Crisp & Transparent Chorus

I wanted a 'Fuzz-Box" When i was young I bought a Univox "Super Fuzz" not knowing it was the preferred EFX pedal to most major Rock guitarists. I've watch videos of The Who on stage and I can see Townshend has the pedal no ton the floor,but up high and easy to adjust. I bought it because I could get the sounds of Black Sabbath with it and it worked great on my Bass. It could growl or it could buzz and do anything inbetween. I sold my pedal two years ago and got $550.00 for it. I think I paid $45 back in 1976 So there I was regretting not having that pedal and finding out that nothing else sounded like it no matter how much the listing said it did. I bought an expensive unit to a friend as a gift and it claimed to be identical to the Super Fuzz and to even have more tonel adjustments. It didn't sound anything like the Univox. Now keep in mind I am talking about a "Fuzz" and not distortion or overdrive. Those EFX sound different than a Fuzz Box. Two weeks ago I cam across this on Amazon and after thinking about it bought something else that was actually a little bit more money. I never buy the cheapest product even when broke. Somehow it never arrived and Amazon sent me a refund very promptly. Then I went back to this one. I switched over to "Dogpile" my search engine and read about the pedal and listened to several videos of people demonstrating it. So I went back to Amazon and bought it for a very low price. - Thank you Amazon. It arrived the next day - thank you Amazon Prime - and after popping in a battery I tried it out. I have a new Les Paul copy I am about to upgrade so I plugged it in and played. I messed with the settings a lot and it sounded like crap. Then I turned the last knob almost all the way to the left and it sounded great! From there I tuned the over knobs to get a sound I loved. I ran it through a compressor and delay and this thing blew my freakin' mind. It was every adjective I can think of in a superlative vein. It was fantastic, magnificent, awesome, incredible and on and on. I couldn't put the guitar down. I was amazed to know that what I was hearing from my amp/cabinet was me. I sounded as if I could play. I was playing runs from Deep Purple and I sounded like the records. I was playing Who and Zeppelin, I suck at Page so i went back to Deep Purple and even played some Humble Pie. The sounds were all there! All of my favorite British guitarists were inside my amplifier. Then I began to play "Good bye to Jane" and discovered how much fun it is to blaze through my favorite Slade songs. I can't remember having so much fun. It sounds sweet when playing light solos or leads without changing settings, I simply changed how i played the notes and the box did the rest. Some boxes have one sound and you get it louder or softer but you still get the same sound. Not with this little purple wonder. The variations in tone are never ending between changing the pedal settings and changing the pick up positions and tone knobs on the guitar. In fact I think they ought to sell this pedal with every LP copy and they'd never have a complaint. It is nice that this pedal is so inexpensive. It appears to me made well. The off gives a completely quiet pedal by-pass. I believe it could take some rough handling at practice or packing up after a gig. The tag on it says "British" and it certainly earns the right to than name. It enabled me to sound just like all my favorite 60-s to 70's British rock guitarists. I can't recommend this pedal enough if that is the sound you want. maybe in 40 years people will be paying absurd amounts to buy one of these original pedals. You never can tell.

Great pedal, for the money (I paid $39 on Amazon), to get a nice "Marshall" crunch/gain. I play hard rock in a band and hard rock is the reason I actually play guitar. I wanted a small form-factor pedal as backup to my current "direct" rig; a Nux Cerberus. I really like the sound I have dialed-in on the Cerberus and believe I can also achieve a similar sound with the Joyo British Sound pedal (without effects, though). I've compared recordings of both and they are really close tone-wise....close enough, for the money, for me to have a decent backup or a portable "Marshall". Apparently, you can dial in various Marshall-type tones; I really only like the one, medium to heavy gain for rhythm and leads. I would've sent it back if it did not sound good enough; it sounds great. I've been playing for over 40 years and know what tone I like. The knobs feel sturdy, though they are plastic. The chassis is metal and very sturdy feeling. I have not/would not use a battery with it, so I can't speak to battery life; just my preference to use the proper power supply (9v) as I've always done with pedals. Having said that, there's no power supply with the version of the pedal I bought, but you can get a "bundle" with a power supply (so I've seen). It's a good sized pedal. It's slightly bigger than a normal Boss or TC Electronic "non-mini" pedal. I really like all of the various knobs for tone shaping, so I'm assuming that's why the size is slightly bigger, etc. The cool thing which really sold me (outside of the price) was this pedal, like the rest of this series of pedals (AC Tone, American Sound, etc.) has a built-in cabinet simulator. Since my current rig is "direct" that makes it an easy set up to just plug this pedal "direct" into a DI and I can immediately start playing. It's easy to keep in my gig-bag and I could totally see it being put on a separate board at some point for simplicity's sake. I could easily record with it too; just go direct into the DAW/Interface and it sounds great.

This pedal is noisy in a very bad way. I run a pretty clean rig in terms of not having a lot of external noise in my pedals and amp. I hate hiss, and I play through humbuckers. I don't apply a high cut to my amps (sometimes called the presence knob) because I like the open, "airy" sound. When I want less "presence," I just dial my tone knob back a bit. I thought it might be that the noise was from a bad power supply. I tested several of my power supplies; most are isolated, and I also tested this with a nine-volt (huge plus, BTW). The California Sound overdrive has a lot of static regardless of what power source it's on, whether it's in the loop, in front of the amp, or in the effects. The hiss is present regardless of if the effect is on or off/bypassed or not. Overdrive sounds are fine, maybe just not my style. I play a lot of R&B and jazz and keep overdrive/dirt a bit past the "edge of breakup" zone. I found the voice and the overdrive knobs didn't work how I expected them to. It's not all bad, though—I was able to get around the hiss by pushing a lot more volume through the pedal so that the signal-to-noise ratio is much greater (in other words, the guitar signal is so loud compared to the hiss that you can hardly hear the hiss). Unfortunately, the only way I could accomplish this was to add it to the effects loop out of my amp. Fortunately, it sounds great now. I like a mid-scooped tone, and the middle knob has very generous control of the mids. This pedal wants to be loud. I don't want it to be (I know, I know, it's an overdrive). I have to keep the volume knob almost all the way down to get the OD volume the same as my clean volume when I bypass the pedal. Maybe that won't matter to you, but I promise it will matter to your sound tech if you ever play live. All in all—a very capable, versatile, and pleasant-sounding pedal minus the hiss (unique to this pedal) and the hard-to-tame volume jumps (not unique to this pedal). I would recommend this, or the TC Electronic MojoMojo, or the Walrus Audio Ages overdrive, depending on your budget

2nd Update 6-17-25. Got a refund on the defective pedal and the first one is still going strong. For $40 this is an awesome sounding pedal so I am giving it back it's 5 Stars. One thing I noticed is that these new pedals, most if not all of them Do Not like the older vintage pedals in front of them. I had an EHX distortion in front of it (15 years old) and the LED would go wonky on the AC Tone. Same thing with my NUX Tape Core. Weird. That EHX pedal was too big for my board so I pulled it out. Plus it didn't sound that great. No problems since. I am definitely going to order another one, and most likely retire all my vintage pedals anyway. UPDATE: 4/7/25 I liked this pedal so much I ordered a 2nd one. It arrived on time today. I placed it at the end of my pedal chain behind a NUX chorus and a Salem Boost, hit the effects button and it came on, hit the button again to adjust the volumes, hit the pedal again and it made a high pitch beep sound and nothing else. Turned the distortion down and the beep went away but nothing came out, clean or bypass. Maybe this pedal was just defective, but in almost 60 years of playing guitar, I have never had an effects pedal just die like that. I am going to contact customer service and and return this pedal for an exchange. Hopefully this was just a fluke as I really love this pedal, but now I am leery. I am also scared to use my first one now, but being last in the pedal chain should NOT have caused it to die. Since it has a built in cabinet simulator, it should be last in the chain. As soon as I receive a new one I will update my review. Awesome pedal! Combined with the Digitech Red Special pedal and a Nux Tape Core, I was able to get 100% into the classic Queen guitar sound. Note, there was LOTS of noise and feedback but it was controllable - if your good. Creamy velvety endless sustain. Almost didn't need the delay in the chain. But I can see this NOT working with a lot of amps, especially Fenders. I am using it with a cheap Kustom 10-watt practice amp with an 8" speaker, no reverb. Turn everything off and the amp sounds pretty crappy. This actually sounds Better than the VOX 30 patch on my high end processor. It has a cab simulator built in , which probably isn't going to agree with a lot of amps, especially live, but I bought this for use in my studio only. And I saw Queen in 1975 and Brian May sounded NOTHING like he did on the records. Kansas opened and blew them away. I have been playing pro for 60 years. Live the band, Queen, absolutely sucked. The Queen sound was a Studio Only sound. Brian was using 2 Hi-Watt stacks and sounded like every other guitar player. With this pedal alone I got the full Vox AC-30 grit and glimmer, but it needed a Boost Pedal for that extra shove off the cliff. The Deacy patch #7 on the Red Special is absolutely the best boost out there, but sadly out of production and an expensive collectors item now. I am going to try this Ac Tone with the Gokko Salem Boost pedal which I just received next. But I am for sure going to order another AC TONE as a back up if this one gets lost or stolen. It is that good. I had it at the middle of the chain going into the delay, behind the boost. I tried it at the end of the chain as an amp simulator and that did not not sound as good, but it was good. As usual, fast delivery and excellent customer service, the power supply I ordered was left out of the shipment. Issue resolved and Amazon is sending me a replacement.

I'm shocked at how good this pedal is either directly into the mixing board as an amp simulator or part of a pedal board as an overdrive. Very adjustable. Good sounds from clean to dirty. Takes other effects well. For the price unbeatable. Just buy it. You won't be disappointed.

I like the tremelo effect of this pedal, the price (super cheap), and the art on the front of the pedal. All in all, I’m happy I bought it because I just needed a cheap tremelo pedal. My 2 main points of criticism for this pedal are: it introduces a lot of noise into my signal chain and the “rate” knob that controls the timing of the tremelo effect is hard to dial in just right. For instance, sometimes you want to make very small adjustments in the speed of the tremelo and you really have to barely move the knob at all in order to change the speed significantly, which makes it hard to dial in just right in my opinion. Also, it’s not a small amount of noise I’m talking about. The second I turn this pedal on I get some really hardcore buzzing. What makes it even more annoying is that the tremelo effect itself really highlights how annoying the buzz is (blinks on and off incessantly). Just makes me want to turn the pedal off after a while lol. Again, overall I’m happy with my purchase but it isn’t perfect. For the price, it’s about what you’d expect out of a super simple pedal.

TL;DR Buy this pedal, watch the @MichaelBanfieldGuitar YouTube video on using flangers for a full range of modulation. This is easily the best value on my pedal board. Picked this up on sale for under $30. You can run huge gain in front of this pedal and get wonderful sounds. In front of an amp with the gain dimed it makes the tubes sing. It adds a bit of noise, and a bit of gain, when engaged. But for me all within tolerable levels. Warning: You may find Siouxsie and the Banshees‘ Juju entering heavy rotation in your playlists. YMMV

I am an amatuer player who is a prominent luthier with a background in music, now semi-retired at 73. I went on a kind of pedal spending spree, and bought all four of these, American, California, ACtone, and British. At first, I thought I would get a substantial difference in these distortion pedals, but only so-so. Here is my test: Pedalboard is my own design, built by me. I am a prominent luthier in SE Tennessee, have built over 100 guitars, and although not a premium player, I have been in woodworking for over 5 decades, been in guitars since 2008, and also worked for Time Warner Music for eleven years. I also am the go-to luthier in a major independent music store in SE Tennessee for ten years now, doing everything from setups to disastrous neck repairs and soundboard cracks. I use almost all Stewart Macdonald equipment. I hear a LOT of players. I have heard about every sound you can imagine. So when I bought these, I knew I might be shorting myself, and that is somewhat the case. My pedalboard has a totally isolated power supply, and one 10 band equalizer in front of these, nothing else. With the true bypass on each, I can tell you that with all off, my guitar sounds great. A far as the guitar, it is a no-name strat copy that I modded with three Fluor humbucker stacked coils, all wired in series, no coil taps, no series/parallel, just the normal ceramic caps and a five way switch. All tests were performed in position 2, Neck and Middle active. The guitar is overwound, hot, and plays with a full sound clean that no Fender can match. (You don't need to spend a lot of money on pickups for the name, trust me.) I have a couple tube amps, and chose my Peavey Classic 50 for this test, since it is a bit brighter than my Fender Blues Deluxe with Eminence Hemp speaker. The Peavey was on normal, no reverb, no extended effects. Plugged into Nomal. For the record, all of the four pedals have all the exact same controls, and I set each and every dial to total Mid, in otherwise, 12: o'clock. My song of choice was Cat Scratch Fever, since it has that opening that calls for simple chords that use distortion... So, how did these four pedals perform? American: Bright, distortion clear and clean, a bit brittle, but not a bad sound. I probably would use this, but it can get a bit ear-splitting at times, especially on the higher chords. Not much in the lower end. California: Slightly darker, more fuller, I liked the sound, it was not offensive but still had that determined distortion. Probably would sound great with a Les Paul. ACTone: Brittle, bright, not my favorite, as some You-Tubers have said. I agree. Bit too bright for my tastes. Not much sustain. Basically, my least favorite. British: Your typical "I can't get no satisfaction" type of distortion. Right down the middle in dark and bright, which is good, but also bad, since it sounds like most other distortion pedals I have tried. A good way to begin in distortion, but not testing any boundaries. You can make your own decision, and this is all IMHO. I highly recommend looking at a few Youtube videos before buying any of these. Do they all have a place in my playing style? Yes. The ACTone probably not much. I'll be pulling it off my board. I really like the California, and much to my surprise, the British for its total recreation of the 60's/70's British sound.. Thanks for reading.