuitively labelled and easy to use in that sense, but to tweak them to your liking might take a bit more work just because there's so much to play with.

The biggest problem is actually finding settings so that you can engage both channels together and have it sound usable. Just an issue of spending time on it.

battery compartment is accessed easily enough despite complaints I've read.

I use an Ibanez JS1000 or a Hamer Sunburst DC into Dunlop 535Q wah > EH Small Stone phaser > Keeley DS-1 > Fulltone OCD > VS Jekyll & Hyde > VS H2O pedal > Crate V1512T (all tube class A combo)

The distortion tones you can get out of the pedal are rich and full. The Hyde side to my ears, is a little bit too compressed. It's also way too soft in comparison to the Jekyll side. The Hyde side will get you in the ballpark of solid crunch tones and hard rock stuff e.g. The Darkness or Velvet Revolver. It doesn't have quite enough gain for a fat lead tone e.g. Petrucci or Satriani. A little bit more gain would have been nice. The Sharp/Blunt switch is useful if you have different amps, but I can't see a need for it when you only have one amp. If I set it to Sharp, the tone is just so bright my ears want to bleed. I've used another amp where it was just too dull when set to Blunt.

The Jekyll side is a tubescreamer type tone and it works great as a boost for an amp. It's loud enough as well for this use. The bass boost is also very handy.

Combining both channels didn't work for me. The tone wasn't as versatile as I expected because it always sounded had the Jekyll side's character. Still, it did make for many more options.

One last thing about the Pure bypass the pedal has. I'm not the type that insists on true bypass, but once I took the Jekyll & Hyde out of my signal chain, I found an improvement in my tone when using my other overdrives. Before it seemed a bit thin and lackluster. This was after I sold the pedal off, so I can't compare again to be sure.

It seems very sturdy and I would use it on a gig without backup. However, since I haven't road tested it I won't give a rating.

I've emailed Visual Sound before with questions and they answered within a few days with courteous helpful replies.

The ability to switch between channels or turn them both on/off with one stomp is a really cool feature and you can really cover a lot of ground with this pedal for most pop/rock applications.

I bought this pedal to play hard rock music, but really I was hoping to use it to get a singing high gain lead sound with lots of sustain. This didn't quite work out.

Still, I must say it is an impressive pedal, especially for the price. The distortion tones on the Hyde side didn't seem very amp-like to me, but few pedals do. The Jekyll side does what it does very well, but I've never liked the Tubescreamer tone so much. These factors put together prompted me to sell it and keep looking.

As with any pedal, some amount of trial and error is needed to find sweet spots. The Jeckyl side is easier to get good sounds but the Hyde side always manages to frustrate me for a long time before a good sound is achieved.

I find this pedal to be reasonable compromise for a channel switcher on a good valve amp.

Pros

* Jeckyl (left) side gives a nice Tubescreamer "sound"
* 2 channels can be used at once for boosting solo's etc
* Hyde side(right side) covers hard rock/metal etc
* Sounds quite natural when set-up right although still not valve-like

Cons

* Both sides often sound very metallic and overly bright regardless of EQ shaping or settings on amp
* Tone pot on Hyde side only manages to make it muffled or overly brittle......no in-between
* Hyde side suffers from only modest gain and almost no harmonic richness for any serious guitarist to decently pull off hard rock or metal

Its very well made and the battery compartment lid saves carrying a screwdriver around

It gets a 5 though since the original one I brought from the shop had a defect, the LED's didnt light up at all.
I ordered a 2nd and sent my original back, the 2nd one had the exact same defect so I fixed it myself with solder and wire

Not a bad pedal, can sound quite natural with the right amount of twiddling with it but nowhere near to built in valve amp distortion.

For the price paid I was expecting a more professional "sound".

You are not Harmony-Central, try before you buy with any pedal..