Anybody had a Jekyll & Hyde and just unsatisfied?

I owned the J&H for quite a few months and couldn't find a usable, satisfying, tone from it. The best thing I did was sell it.

 

I like the J&H, but never felt it was AWESOME (like I have with a couple of other pedals.....but to be fair, that's really a short list).

However, if I had to live with it, I could make do.

 

I tried to like the Visual Sound drives, but found them weak and unusable as well.

 

there are some definite sweet spots to it. It's not for everyone though- sorry you didn't enjoy it

I love mine

 

I really like it with Vox amps (AC30 & 50); not so much with my friend's Mesa. It's almost identical to my modded Ibanez TS7.

Fubba, in my experience, most pedals and amps will need some tweaking when switching between a singlecoil telecaster and a HB-equipped guitar.

 

It makes my Duo Jet and UK AC30 SING. I love that pedal.

 

Try stacking the TS808 side of the J&H with another OD, like from the VS Route 66! Nice tones when you cascade tubescreamers! There are a few companies, (Visual Sound included) that offer two OD's side by side ... that's why!

 

the ts808 side was my fave... couldn't get into the other side, thus giving me a hard time justifying it's board real estate

 

I used the original grey J&H for years while growing up and learning guitar.... kept using it b/c I always loved it soooo much when I was younger. Once I got old enough to realize what tone was and that it was ok not to like a pedal's particular flavor --- I realized I hated the heavy side of this pedal. I (and fellow bandmate) talked a lot about how cool it would be to have a pedal with both sides of the lighter drive... thus, the Double Trouble.

I never could get used to the heavy sound for anything except being able to barely dial in a usable boost for the lighter gain side. I never could use it on it's on, happily. It always left me wanting more.

 

I've heard before that the higher gain side of this is based off the Marshall Shredmaster.
Any one know for sure if that's the case?
I love my Shredmaster so having a TS variant & a Shredmaster in one unit would be sweet to put on a grab n go board for rehearsals with a tuner & delay.

 

I really liked mine when I had it, but ever since I made the switch to a midi controlled pedal board I replaced it with a Nova Drive which sounds similar but with a weaker TS side, and a more organic, with less gainy "RAT" side.

That pedal sounded very good in lower gain settings, and on EL34 based amps. For some reason 6L6 amps didn't bond with it as much.

 

they sell just the 808 circuit by itself

 

Or their 808 into their Open Road pedal... that's my favorite 1/2 punch of drives stacked together, sounds incredible

also, the Distortion side can be tough to find a good sound out of it, but stacked with an OD it sounds awesome

 

It's my favourite drivepedal. Sounds really good with humbuckers.

Small tip: there's an internal trimpot for bass on the distortion (hyde) side of the pedal. This helped me a lot to make it a little less muddy.
More info see: http://www.visualsound.net/PDF/VS Manual Jekyll Hyde COMP.pdf

 

Yes I was dissatisfied.

 

Same here. I had a J&H and was completely uninspired by it. Way too big a pedal for such a tiny tone.

 

+1... ended up getting a Fulltone GT500 which I think does the job better and takes up less space.

 

Which version do you have?

My friend has the original grey J&H and uses it with his Peavey Classic 30, he mostly uses the Jekyll side, but I have been able to get good tones out of each side. I was using a strat when I messed with it.

 

I had one for about 4 months and sold it. It's a good pedal, but i just couldn't find a set-and-forget tone good enough to justify me not trying elsewhere. Cool concept though.