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So impressed with this budget pedal

NoSlapForYou

NoSlapForYou

Jan 9, 2019
862
1,778
46
Durham, NC
#1
I ordered this pedal on the strength of this video. I thought it was worth a gamble because it was only around $95 after taxes. Where else are you going to find a pedal with distortion, EQ, cab sim, and a headphone output for $95? Yes, Joyo is a budget brand, but I decided to trust the review.





There only seems to be one place to order it, a seller on Reverb located in China. But they're well reviewed. Anyway, it shipped from China so it took about two weeks to get here. But I got it today and have been messing with it for the last hour.

I'm beyond impressed. It sounds amazing. It doesn't actually sound like a Darkglass pedal. It doesn't have the barbed-wire top end and scooped mids that all Darkglass pedals seem to have. It leans more towards fuzz. It also interacts great with my other pedals, including other distortions like my Sans Amp or Big Muff.
 

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#4
NoSlapForYou said:
I ordered this pedal on the strength of this video. I thought it was worth a gamble because it was only around $95 after taxes. Where else are you going to find a pedal with distortion, EQ, cab sim, and a headphone output for $95? Yes, Joyo is a budget brand, but I decided to trust the review.





There only seems to be one place to order it, a seller on Reverb located in China. But they're well reviewed. Anyway, it shipped from China so it took about two weeks to get here. But I got it today and have been messing with it for the last hour.

I'm beyond impressed. It sounds amazing. It doesn't actually sound like a Darkglass pedal. It doesn't have the barbed-wire top end and scooped mids that all Darkglass pedals seem to have. It leans more towards fuzz. It also interacts great with my other pedals, including other distortions like my Sans Amp or Big Muff.
Click to expand...

It appears to be a copy of a Darkglass Alpha-Omega Ultra, which has both boosted mid tones and fuzzy character in many settings (there are actually lots of DG tones that aren’t mid-scooped or brittle on top if you actually give the pedals a try). Given Joyo is in the business of selling copies, no reason to believe they did anything here but copy again.
 
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#5
sunbeast said:
It appears to be a copy of a Darkglass Alpha-Omega Ultra, which has both boosted mid tones and fuzzy character in many settings (there are actually lots of DG tones that aren’t mid-scooped or brittle on top!). Given Joyo is in the business of selling copies, no reason to believe they did anything here but copy again.
Click to expand...
I've played the Alpha-Omega. It may look like it, but it doesn't really sound like it, imo.

And to be honest, I disagree with your description. I like the Darkglass sound in the right context, but their distortion always sounds like someone smacking a chainlink fence to me. It's the sound of modern metal. The one I like the best is the Vintage Ultra because it's the mellowest and most usable across genres to my ear.
 
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#6
Joyo sent me one of those for review, and my initial impressions are that it's a really great pedal. Seems to be a very good clone of the Darkglass Alpha Omega. One thing I'm pretty bummed about is that the cab sim only effects the XLR out. It doesn't effect the line out nor the headphone out which sucks because it does sound good. It's just not as useful as it could be.
 
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#7
NoSlapForYou said:
I've played the Alpha-Omega. It may look like it, but it doesn't really sound like it, imo.

And to be honest, I disagree with your description. I like the Darkglass sound in the right context, but their distortion always sounds like someone smacking a chainlink fence to me. It's the sound of modern metal. The one I like the best is the Vintage Ultra because it's the mellowest and most usable across genres to my ear.
Click to expand...
I've had iterations of all of the analog DG drive circuits at this point (BxK, Vintage,Alpha-Omega, Duality, and X), and all of them could be mild with the right settings- I've never played modern metal in my life and have used them all to great effect as have a ton of other players outside that genre (they were one of only a small handful of companies making bass drives for years so we all found a way to use them). Just because a genre of music has embraced a certain set of pedals set a certain way doesn't mean they aren't capable of sounding other ways too. With the Attack/Bite switches off or cut on most of those pedals (ie not boosting highs into the clipping circuit) the high-end isn't harsh in the least. The Alpha-Omega from my understanding is probably a cross between a Boss ODB-3 and a Blackstone Mosfet with some extra tone-shaping options added, neither of which had the "Darkglass tone" as they preceded the existence of Darkglass. The ODB-3 side can be fizzy and scooped but the Blackstone side is all mids.

Some decidedly non-modern metal uses of DG, just from the first page of a B7K Youtube search:





And my old proto-metal inspired band using an always-on Vintage Deluxe throughout:


An unreleased demo from my old hardcore-ish band using an Alpha-Omega Ultra as an always-on pedal throughout:
 

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#10
NoSlapForYou said:
I ordered this pedal on the strength of this video. I thought it was worth a gamble because it was only around $95 after taxes. Where else are you going to find a pedal with distortion, EQ, cab sim, and a headphone output for $95? Yes, Joyo is a budget brand, but I decided to trust the review.





There only seems to be one place to order it, a seller on Reverb located in China. But they're well reviewed. Anyway, it shipped from China so it took about two weeks to get here. But I got it today and have been messing with it for the last hour.

I'm beyond impressed. It sounds amazing. It doesn't actually sound like a Darkglass pedal. It doesn't have the barbed-wire top end and scooped mids that all Darkglass pedals seem to have. It leans more towards fuzz. It also interacts great with my other pedals, including other distortions like my Sans Amp or Big Muff.
Click to expand...

Ali Express also
 
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#13
tb-player said:
Glad you found a pedal that works for you. Sorry you got bum-rushed by the Darkglass mafia.
Click to expand...
Clearly this refers to me! I merely found it disingenuous to pretend this wasn’t a clone of a Darkglass pedal, when it clearly is. Almost identical controls, aesthetics, and features as a specific DG pedal (and from the demo certainly at least a similar tonal range but with added “gain boost” switch in place of the pre-clipping low-shape switch- though gutshot and tone comparisons between the two would of course be more illuminating), from a company best known for cloning analog devices. Maybe not quite as blatant as the DemonFX clones, but not much less so. Then to qualify this by repeating the whole tired “Darkglass tone” thing as if all the knobs and switches on four pretty distinct pedal lines all just lead you back to the same identical high-gain face-shredding outcome. As such, comments about DG pedals seem pretty relevant, no? At the very least it is clearly “inspired by” a Darkglass (as the video kindly puts it), so the comparisons are very relevant.
 
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#15
The first Joyo product I ordered was a power supply for a pedal board I built. It looked rather cheap and crapped-out fairly quick. Given that, I figured live and learn. I had no plans of ever buying another Joyo product. Fast forward about ten years. The brand has grown, the reviews aren't bad and the products look much better constructed than in the past. Given that, I figured I'd try again and ordered a pedal tuner. Much more impressed. This thing is a tank. Heavy build, good display, and able to power other pedals. Yeah, a clone of a Pitchblack. A great buy for about sixty-bucks Canadian.
 
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#17
NoSlapForYou said:
I ordered this pedal on the strength of this video. I thought it was worth a gamble because it was only around $95 after taxes. Where else are you going to find a pedal with distortion, EQ, cab sim, and a headphone output for $95? Yes, Joyo is a budget brand, but I decided to trust the review.





There only seems to be one place to order it, a seller on Reverb located in China. But they're well reviewed. Anyway, it shipped from China so it took about two weeks to get here. But I got it today and have been messing with it for the last hour.

I'm beyond impressed. It sounds amazing. It doesn't actually sound like a Darkglass pedal. It doesn't have the barbed-wire top end and scooped mids that all Darkglass pedals seem to have. It leans more towards fuzz. It also interacts great with my other pedals, including other distortions like my Sans Amp or Big Muff.
Click to expand...

Amazon has them too.
 
#19
I been tempted to buy this. Has anyone compared it to the Zoom B1? Which would obtain a more "darkglass like tone"?

I am too poor to afford darkglass, so I don't mind buying a copy. Perhaps when I am loaded, I'll purchase darkglass products, but until then, I have no qualms using imitations if it gets me the sound I want
 
#20
Seth DuSith said:
I been tempted to buy this. Has anyone compared it to the Zoom B1? Which would obtain a more "darkglass like tone"?

I am too poor to afford darkglass, so I don't mind buying a copy. Perhaps when I am loaded, I'll purchase darkglass products, but until then, I have no qualms using imitations if it gets me the sound I want
Click to expand...
I can kinda speak to this. I did a comparison on my YouTube channel between a Darkglass head and the Zoom B1x Four Dark OD and found them to be very close. I haven't A/B'ed the Monomyth and the Double Thruster with either the Zoom or the Darkglass head, but comparing the pedals to the video I made, they all appear to be very similar. Which is to say, the Joyo pedals sound quite close to the Darkglass stuff they're copying. The Zoom also does great job emulating the B3k, and that emulation is one of my favorite distortions on the whole pedal.
 
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