Is Cheaper Really Less Quality? An Honest Review of Joyo’s Vintage Overdrive Pedal

The world of guitar pedals is vast to say the least! You have your choice from pedals that compress, pedals that wah, pedals that octavize, etc., and in addition to the blessing and nightmare that is a vast selection, you also have several price points to choose from. Well, today we are going in depth on a lower price point overdrive pedal, the Vintage Overdrive.

Let’s start with a little about the company of Joyo Audio. Joyo is located in ShenZhen, China, which is like the Silicon Valley of China in the sense that ShenZhen houses many of the innovative technology companies of China. Oddly enough, I have a unique tie to this City since my wife is from there and I have spent much time in ShenZhen. From my personal experience, ShenZhen is indeed a technology hub of China. Perhaps next time I am there I will take a tour of the Joyo factory.

Everyone seems to be looking for that perfect overdrive pedal, and while I cannot guarantee that the Vintage Overdrive is that pedal for you, I can say that this pedal is full of surprises for a $40 piece of gear. The Vintage OD is a clone of the famous Ibanez Tube Screamer pedal heard on many popular tracks over the years including the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Vintage OD comes equipped with true bypass which is very handy when you want the OD out of your signal chain. The Vintage OD has a drive knob, a tone knob, and a volume knob. You have the choice of using a 9V battery, or power it with a plug-in power supply that would have to purchased separately from the pedal. Overall, its a lightweight package that boasts green casing and yellow knob aesthetics (which looks pretty cool) and a simple engage foot-switch, which makes operation quite simple…. as to be expected.

Before we get to the sonic, let me first disclose what my signal chain was when testing this pedal: Vox AC30cc2 with 2 Celestion Greenbacks–> Joyo Vintage OD–> Guitar. Guitars used are a mid 2000s USA Fender Strat modded with a CTS wiring kit and Smits Hand-wound Pickups, and a 2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional. Side notes, I will test the pedal with the amp already on an overdriven setting and then again with the amp set clean. Lastly, I will test each guitar with a pick and then using a finger picking technique all while adjusting tone and volume knobs on the guitars.

So now we get to the meat and potatoes, “How does this thing sound?”! Well, really good! First of all, the phrase “touch sensitivity” will come up quite often in my review. First I plug in my American Strat, set my amp to a clean tone and dial all the knobs on the Vintage OD to half-way. The first thing I notice is that the highs are a little much, so I turn my tone knobs on the guitar to around 7 and the volume knob to around 8.5. This is where I find the sweet spot with this pedal, amp and guitar combination. Touch sensitivity (here we go) is great. Lighten up your pick attack and your in that sweet bluesy Strat tone while still maintaining that chimey tone coming from the Vox AC30. Mids are coming through very nicely on this setting and this setting is very dynamic. Start digging into the strings with your pick attack and you get into Strat Rock! With this setting, pickup positions 2 & 4 really shine and you get a nice Stratty quack. When I switched to using a pick, I rolled down the guitar’s tone knob just a little more due to the extra brightness. Another noticeable feature with this pedal is that it can function quite well as a volume boost. So if you already like the sound of your amp but want some extra volume for a solo, kick it on and wail away! With the Les Paul in this setting, on the neck pick provides a great “Woman Tone” that makes you wanna bust out some creamy “White Room”. Touch sensitivity is great with the Les Paul also, go from crystal cleans to soaring dirty all by how you touch your instrument….stop those dirty thoughts!!! Harmonics on both guitars come through nice and clear.

Let go into high gain territory!! Okay, so the Vintage OD gives a great “higher” gain tone….though not Iron Maiden or any kind of metal territory, but that is alright because this pedal is not built for that. This pedal, much like an Ibanez TS, is meant to emulate a tube amp being pushed, and it does this quite well. Again, the Strat shines in the out-of-phase 2 & 4 pickup positions when the drive knob on the pedal is set from 75% – 100%. This setting with the Strat reminds me of SRV’s guitar sound when he played “The Sky is Cryin” & “Voodoo Child” live. Very overdriven and quacky! Positions 1,3 & 5 also sound really good, especially position 3 as it brings in the meaty mids!! The Les Paul goes into mega squeal territory that would make spandex wearing, balding, 80s rock stars proud. This is the closest my AC30 sounds to an overdriven Marshall. Sustain and creamy overdrive for days.

Okay, now for my absolute favorite setting on this pedal. Volume at 100%, tone & drive at 0%. Setting the pedal this way will push your tube amp into its own unique overdrive. Make sure your amp is set to be overdriven naturally. Touch sensitivity is best in this setting, you can play nice open chords and it is not muddy, and power chords!!! Oh yes, power chords!! You are in AC/DC territory now! Go from picking to finger picking (no flicking please) and just roll that guitar volume to clean up further…..or not, up to you.

So, I really have tried to find something I do not like about the pedal and be completely objective. What I came up with is that the tone knob should be dialed back a little and will require some tweaking on your own special rig, and I also noticed that when al knobs are half-way on the pedal, it does give quite a substantial volume boost. So definitely tweak that volume knob down if you want to switch between a dry signal and an overdriven signal from time to time…or don’t and rock that much harder.

Final thoughts on the pedal. For $40 and even if it was $100, this is a really good pedal. Sure, you might find some minute differences between it and a real TS808 with a fine tooth comb, but when your rocking peoples socks of on stage, and drums, bass, vocals, rhythm guitars are rocking too….you and the crowd are not going to notice those little differences. They will only notice how hard you are rockin-and-rollin, and maybe thinking you should not be wearing so much spandex because it is 2018! Anyway, fashion senses aside…if you are looking for a good clone of a TS, look no further! This one is affordable and does a great job!

Please let me know in the comments of any reviews you would like for me to do in the future, I am but your humble servant.

Wrapping the strings on a Les Paul tailpiece to reduce string tension

I really love my Les Paul, the way it looks, the way it sounds, and up until recently the way it played. I was so enamored with having my first real Les Paul, that I overlooked one very critical aspect of it, string tension. Everything else felt really good with the guitar, the nut width was 1.75″, chunky 50’s neck profile, beautiful aesthetics, good sounding pickups, all the goodies for a first higher end guitar buyer.

So, when I finally realized that I needed to do something about the string tension because it felt too tight, I did what any normal, slightly confused guitar player would….hit up Google and YouTube. What I found was a way to reduce string tension by wrapping the strings over the tail piece before going over the bridge. Even some famous guitarists recommended it. So why this works is because when you feed the string in the wrong direction in the tailpiece and wrap it over the tailpiece the angle at which the string hits the bridge from the tailpiece is lessened. Less of an angle on the strings between the tailpiece and the bridge means less string tension. But what I am here to help you realize is that you do not have to wrap the strings to achieve this affect.

Granted, if you want to do this for an aesthetic as well as functional purposes, go right ahead….but I did not want to scratch up the chrome on my tailpiece to get this done. I am not saying that wrapping the strings over the tailpiece is bad, I am just saying that it is a little unnecessary from a functional standpoint.

So here is how you can achieve the same effect without wrapping…

Your Les Paul’s tailpiece has 2 threaded studs on each side you can adjust. to raise the tailpiece and lessen the angle of the strings, simply turn each of these counter clockwise. Pretty easy to do in fact. This is the route I have taken to lessen my string tension and it works like a charm. The tailpiece can be raised pretty far, but do be careful not to scratch your finish or raise the bridge so far that the studs no longer are grabbing the threads….especially when all your strings are on the guitar. It will be best to loosen your strings to where there is only a small amount of tension so not to cause any damage. Remember that you do this at your own risk, and I will not be held responsible for any damage you cause yourself or your guitar, so take things very slow and carefully. Remember too that I am not a professional guitar tech, but rather a DIY’er. Also, be aware that if your angle is too shallow, your strings will not stay on the bridge saddles when playing and you will occasionally hear a pling of one of the strings slipping off whilst playing. So there is definitely a happy medium when adjusting. So take things slow and easy and you will have your Les Paul playing right in no time!

Guitar String Guage: Does Size Really Matter? 8 gauge to 12 gauge.

Exploring the importance of string gauge, but more importantly how string gauge effects you as a guitar player.

As guitar players, we hear all about string size from blogs, guitar snobs, YouTubers and sometimes our favorite artists. Whether its Slash or SRV, string gauge is an ever popular topic with guitar players, but does it really matter? In short, yes. But the more important question to ask is what gauge are you comfortable with?

Disclosure:Before we get too deep within this controversial guitar topic, let me state that I only write from the perspective of my own experience. So this article is a culmination of my experiences over the years with different string sizes as both a musician, lover of guitars, and listener of live music.

Let us first delve into how different string sizes affects tone on your guitar. When I think of large string size, I think of the late great Stevie Ray Vaughan! His guitar tone is to die for! The reason I say “guitar tone” instead of “Strat tone” is because no matter what guitar that man set in his lap, the tone was amazing. Like many professional players, SRV used a hybrid of different gauges, the largest set I have learned was 13 gauge on his more commonly played Stratocasters. I have also heard that he had used up to a 17 gauge on some of his guitars, but more commonly 12 gauge and 13 gauge. Let’s talk tone! I have yet to hear someone get SRV’s exact tone…..other than SRV himself! His tone is very present and full of mid range. Cleans up so good and almost had a baritone guitar quality. Bigger strings give a thick rhythm sound that seem to cut through the mix extremely well. In my opinion, not many can make a Fender Stratocaster sound as good as SRV. Just listen to any live recording (especially live at El Mocambo), that tone! Oh man!

But what else was going into that tone? Stevie was known to play a range of different amplifiers from Marshall to Fenders to Dumble. Of course, we know that Fender amplifiers (Super Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, Vibroverb, Vibrolux, the list goes on) give a great clean to slightly overdriven tone and seem to be the number one choice of many players who run multiple effects since they are a great base tone to stack pedals in front of. Without ranting about how great Fender, Marshall, and Dumble amplifiers are (so great!!), my point in mentioning the amplifiers is that the amp is just as much a part of great guitar tone, so know your amps and what you like! The pickups in his number one Strat were 1950s low output Strat pickups, I do not know the exact numbers of his pickups, but contrary to what many think, they were indeed low output pickups. They sounded hot because of the way Stevie played, which leads to his playing style. This is definitely the biggest aspect of his tone In terms of attack, Stevie played the guitar very aggressively! Legend has it that he played so hard that he would bloody the end of his fingers to the point of having to super glue them so he could finish his show…RESPECT!!!

So why do I digress about these things in an article about comparing string sizes? …because it goes to show the other aspects to guitar tone there is. It is not only or even primarily string size that goes into your tone. What if SRV used the exact same gear but played much lighter? Probably not possible with strings of that size, but the point is that his tone would be much different, and probably would not be as renowned as he is. What if he used a different amplifier combination? SRV’s tone was a combination of his amps, pedals, guitars, string size, and the most important…. the way he touched the strings.

Now to the flip side of that coin, smaller gauge strings. I will relate another couple of artists that come to mind who use small gauge strings. First off, Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. He uses much smaller strings, around 7 gauge and 8 gauge from what I have read. But listen to that tone! He is usually playing a 59 Burst Gibson Les Paul through an old Fender tweed amp. I have heard from a guitar merchant connection who knows him says he has an entire warehouse of old fender tweed amps. Anyway, back to his strings..Everything about his tone is attitude! Creamy overdriven tube amps with a Les Paul pushing them hard! Pure blues rock tone, and in my humble opinion…also to die for! Then you have Jeff Beck! Jazzy, Fusion, Rock’n Roll, Blues all the way. He uses a Strat with Signature Noiseless Pickups, and usually through a Marshall half stack. String size… 8 gauge. Honestly though, when I really started to listen to Jeff Beck I thought for certain he played a larger string gauge because of that large tone he gets. Overdriven very sweetly, and cleans up like a bell when he wants them to. What does this all mean for the tone of your guitar though? It means that although string size is important for your tone, what is more important is how you actually play and control the sounds coming through your amplifier. Learning to use that strumming/picking hand to control your clean and overdriven sound and using your guitar’s tone and volume knobs in combination with your specific attack on the strings will do so much more for your tone than string size.

String size and playability/action

Now that we covered tone and string size, lets move on to how string size affects how your guitar plays. Specifically in reference to your guitar’s action and “slinky” feeling. Slinky meaning how loose and easy the strings are to bend. It goes without stating that the lighter the string gauge the more slinky your strings will feel and the lower you can set your action. I have personally tried 8 gauge, 9 gauge, 10 gauge, 11 gauge, and 12 gauge. I own a Les Paul and a Stratocaster. The 8 gauge strings feel very nice for the most part. Super easy to bend! So much so that you really have to listen to make sure you don’t over bend. the only thing I do not like about the 8 gauge strings is that my finger will actually touch the fret board when playing single note lines and bending, so this does make it more difficult to slide into notes as there is more drag from that friction. 9 gauge strings are also comfortable for me to play. 9 gauge retains the ease of bending and allows me to slide into notes more easily. 10 gauge strings are also a comfortable size to play on. There is even less friction from the fret board, which definitely makes it easier to slide. Though I find that quite a bit more effort is requires especially when play chords, more specifically….bar chords. So much so for me that my left-hand gets quite fatigued. Bends are a bit harder as well, but it gives a nice struggle which I feel is necessary. My most comfortable string gauge to play is a combination of 9s & 10s. I string my high E, B, and G-string from a set of 10s, then my low E, A, & D strings from a set of 9s. This solves my problem of sliding and also makes my chording more comfortable. Using a combination of 2 or more sets of strings is called, naturally, hybrid gauge. Most guitarist usually discover that a combination of different strings sets (sizes) works best for them.

11 gauge strings are a bit more stiff than 10’s. Though, I played 11’s on my Strat for quite a long time and was able to get used to them….somewhat. Bending is still quite difficult, and honestly 11 gauge is about the highest gauge I feel somewhat comfortable with. I definitely do not prefer them for songs that require much bending. Now we move on to 12 gauge. OK, so I mainly put 12 gauge strings on my Strat for the purpose of this article so that I could share my experience with you. I tuned up my Strat to standard E – E tuning, and bending was a huge challenge. If you cannot tell already, I love to bend my strings and with these 12’s my hands were not having it. So I thought to myself, Stevie tuned down to E flat….maybe that is the key!…literally. Nope, still could not bend! So, I took it a step further…or rather a whole step down to D – D tuning…still, no give! Then lastly down to C – C tuning, and still could not manage to play and bend the way I like. Again, this is only my experience. Maybe you have huge, strong ape hands like Stevie Ray Vaughn and larger strings do not bother you. My point in this article is that since I had decided that I can only sound like me and not SRV, I will play the string size that I am most comfortable with…and because I made that decision I have been able to progress much faster at my natural pace. I am not saying that large string gauges are bad, but I am also saying that if you just do not feel comfortable with huge strings do not think that you cannot get great tone with a smaller string size! There are so many that have proven this correct! Play what is comfortable to you, and your hands will thank you! Also realize that you are not your guitar hero, and your guitar hero is not you. So embrace that difference and find your own way. Adopting this mindset has enhanced my creative ability, lead playing ability, ability to write my own music and cover other people’s music, and progress faster as a musician overall.

In conclusion, know that every musician’s journey is different and that it is important to find your way, and the same rings true in the journey of string gauge. Experiment with different string gauges and hybrids of different gauges to find the most comfortable combination for your hands. Being proactive and taking action is going to be the best way to propel you forward in your guitar journey. So take chances, get out of your comfort zone and find your niche! Rock on my friends!