Visual Sound Son of Hyde

The Son of Hyde features some nice upgrades from the previous series of Visual Sound pedals and is fairly idiot proof. Drive, Treble, Mid, Volume control easily accessible along with bright switch, makes dialing in a wide range of tones almost too easy. The New feature in the controls are inside the pedal where VS have added a trim pot for bass frequency and a switch and trim pot for noise reduction, very cool! Just take off the back plate and dial the bass and noise reduction in and forget about them. The Bass control acts a lot like a resonance control so cranking it can make your tone muddy(depending on how the top is set up) Would be much nicer if the Bass control was more readily accessible.

I am running a Gibson Swamp Ash Les Paul Studio, and a Fender Highway 1 Strat into a Orange Tiny Terror head with Orange made in Britain 212 cab. I have owned the older red Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde for several years now and I have used it in many situations, studio, live, practice, and home use. This pedal has been a cornerstone of my tone for years but because I rarely used the Jekyll side I was eager to replace it with the Son of Hyde to save space on my pedalboard. Last week I bought the Son of Hyde and eagerly brought it home and tested it beside my old Jekyll & Hyde, I hate to say it but what a disappointment!! The older pedal won hands down in every setting, while I was able to get the Son of Hyde to sound similar to the old Hyde (I only tested Hyde against Hyde) it sounded like I had thrown a wet blanket on my tone, the life was gone from the sound. I was kind of like comparing a low bitrate MP3 to a vinyl recording, all the parts were kind of there but why on earth listen to the cruddy little MP3 when the vinyl is alive with sound. Same thing here, why use the Son of Hyde and kind of sound OK when you can use something else and sound awesome. I am really disappointed with Visual Sound here and from the buzz on the scene and in the stores many, many players are just a disappointed. Save up your cash and buy something better like the Catalin Bread Dirty little Secret or some other boutique quality gear, Your Tone is Worth It!!!!!!

If this is anything like its older brother it is built like a tank and should last forever (unfortunately)

I haven't received word back from Visual Sound but I have spoken to a dealer who is less than thrilled with how they dealt with his complaints about the V2 line

I have been playing for 11 years now and have been consistently complimented for my ear for gone tone by old pros and beginners alike, I am sorry to do this but I can't recommend this wet noodle of a pedal, save your cash and buy something good.

This is a childsplay,it""s very easy to get a good sound.
you only need the manual if you want to change something
in the inside of the pedal.
I only backed off the bass in the inside with a simple
screwdriver.

I use it with a Squier strat,Yamaha sa-30 tvl,Richwood telecaster and a Michael kelly patriot through a Peavey classic 30[at home] or a Marshall bluesbreaker.
This pedal sounds very natuaral on all settings,you can get a nice overdrive sound or a metal distortion.I only use the bright switch on lower gain settings. The middle is very effective from scooped till a very fat sound.I also use a Blackstar ht dualdrive wich is with a tube in it but the son of hyde is a lot cheaper and it sounds warm without a tube.

It""s a very solid pedal although i don""t like the footswitch that much.

I ve been playing guitar for about 25 years from classic rock,new wave and alternative rock and acoustic .I""ve tried a lot of pedals: Boss,Ibanez,vox,zoom etc but the Son of Hyde is one of the best at a good price.

For me, this is about as easy as it gets. Drive, treble, middle and volume control, plus a mini-toggle that changes the character of the pedal from a warmer, darker tone to a brighter overall character. I was up and running with a killer tone in a matter of seconds. This is a brand new style for Visual Sound, essentially taking the "Hyde" half of their "Jekyll and Hyde" pedal and turning into a stand alone smaller pedal.

Well, this really what it's all about, isn't it? I've been around the block playing anything from small dives to big concerts in front of thousands of people. I've used all the dirt boxes out there (I mean ALL of them) and probably could have paid off my house by now for what I've spent. I'm a pedalboard kind of guy and I run all my effects into a clean tube amp like a Fender Twin. I need the pedal to do all the work as there's no way I'm going to get that big 'ol Twin to distort. This new version does it in spades and there's more than enough gain to satisfy almost everyone. You can certainly get into metal territory if that's where you wanted to go. I have to admit that I had tried the previous version and thought it sounded too harsh and a little thin, regardless of whether or not I rolled the treble down and used the "blunt" setting. This new version is just a whole new animal to me. While it still has a "bright" position mini-toggle, they've added what I think is an absolute necessity in any distortion pedal: a midrange control.....gee, imagine that! If you've been playing long enough or just have good ears you know that the midrange of a distorted guitar sound is critical to fine tuning your tone. This makes a whole world of difference on this little pedal. It can completely change the character of the tone. For some reason, the top end of this little gem is smoother and more refined than the previous version as well. Sure, you can still flick the bright switch on and roll off the mids and get "that" sound. For me, this is the warmest, smoothest pedal I've used to date. I'm replacing an MI Audio Crunch Box which has been on my pedalboard for the last year which I thought was the best thing since sliced bread until I heard this. Prior to the Crunch Box I used a Tonebone Hot British for a couple of years. I don't even want to bore you with the sundry other distortion boxes I've used over the years. Before I forget, this pedal has a couple of added bonuses.....big bonuses. Internally, there is a noise reduction circuit which can be turned off (it's set to "on" from the factory) and has a trim pot which allows you to add more or less of this noise reduction. It works brilliantly and doesn't seem to affect the tone at all on its lowest setting. I haven't tried using more than the minimum setting, but then, I haven't needed to. For a distortion box, this is a very quiet pedal. There's also a trim pot which lets you fine tune the amount of bass (which has a resonance similar to that low end 'thunk' you get from a Marshall 4x12 cabinet); highly adjustable. With all these controls, you now have bass, mid, treble, gain, volume and a really quiet pedal. I'm not sure what else you would need. Suffice to say, this pedal gives me exactly the tone I've been searching for. I'm not going to say that this will be the last distortion box that I'll buy because tone is in the ear of the beholder and they all have different flavors, but for what I play and what I want to hear coming out of my amp, this beats them all!

Visual Sound has a great rep for reliability and I can't see this pedal being anything but more of the same, if not more, because of some well needed changes. It comes in a spiffy new heavy metal (no pun intended) enclosure and has an amazing new foostswitch that feels smooth under your foot that is supposed to be good for "10,000,00" stomps....works for me! It also has a power supply failsafe so that should you use the wrong power supply or voltage you won't smoke your new pedal....it just won't work. Use any appropriate power supply, Boss, etc. (personally, I think their One Spot power supply is the best on the market!) and you're back in business.

I've needed their support regarding a non-pedal issue in the past and got a personal response from Bob Weil, the company prez in a matter of hours....try that with Full****! This is a well run company with a "family" feel to it. I have no doubts that your experience (should you need it, and you probably won't) would be the same as mine.

I've been lucky enough to make my living for the past 40 years as a musician. Fads come and go but real tone is a staple. You can hear it and feel it in this pedal. This is the "real deal". Don't let the low price fool you; this is a seriously flexible pedal that can give you a whole palette of colors with which you can paint your music. You can spend less time twiddling knobs and more time doing what you love to do: play guitar!