Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde V2

I recently bought a high-end class A tube amp that I love for it's clean/bluesy sound and light weight. I have been trying pedals to use for my dirty sound and after watching the shootout of this pedal on youtube I bit the bullet and bought it. Very easy to set up and real simple operation.

I am using a US Fender Stratocaster with a JB jr in the bridge into Goodsell Super Seventeen Mk3. This being a Class A amp the tones are sparkly clean a nd very responsive. The OD portion of this pedal was very noisy and I did not like the character. The distortion side was a little to flubbyh sounding for my taste. When I bought this pedal I was using a Vox Saturator and after watching the shootout video with competitors, I was impressed and swapped out the Vox for this. Mistake. Some people like this pedal, but looking back the Saturator was very quiet and offered an almost two channel option with the more button.

I had this pedal for three weeks and after a that period the volume knob on the distortion side came loose. Mind you I played one gig with this pedal and the rest of the time was home playing....

I can say that I am going to consider the Vox Saturator again and also the Box of Rock from Z-Vex. I like the two button/channel style pedals but I was not thrilled with this one. I do have to say that the videos while misleading to my experience were well done and seem to be unbiased based on the responses and the fact that one video resulted in VS pedal not being picked....

On my quest for the right distortion I have tried:
Vox Saturator
Jeckyl and Hyde
Dunlop Fat Sandwich
and a borrowed old Digitech Programmable Distortion

The Vox is so far the winner of this group......Any suggestions please offer them.

the jekyll and hyde v2. 2 separate od and distortion.

jekyll side has a bass boost and the distortion has a sharp/blunt setting.

its very easy to get a good sound out of it. it sounds good on a lot of different settings, especially the sample settings(found in manual) and its versatile.

jekyll - tone drive volume,
hyde - gain, treble, mid, volume

im using my customized MIA strat. also an OCD and vox wah in the line up too going through a fender hotrod deville.

the pedal has a bit of noise on the hyde side but any time u have that much gain goin, ur gonna have noise BUT!!! there is an adjustable built in noise gate. just take the back plate off, and if u look in the manual, it shows how to adjust it. the jekyll side is dead quiet. when combined, theres a bit of noise but whatever, very usable.

this pedal is very sensitive with batteries. u can tell right away when ur battery is just slightly worn. the hyde channel gets fuzzy and "buzzsaw" sounding.

i get a lot of the sounds i need to get, but i get them just barely.
i use the jekyll side without the bass boost to try and simulate a hotrodded ts808 sound for the stevie ray kinda tubescreamer sound. thing is, it compresses a lot and it doesnt sound very open at all. and i find that it doesnt work well with humbuckers. it sounds like garbage with my duncan JB in the bridge.

it does sound good. just dont expect an exact 808 sound.
the hyde sounds pretty good on the blunt side. u can dial in anything from the jimi hendrix marshall sound, to the plexi aerosmith kind of sound. not exactly though. the sharp mode gets a decent JCM800 kind of sound with a little more gain, but i find that it sounds really spikey even when the treble is turned down.

the sound is good. its just not for me.

because it compresses a lot and the pedal kinda squashes when turned up, but still has tone. . . i give it an 8 here. if i could though it would be more of a 7.5.

yeah this pedal is dependable with a fresh battery.

u can literally drop this thing off of a building and then go play a gig with it after u pick it up.


i would use it without backup no problem. i still like to have other overdrives for different tones though. that being said.

i gotta say perfect 10

i never dealt with the company or got it upgraded because its already kinda modded.

i play a lot of different styles of music. a lot of blues and rock. some pop. some progressive styles too. this pedal is a mediocre match for blues. and honestly i wouldnt use it for progressive or metal either because when combined, it really doesnt sound that great at all.

like i said, i've played some fulltone products and regular ibanez tubescreamers. also some tonebone products. . . all of which i would take over the jekyll and hyde. not by much though.

if it was stolen, i'd buy something completely different. save up for a radial tonebone or something. im probably trading it soon anyway.

i hate how it compresses and squashes sound. it sounds spikey turned up.

on the other hand, its versatile. it does everything pretty well. not great, but pretty well. i'd much rather have the Route 66 (which i've had). i compared it to the seymour duncan twin tube. i think that the duncan pedal sounds better but not enough to spend all that extra money for. i still think the OCD is a much more natural sound.

i kinda wish it was more open sounding. theres nothing i wish it had but i still wont keep it. its not for me.

it kinda gets in the way of getting my sound sometimes but its all i can do for now. its the best i can do unless i actually have a marshall in front of me.

overall, its a cool pedal that is built to last and does a lot of things. its great for a lot of styles of music. just not mine.

its great for country, classic rock, heavy rock... etc.

overall i'd say an 8

Some of the adjustments are done from inside the pedal (noise gate and bass trim pot) otherwise it's very easy. Once I had the noise gate and the bass trim pot set I have not had to change them. would be a 9 if the noise gate controls were on the outside and a 10 if the bass pot were on the outside.

I use this with a Mesa/Boogie Lonestar Special amp and Fat Strat or a Les Paul for guitars. I use the Jekyll side to boost the overdriven channel into distortion and the Hyde side on the clean Channel for a Heavy Rock Type tone.

I have tried the Jekyll side by itself into the clean channel and it does a very good job for a convincing overdrive tone that has a lot of sustain and a surprising amount of gain for a Tube Screamer Clone.

Where I really think the Jekyll side shines is when I use it to boost my overdriven amp into distortion. Solo's sing with a really fat drippy tone that does not sound muddy. Not as much tonal control as the Hyde side as it only has a tone knob but I did not have a problem dialing in a sound that I was happy with. The bass boost switch is a great feature. The Jeckyll side can be a little noisy into an already overdriven amp.

The Hyde side is fantastic as a stand alone distortion through my clean channel. Plenty of gain for hard rock or older type metal that is not harsh or brittle with my setup. Controls for the eq section work very well and made it easy to get the sound I was looking for. The noise gate did take some tweaking but once I found the right setting it has worked above my expectations. Very noisy without the noise gate engaged.

Both sides have a lot of volume boost available and my understanding is that you can use the Jekyll side as a solo boost for they Hyde side by turning the gain down and the volume up. I don't use it this way as my amp has a solo boost of it's own.

I have only had this for about 3 months, so far no problems, too short of a time to really tell but it does get a lot of use. I know one of the updates for V2 was different stomp switches that are supposed to be much more rugged than the original red version.

Have not had to deal with them but I have heard several good things.

I play Country, Southern Fried, Classic Rock, and Hard Rock. I have been playing guitar for 18 years and play professionaly 2 or 3 weekends a month.

I own a VHT Pitbull CLX Head w/ Marshall 4X12 and a Mesa/Boogie Lonestar Special 1X12 Combo for amps. I have a Fender Fat Strat, US Fender Telecaster, Epiphone Elitist Les Paul, Peavey Wolfgang Standard, and an Ibanez RG 570 for guitars.

Great fit for my Lonestar and the variety of music that I play. Definitely a lot of bang for the buck as it's two pedals in one for only $150.00 bucks new. I liked it better with my rig than the Radial Engineering Hot British.

I would buy again if it were stolen or lost and have even considered other Visual Sound products just based on the sound of this one.

For ease of use im going to have to give it a 7 because of the fact that you have to screw off the back panel to turn of the noise gate and adjust your bass setting. if it wasnt for that it would be a perfect 10.

As far as sounds go ive always been more of a stompbox kind of guy rather than amp distortion. my past distortion pedals were mainly Boss (DS1,MT2,& Blues driver). I favord the MT2 because it had a nice cruch on it and it didnt get muddy sounding at higher volumes, however it gets abit thin at higher volumes so i check out the J&K. The Jekyll side blows my Blues driver out the water. Its very rich sounding and stays that way even when i play on a solid state amp, and with the bass boost all i can say is WOW...The Hyde side took me alittle bit longer to find a tone that matched what i love in my MT2 but at the same time sounded better but after a few hours i got it right where i want it. Im not a fan of the sharp switch, i leave mine on the bunt side, the shape is alittle to ear splitting for my taste but if thats your thing then i wont hold it against you...Put the 2 together and its like your actually in the game "Guitar Hero"

built like a tank!!!

ive talked to them about a non pedal issue and the resopnded to my email the same day...top knotch!!!

I play almost every style and ive be doing so for acouple of years now. I gig regularly and if know that bring out my Messa wont work for every gig so i need to find boxes that can get tones im looking for ( dont get me wrong, not saying that this is a Messa in a box, just saying i like it). if stolen i would most def get it again, plus for 2 pedal in one box i think your getting your $$$$$ worth...my only recomendation is that you get a eq pedal to help adjust if your looking for that sweet cruch like me.

If you've ever used any distortion or overdrive, the dedicated controls for each side couldn't be easier. The Jekyll half is as stated: identical to a Tube Screamer but with the added bass boost. The Hyde side requires a little more tweaking to get the sound you want, but it's definitely attainable after a bit of time playing with it.

My amps are a Blues Junior, powerful enough for most venues, and a Carvin 50 watt Vintage Tube for the times I need more power. I have too many different guitars to list - from Strats to a Les Paul and everything in between. Both the Jekyll and Hyde sides of the pedal have their distinct character and you can find even more possibilities by using them together and tweaking the controls accordingly. The pedal is rarely noisy or problematic but you may get feedback if you use both sides together and both gains are set extremely high. As with most distortions or overdrives, the sound you set that you like playing alone at low volume may turn out to be very different than the one you must find when playing with others at band level. Particularly with the Hyde side, sounds that seem to have too much distortion or treble when I'm tweaking the pedal and playing alone may fit right into a mix and cut through beautifully.

Very dependable, I have used it without a backup. The newest version, especially is built very well. My one wish would be if it had a slightly longer battery life; I only use it with a power supply.

This is my main reason for writing a review. I have owned two previous versions of this pedal; the last one needed more than one repair. I approached Zac at the NAMM show, explained what happened and he was helpful and generous enough to quickly replace my pedal with the newest version once I had mailed it back. Visual Sound REALLY wants its customers to be satisfied.

I've been playing over thirty years - although I was brought up on classic rock, I've played almost every kind of music as a pro and now semi-pro guitarist.

My past history with the J & H makes it pretty clear that I'd buy it again if it were lost or stolen. Not only does it sound great, a very musical and warm od/dist, but it's very versatile and with some time spent, you can find a lot of sounds, from hard wailing rock to more subtle growls. It responds particularly well to playing dynamics.

Also, for the price you can't beat it.

Very easy to get a good sound and the manual is helpful in turning off the gate and trimming the low end.

Strat into an Ampeg Super Jet. Only gets too noisy if you have gains set high on both channels. Has a high-pitch squeal on Hyde side if gain is full-on and Sharp switch is engaged.

I mainly use the Jeckyl side which alone is worth the price. I use the Hyde to push Jeckyl into a more saturated tone (with Sharp engaged for more edge).

So far, I am really happy with this set-up for my intended use.

I play many styles and could see this pedal fitting in pretty-much anywhere. I've been playing for a long, long time and have way too much gear to mention here.

If it were lost, I'd probably check out the Double Trouble... And I'd probably end up buying them both.

It compares favorably to the TS-808. Better, in my opinion, because of the bass boost on Jeckyl.

Love: Jeckyl. Hate: Noise Gates -- all of them, not just this one.

Wish it had: Bass trim pot for Hyde accessible on front.

This unit does get an 8 for ease of use, but that isn't because working 3 knobs (on the left side) or 4 (on the right side) is difficult; instead, it is because I find it kind of a pain in the butt to unscrew the back of the unit to turn off the built-in noise gate, and to adjust the bass response on the Hyde side.

If I didn't have to open the back of this unit, I would give it a 10 for ease of use. The fun begins when you turn on both sides of the pedal, then it would require a bit more tunning, but that is to be expected since it pretty much is like running two pedals at the same time.

The sound quality of this unit is superb. I love the sounds that I get out of both sides of the pedal on their own, together or with the use of other distortion pedals (in this particular case a Keeley modded MT-2).

The Jekyll side has a very nice overdrive sound to it. Some people equate it to the tube screamer, I cannot tell whether that is true or not since I have never tried one myself. All I can say is that the overdrive of this pedal is very nice, it can be subtle enough to get some Rush or AC/DC sounds, or it can be used with other distortions to make them better (like the Keeley MT-2).

The Hyde side has lots of gain. It really puts other distortions to shame with its deep, heavy and smooth sound. It seems to me that it gives the Keeley MT-2 a run for its money, in fact, had I known about this pedal before the Keeley MT-2 I would have never bought that pedal.

You can get some classic rock sounds out of this unit, or some very brutal metal sounds out it. Just don't expect Soldano, Bogner, or _insert_favourite_boutique_amp_here_ type of distortion, it is after all, just a stomp box. Having said that, it will say that this pedal sounds great in front of a VOX valvetronix with a bit of grit, and I imagine that it would knock your socks off in front of a very good all-tube amp. I have a Valve King 212, and it even makes that amp sound good (yes it is hard to believe!!!).

My suggestion to people looking for a very versatile distortion stomp box is to consider getting or at least trying this pedal. The price is better than getting two different pedals, and it really is much better than many of the 'extreme' distortion pedals out there for metal.

The pedal does get noisy when you turn the Jekyll and Hyde side on at the same time, but I have an MXR Smart Gate running after an MXR 10 Band Eq, and it does an excellent job of keeping the noise in check, even when my amp is running at medium volume (which is very loud for a valve king).

Here is my chain:

Epiphone Les Paul Standard with Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro II pu's
Cry-Baby 535Q
Boss GE-7
Keeley Boss MT-2
Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde
MXR 10 band Eq.
MXR Smart Gate
Boss GT-6 (for delays, chorus, etc)
Peavey Valve King 212

PS. Notice how the Jekyll & Hyde pedal is *after* the Keely MT-2. This is because the Jekyll side will turn the often nasal and harsh distortion of the MT-2 into a much better sounding distortion.

I haven't had any issues with this unit, but it seems like it is built like a tank. Much better looking than the 1st version of the pedal which IMHO looked rather boring and not as "finished" as this one.

Boss and MXR pedals have a reputation for reliability, and I can endorse that myself, and now I hope that this pedal will last for a long time.

I hope I don't have to deal with them...

I give this unit an overall 9, since it sounds very good to my ears (even though I am running an awful amp). It would have gotten a 10 had it not been for the fact that I had to open the back to turn the built-in noise gate in the back.

If you already have a noise gate that you run to keep your pedals in check, do yourself a favor and turn off the noise gate built into the pedal as it doesn't play nice with your external noise gate.

This is just a post to reply to "Unknown" below...
The noise gate in the Hyde channel IS adjustable and instructions are in the manual that came with the pedal... you can even turn it off if you don't want it. It probably came with the internal noise gate pot turned up all the way by mistake... it should have come with that pot set at minimum, but it is adjustable. Why people take the time to post negative comments without first seeking help from the manufacturer is beyond me... VS even puts their service email right on the bottom of the pedal! In my experience, when you have a problem with a VS product, they take it seriously and do everything to help you out.

Very easy to use, 7 knobs, I love knobs. 2 channels, or effects in one. Left side (not sure which one is Jekyll and which one would be Hyde) is a TS 808 Tube screamer on steroids. Right side is solid state distortion with noise gate which can not be adjusted, more on that below.

The left side tube scremer clone is buttery smooth and provides a fair amount of gain, much more than I expected. I always use the bass boost. It adds a fair amount of noise to my signal, and the noise gate does not work on the tube screamer clone side. Bummer. I use an Eric Clapton preamp in my strat, sorta custom built. Adding premap mid-boost makes a huge difference, otherwise it sounds like a TS. Now for the right side (Hyde?). When the noise gate kicks in, there is a loud ticking noise which is extremely annoying. This channel produces enough gain for metal, but it lacks the high end fizzy sound completely. Sounds much better with my Les Paul's fat humbuckers. When the two channels are combined, it sounds like a dozen male cats in fighting for one female cat in heat. It hisses, farts, and buzzes like hell, then the noise gate kicks in with the pop-pop-pop-pop noise. I thought the tubes were explding in my amp!! I tried it through 3 other amps and iot calmed doen a bit, but there is something seriously wrong with this pedal's noise gate. So, bottom line, I love the left side, don't care for the right side, and can't stand the sound of them combined, then there's noise gate issue..

I would use only the left side during a gig. Right side sounds horribe. Built like a tank, weighs as much as one. Steel box.

Never dealt with them, but man, fix that noise gate!!

I play rock, blues, jazz, and try to shred now and then. I have owned a few tube screamers, and honestly this pedal's left side actually sounds better than any distortion pedal I have used, going on 20 years now, mostly the last 7 years. I hate multi-effects becuase they sound crappy. I like my blackfaces' natural breakup and this pedal, nice combination, very sweet. I use the distortion channel in my Crate V32 (4xEl84) tube amp and it sounds a lot like this pedal, very nice. But my fender silverface amps have no distortion or early breakup, so I need the pedal for the Bassman and Princeton. It sounds great through all of them. I would recommend the V2 version of the Route 66, which has the built-in compressor over this pedal. The right side is over the top on this one, noise gate needs and adjustable parameter and be enabled for the left isde as well. Not a well thought-out pedal for the money.