Visual Sound Route 66

It's a versatile pedal as it's two discrete effects, so it takes some time blending the two to find out what you can do. Each effect on its own is pretty straight forward. I would say it's not a quick-out-of-the-box-you-can-use-it effect, as it seems to work best with a moderate compression setting blending with the overdrive, and it takes some attentive listening to finesse it.

Both the overdrive and the compressor sound good. There is a lot of gain from both sides, and stacking the two using gain can get generate a lot of noise, but to a large degree that's the nature of the beast with overdrive and compression. Personally, I prefer to have the noise than to gate it, and I think this pedal works best at lower gain settings, so it's not really an issue for me. I can see that using this with a noisy rig or in a noisy setting could exaggerate one's noise-to-signal level, and in some situations one may want to incorporate a noise gate. I play Strats and Teles through Rivera amps, so there is noise, but I use moderate gain from the pedal and get most of my overdrive from my amp, so I can live with this pedal.

I think the overdrive sounds pretty good, but it doesn't have the tonal richness and textural dynamics and depth (sorry for using such abstract and subjective language, but that the best I can describe it as) as my last over drive pedal, the Menatone Red Snapper. However, the Rt. 66 overdrive sounds good, and I think it sounds like a Tube Screamer. The bass boost switch is nice and it adds some more depth to the tone. Before I got this pedal I had a Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde overdrive, but I exchanged it as I just didn't need all of the gain that the J&H provides, and I didn't have a compressor. I'm glad I traded the J&H for the Rt. 66, as the clean boost and added oomph from the compressor is nice. The Tube Screamer side of the Rt. 66 is voiced differently (it seems to me) than the Tube Screamer side of the J&H. On the Rt. 66 it has more drive and it distorts more, but there is less initial clean boost before the distortion kicks in (in fact, on the Rt. 66 there is no room for a clean boost with the Tube Screamer side, whereas on the J&H there is less gain and some initial clean boost with the Tube Screamer side). This is a good thing, for both pedals, as with the J&H one can get a clean boost on the TS side, and use the Hyde side for a heavier compressed distortion, and with the Rt. 66 any clean boost one might want will come from the compressor, and this works better as a clean boost than one would get with an overdrive. The TS side of the Rt. 66 has more gain than the TS side of the J&H, and it seems to be a bit in between the two sides of the J&H. I think that the way the two pedals work shows a well thought out design, as you can get good clean and a wide range of OD and distortion from either pedal.

The compressor sounds nice: it adds some sparkle and fatness at moderate settings, and the tone control works well--no muddying or shrilling of the guitar's tone. It will squish and pump the signal, but it's not as radical as some may like. My old Boss CS-1 was more extreme...it was like squeezing the sound out of a toothpaste tube: very radical and industrial havocy. This compressor is more tame and traditional, good for clean Nashville picking, but I best like it as a clean boost with some treble dialed in and a little compression...it adds some nice balls and presence to the tone. There is a lot of gain available from the compressor, it gets very loud, but with the volume comes the elevated noise floor, so this may be useful, but may be unusable for some.

I think the best tones from the pedal come from running the compressor with a slight boost and compression in to the overdrive with light (10 o'clock) drive: this really helps the tone and character of the overdrive, it seems to wake it up nicely and makes a good useful boost. Neither the overdrive or the compressor are tonally transparent: the overdrive has some mid-coloration (like a TS), and the compressor adds some lows and upper-mids.

The pedal has a buffered bypass. I don't think there's anything wrong with buffered bypass, and it's good to have a buffer in your signal chain if you're driving a lot of wire and pedals. I've had tru-bypass pedal that have noisy and poppy switches, so tru-bypass is no

I haven't had the pedal long enough to subject it to rough use, but it seems all right. The enclosure is a nice heavy gage steel, but it's a bent sheet metal design (similar to the Electro-Harmonix enclosures) so there are slight gaps where the folds meet , and I suppose it's not going to be as impervious to the elements as a Hammond enclosure, but I don't know how this would be a practical concern unless one where playing in a very dusty environment. The build quality and design seem good, but this a factory made pedal from Taiwan, not a hand-built small production pedal with the build aesthetics of a true boutique pedal (point-to-point wiring on perf board, etc.). The components are not visible as the PCB is the full size of the enclosure (you can only see the solder side). The jacks and pots are attached to the enclosure, but the footswitches are soldered directly to the PCB. I guess this makes for an easy way to anchor the PCB, but I suppose if a footswitch was ever to come loose it could strain the PCB (I'll check my switches periodically). The battery sits in a slot in a middle of the PCB. The battery cover is a flexible piece of plastic that one bends up and slides out of the way to get to the battery. This seems like an afterthought in design, and makes for more bulky relief on the bottom of the pedal which is a hassle if you're going to put Velcro on the bottom for a pedal board. All-in-all, it seems solid enough to me, it feels solid. I see the factory build method and design as a cross between Electro-Harmonix pedals and Boss pedals....solid enough, and I'm sure it makes the pedal more affordable than being point-to-point handwired (see Menatone for this style).

I've never needed it, but I've heard good thing about the service. People have good things to say about Bob Weil, and he presents himself as a guitar-playing-regular-guy. He's from Tennessee, and there's a bit of a southern Christian thing going on his website, but it's his website and that don't bother me (I know it turns some people off), but hopefully he's an honest Christian and he'll follow the commandment of: "thou shall not burn thy customer; thy shall stand behind thy product." :) I did send them a few e-mail with questions about the J&H, and never got a reply, but he's gotten enough praise here for his service that I'm not worried about it.

It's a good sounding versatile and useful pedal. It will fatten your sound and do good overdrive distortion, clean boost, and compression, or combinations of these effects. It's not a high-end boutique hand built p-t-p wired pedal, but it sounds very good, it is well designed and thought out, it's very useful, and it's very affordable, especially when you consider that it's a pair of well match discrete effects. The pedal looks real cool, too.
Personally, I'd like the tonal character and the by-pass to be more transparent, but I'm not bothered the tone of the pedal. I've been playing over twenty years, and I think I've got good ears for tone, and I like this pedal. I use Rivera amps and Fender guitars, got a Teese wah (the best wahs, IMO), and misc. digital gear from DeltaLab and Yamaha for effects, also a great old Gibson amp that sounds weirder than a Zvex pedal. I play in a funk/reggae band, but I play a lot of roots and blues rock and roll, also some pedal steel guitar with roots and honky-tonk. The thing I like best about the pedal is the boost--with or without overdrive, and the fatness it adds. I would replace it if I lost it, especially at this price. I think it's up there with the boutique pedals, and while it doesn't have the build aesthetics that some people like to pay big bucks for, the sound is ver good. At this point I wouldn't worry about a back-up for this pedal.

Dialin in a good sound is easy. The only thing I noticed is that the tone control really changes quickly when you go fully clockwise so the final amount of the turn contains the most tone changes. Not a smooth taper pot.

Use a variety of guitars and amps. Fender Deluxe, Studiomaster ValveLeadmaster with LP's, strat, 335, Heritage 535, tele, etc... The compressor is okay but not as good as my smooth, original MXR Dynacomp. I love that pedal. The overdrive is smooth and let's the guitar tone come thru. Not for metal but good for R&R.

Seem solid.

Never needed support but have sent a couple of emails and found them to be very responsive.

Play various styles of music. Been playing over 40 years. Own lots of gear. Used to own lots of other gear. Had all the good stuff everybody wants now. BF Super Reverb, BF Twin, tube echoplex, Marshall SuperLead 100, 65 strat, gold top Les Paul, etc.....This pedal is easy to use, sounds good and is not unreasonably priced. It just does the job.

This is an update of my previous review. There is one really cool thing this pedal does that no other pedal will do. Will explain below.

You can use this pedal to get a 3 channel amp effect from a single channel amp. Here's how this works, using my Bassman reissue as an example: 1- Dial amp to find "sweet spot", where gain is regulated by pick attack. 2- Set compressor to clean up the tone and get a little more sustain. 3- Set OD for a boost with a little edge. 4- When you need a distorted sound, use the OD. When you need a clean sound, use the compressor. When you need a solo boost, stomp both switches at once. This is the coolest thing since toasted bagels with cream cheese. For this feature alone, this pedal goes to 11 on the 1-10 scale.

My earlier review mentions the killer reliability of this pedal. It is everything you could expect from a bank safe, but is cheaper and more fun.

Bob Weil has the mojo, but is not a mofo.

Ideally, I play straight up rock'n'roll with no frills, but I have to play blues, r'n'b, and anything else I can fake to make ends meet. This pedal is always in use. I bought a backup, just in case, but haven't needed it yet.

Start with the knobs at 12 o'clock and tweak them 'til you like your tone -- how difficult could that be...

Wat tha hell man. I kant evun gett a gud corn ton frum dis peddle... Just kidding. I have borrowed one of these a few times and may just go out and buy one soon. It's a good sounding unit and well worth the price. Some complain of the noise -- here's the deal: Put ANY compressor in front of ANY overdrive, turn the knobs all the way up, and... you'll get a ton of noise. The trick is that the pedal has... you guessed it... KNOBS on it!!! And one can turn these KNOBS to get a long sustaining, lush tone with nice attack and minimal noise -- only takes a little bit of brain-power...

I have only borrowed one of these to check it out. Seems that everyone else is having no problems.

Overall, a good product. I have so much equipment that I am not sure I need one of these, but if I come across one and the price is right, I'd probably pick one up. Good value as well. If VS goes under or discontinues this model, I am certain the price for one of these will sky-rocket.

Would be better if it had bigger knobs you could adjust with your feet. Otherwise, it's great.

Don't use the compressor with single coils, especially if you play on a stage where the lights are on the same circuit as the stage power. This is absolute hell. If you do this, get a noise gate, otherwise the 60 cycle hum will be amplified to the point where you will be forced to assault nearby innocents. The sounds themselves are wonderful.

This pedal had a full pint of beer dumped directly in it during last Mardi Gras, and it worked fine the next day. Probably 5 or 6 drunken fat chicks have fallen smack on top of this pedal without incident. It's pretty cool.

Bob Weil seems like a pretty straight up guy, and the company seems to care alot about the individual client. This is great.

Other than the noise, I think this thing is the cat's ass.

I've been playing for 6 years, I play classic rock, and jam music. (Hendrix, SRV, Dire Straits, Zep, Phish, Dead, etc) This overdrive is what i was looking for, nice thick and smooth, just the right ammount. And the compression is amazing. I can't reiterate enough how versatile this pedal can be.
I've played several other pedals both compression and OD, and other combinations. (Danelctro Daddy-o, 70's MXR Vintage Dynacomp, Tech 21 comptortion) This pedal blows them all away. The Daddy-o was nice, but not nearly as smooth as this, a little bit rougher around the edges (which is sometimes desierable.) The Comptortion was the only other pedal that i know of that is trying to combine distortion and compression, it didn't have independent switches, and it got noisier the more compression you added.
If it were stolen I'd get another, without a doubt.
The one thing I liked more about other OD pedals was separate EQ knobs (i.e. treble, bass, mid) but the one tone knob can dial in exactly what you're looking for on this pedal.
This is the best pedal for the money, it combines two effects, and does a great job of keeping them independent of each other, and at the same time offers great possibilities when they're combined.

i didn't like the settings in the manual, but adjustment is not too hard if you've used an overdrive before, and you know what you are looking for tone-wise. compressor is slightly tougher, but i've never had one previously and i don't use it much, so difficulties there probably lie with the user, me!

good od sound. maybe a little too much gain for my taste, but by no means are there any really heavy dist. sounds in there. bass boost works well on "thin" bridge pickups. as for those that say there are no clean/edge of od sounds here, i disagree, they are very low on the gain knob, but i usually can get them, in fact that's mostly what i use this pedal for. comp. is nice, i just don't use it for much other than a lead boost when using od. there's some nice sounds when mixing the two if one pays attention to matching up the separate eq settings. i like a top-heavy od setting with a mid-heavy comp. setting and the bass boost, seems to give the best overall clarity when using the two together. the comp. alone is interesting, mostly just not my cup of tea. however, the few times i have used it i've been suprised at the country lead sounds available with single coils. one qualifier: you MUST use a regulated power supply or the comp. will be noisy. i run this with the following: gib. blueshawk,strat(tex. spec. pu's), hamer (sym. dunc. 59's) and an epi 335. seems to be friendly with other pedals: maxon phaser, eh polychorus. running into del. rev. reissue,peavey delta blues, sovtek mig 50. i really don't notice a big effect on bypassed tone, even though it is not true bypass. maybe a little chimey, if that makes since, but i'm pretty picky about that issue (i've had some bad expereinces with pedals that sound great when on, and like crap when bypassed) and this is the only non true bypass pedal i use regularly so i really can't complain.

so far so good, only had this 9 mos. or so

no experience here. i own this and the 1-spot, both were purchased from retail dist. and i've had no prob. with either, i hope i never do.

this ended my search for an od pedal. i played it directly against the jek. & hyde, i thought this sounded better than jekyl and i didn't like hyde much at all. wanted to try a fulldrive, couldn't find one locally, have a jamming partner with maxon 808 and voodoo labs sparkle drive. i've played with 808 a little, and i like this one better from very limited experience, haven't tinkered with sparkle dr. yet, but it seems to sound pretty similar. i would replace it or get the sprkle drive if lost/stolen. been playing 6-7 yrs. mostly blues/rock/alternative? or whatever seems fun at the moment. used with a variety of tube amp/speaker combinations and multiple pickup types and guitars. good all around od, maybe not the best, but it's higher quality than my playing so it works for me!

I almost bought this after a home and band practice check but there are a few shortcomings not mentioned yet.
Good concept, easy to use, but not all combinations yield good results--of course.

Note:
-VS's pure bypass seems to add a bit of top-end sheen
-the comp section EQ is quite toppy or muddy, no neutral setting
-the distortion is very good BUT it will not do an almost clean on the edge sound-too much gain- maybe also not enough gain with bite for tapper types
-bass boost is almost too much but usable

-does need a regulated PS per VS instructions

The manual they sent gave very "noisy settings". However I've owned numerous overdrives and figured this one out in a couple of days.

I own a Les Paul with Duncan 59s in both positions and I use a reissue Bassman and a reissue JTM 45 with an A/B box. I found the compressor channel to be very noisy when used by itself especially with the gain too high. Mostly I have been playing through the overdrive side which I have fell in love with. With the drive set straight up and the level cranked it pushes both my amps into creamy, smooth overdrive. The real fun comes in when you kick in the compressor to add to the drive. I found that using both pickups with the overdrive and compressor and guitar volume rolled back yielded some great BB King licks. This pedal also sounds great when used with a TS-9 set for a lead boost. Sounds much better than the Maxon 808 which made my tone weak and thin.

Have only had it for 2 weeks.

Very friendly, I sent them an email and they actually took the time to write back.

I play mostly blues or blues-rock and I find this pedal to be much better than many of its higher priced competitors (Maxon 808, Maxon 820, Fulltone, etc.) I've been playing for about 4 years now and I consider myself a bit of a tone snob, this definitely satisfies my tone jones. I would defintely get another if something happened to this one, I love how smooth the overdrive is with my amps. I thought the price should've been more like a Drivetrain though, considering Bob Weil helped make both, but for two pedals in one its a good value.

It takes awhile to find the right sound.The manual doesn't give good sound examples,just experiment with it yourself.

I use a fender american tube series- blues junior,I also use my Gibson ES-135(TOTALLY worth the money!) with my R.66. I must say getting the volumes to match on both sides is frustrating.For example:You can have the compressor on and you have to turn the gain up to hear,now it's fine to combine with the overdrive as long as you don't have the sustain all the way up,but if you do, and you switch it on after you have your overdrive on, the volume jumps rediculously!You also have to hold your hand lightly on the strings to keep it from serious feedback.Now to the good: The sustain is incredible, i had a single note held for almost 25 sec. I love the distortion!It has a clean warm vintage sound,perfect for blues or classic rock!
This pedal is definately a keeper.Buy a seperate pedal with it if you
play slow leads, but for fast it's great!

It's very dependable,i can switch back and forth with sounds without delayed response. I use it's effects alone most of the time,(with a digital tuner) and i play in a youth group of about 150.Sometimes i use a delay with it.I use a fuzz effect on my zoom gfx707 when i need crunch.(by the way, the zoom is only good for the tuner in it and the fuzz and delay sorta,don't buy it!you will regret it.)If your battery is low one effect will go out before the other.

i haven't had to contact them yet, but their warranty is good.

I play a variety from classic rock,to bluesrock,southernrock,acoustic stuff too.I've been playing almost 3 years.I also own a zoomGFX707 and a dunlop wah, i regret both.If my Rt.66 was stolen or lost, i would get another one or buy a tubescreamer turbo dlx..I love the distortion,that's my favorite feature. I kinda like the compression.I love the sustain except when you have it up all the way,although it holds great the feedback and the volume jump are ridiculous,that gets on my nerves.I compared to the tubescreamer, pretty similar considering a copy of the TS-808 original is in the Rt.66.I chose it for the added sustain and warmth and clean distortion.I wish it had a feedback reducer and only one volume knob that would even the volume out.It helps me out with my songs i make up, because i can hear all my notes clean and clear and play contemporary christian rock(Third-Day and Audio A like sound),classic, and blues rock.