# Has anyone tried Joyo pedals?



## TheYanChamp (Mar 6, 2009)

Just stumbled across these on Amazon. They have a decent selection and all around 40 bucks with true bypass. Anyone try these out? Are they crap?


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

Yes there was a thread where they came up recently.

The Voodoo Octave (fuzz) is a decent fuzz, but the octave sucks - even taking into account the usual analog octave caveats as well as the 'fixes' online (backwards capacitor). IMHO it sounds OK with humbuckers but blows with single coils (the octave mode; fuzz is alright as mentionned).

Build quality is decent, but the parts are the cheapest available.


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## knight_yyz (Mar 14, 2015)

I call them test pedals. They do the job, but I'm sure every single component is made in China. I bought 5 pedals to try, found out which effects were for me, which were not, then upgraded accordingly. I still have the compressor and analogue delay pedals but I don't use them


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Consider them like Behringers with stompswitches. Much like Behringer, Joyo pedals tend to be clones of things already on the market with higher price tags.

The components are the components are the components. The chips will be the same as what "name" brands use, although my experience with Behringer is that they can sometimes make unwise choices in what chips to use. Unless they use carbon instead of metal film (or vice versa) the resistors will be the resistors. The pots will be Alpha pots - the same kind used by many boutique pedal makers whose pricepoint is easily 4-5x what Joyo's is - and the stompswitches will be either the same or not much different. The enclosures will be no different than typical Hammond boxes, and even if the enclosure walls might be a little thinner, it won't impact on ruggedness.

HOWEVER...

None of that necessarily reflects on quality-control of production. Quality-control involves humans and human labour costs, which budget-conscius manufacturers will try to keep to a minimum. I personally have only one Joyo pedal, an OCD clone that forum member player99 gave me. It was misbehaving on him and he gave up trying to make it behave. I also experienced some difficulty making it behave, but once I did make it behave, it was effectively indistinguishable from an OCD (though which issue number, I have no idea).

Bottom line: If you happen to be a professional touring musician, I'd probably recommend against them, simply for reliability's sake. But if you're a basement warrior like me, absolutely nothing wrong with them. Just keep in mind this is not based on extensive testing of them.


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## BGood (Feb 20, 2015)

I have a Sweet Baby Overdrive I'm real happy with. Exactly what the doctor ordered.


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

RE the enclosures. They are not Hammonds and knock-off enclosure quality varies wildly. Joyo ones are not even hammond copies; decent enuf I suppose. Diff size and thinner. 

Same with chips and resistors actually. Boutique builders do not get their resistors from Tayda ( for example; I suspect Joyo does, as do many hobbyists/DIYers, but no serious builder); those resistors are noticeably different ( e.g. very thin leads). Tayda's caps seem to be fine; used them here and there (box film types; not tired their electros).

As regards chips, there are knock offs, large lots of QC rejects resold , as well as various companies making their own version of some standards (e.g. The ubiquitous TL dual of amps).

The build community has seen a lot of issues with cheap sourced PT delay chips a while back for example. Either counterfeit or QC rejects; I'm not sure.

There are things I will buy from Tayda or bargain basement eBay stores, and then things I wont.


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## colchar (May 22, 2010)

BGood said:


> I have a Sweet Baby Overdrive I'm real happy with. Exactly what the doctor ordered.



I have wanted to try that pedal for a little while. I just bought a new amp and most reports say that it doesn't need pedals so I might never try the Sweet Baby.

Funnily enough, I decided to start buying pedals right before I sold my amp and bought this new one. I had originally planned to buy an amp that was a great pedal platform (vintage or new Traynor YGM3) but stumbled across a Marshall I had long wanted at a great price so my recent pedal purchases seem kind of pointless now.

I have a Joyo Ultimate Drive, an EHX Soul Food, a Boss SD-1, and a Maxon OD-9. I somehow suspect that I will sell the Joyo on, will return the Soul Food to L&M, and will just keep the Boss and the Maxon. I now have a vintage sounding Marshall and those two pedals are classic pedals for pushing Marshalls so it makes sense to stick with them.


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## colchar (May 22, 2010)

TheYanChamp said:


> Just stumbled across these on Amazon. They have a decent selection and all around 40 bucks with true bypass. Anyone try these out? Are they crap?



Well it might say something about the quality that over at the TGP someone started buying one of their models, modded it ever so slightly, gooped up the insides, repainted the enclosures, and sold them for a few hundred dollars each and many of the tone snobs over there were reacting like these pedals were the new Klon Centaur or something. Many tone snobs had egg on their faces when the truth came out.


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## sulphur (Jun 2, 2011)

Thanks Ken!


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## TheYanChamp (Mar 6, 2009)

LOL, wow! Why does that not surprise me?

I wanted the fuzz/octave, sounds like that is not a good option.


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## Granny Gremlin (Jun 3, 2016)

colchar said:


> Well it might say something about the quality that over at the TGP someone started buying one of their models, modded it ever so slightly, gooped up the insides, repainted the enclosures, and sold them for a few hundred dollars each and many of the tone snobs over there were reacting like these pedals were the new Klon Centaur or something. Many tone snobs had egg on their faces when the truth came out.


Oh it says something alright, but not about the pedals themselves. People are still the same; it's right out of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain knew what he was telling.

Joyos do sound OK; with modern methods and parts (even cheap ones) that is not the issue. The issue is reliability and robustness and QC. The toggle switch on my Biyang (very similar brand to Joyo; same build and component quality; diff enclosures) delay went after being actuated only a dozen times; that's pathetic. When I tried to replace it, but the board was so shitty the traces started lifting even with my iron on low. I managed to save it, but damn, that was harder than it needed to be. It was a great sounding delay; didn't last long (i can fix it, but for most people that would be garbage).

Basically, they are what they are. Cheap disposable pedals. You can get lucky and get a good one that lasts, and if you need something in a pinch, they can be fine. Don't go on tour wihtout a NIB spare though. 

That said I use a cheap Talent brand tuner (Mooer copy) on my board now (the Peterson Strobe stays at home for setup work). It's not integral to my tone, and if it dies no big deal.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Granny Gremlin said:


> RE the enclosures. They are not Hammonds and knock-off enclosure quality varies wildly. Joyo ones are not even hammond copies; decent enuf I suppose. Diff size and thinner.
> 
> Same with chips and resistors actually. Boutique builders do not get their resistors from Tayda ( for example; I suspect Joyo does, as do many hobbyists/DIYers, but no serious builder); those resistors are noticeably different ( e.g. very thin leads). Tayda's caps seem to be fine; used them here and there (box film types; not tired their electros).
> 
> ...


I find the resistor leads a litle on the thin side, too. On the other hand, when I end up breaking the last carbide bit I have for "standard" sized leads, a thin lead turns into a blessing, just as it is when I perf something and need to wrap a resistor lead around an IC pin. One man's meat, I guess. I have PT2399s of several; different fonts, and have not experienced any issues.

The walls of the cast aluminum enclosures would have to be a LOT thinner to make a difference in sturdiness. If it was a bigger enclosure, then I could see where a thinner wall might create a little risky "give" when a large fella stomps a little too hard a little too often. But the 1590B size should not pose any problem.

The principle I operate on is "What is the risk to reputation if a distributor sells crap?". Not that any company is completely immune from making bad decisions for profitability-purposes, but Tayda has a lot of customers. I can see an anonymous Hong Kong E-bay seller taking a chance on shipping rejects to Europe or North America. I can't see Tayda doing so, any more than I can see Small Bear doing so. Besides, if a pedal manufacturer produces enough (and consider how many units of how many catalogue items Joyo sells around the world, some of it sold under other brand names), the cost difference between a "reject" chip and a "name-brand legit" chip is negligible. Long story short, my sense is that whatever differences in reliability may exist for their pedals, it's not because of the parts but the attention to whether the product is built up to some standard and tested as such. Testing every thousandth pedal, rather than every 100th probably saves on production costs more than OEM component prices do. Now, if we were talking amplifiers, it would be different. In that context, component choices DO matter, simply because the range of characteristics at higher voltages, and tolerances, can yield differences that are important to consumers.


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## BGood (Feb 20, 2015)

colchar said:


> I have wanted to try that pedal for a little while. I just bought a new amp and most reports say that it doesn't need pedals so I might never try the Sweet Baby.
> I have a Joyo Ultimate Drive, an EHX Soul Food, a Boss SD-1, and a Maxon OD-9. I somehow suspect that I will sell the Joyo on, will return the Soul Food to L&M, and will just keep the Boss and the Maxon. I now have a vintage sounding Marshall and those two pedals are classic pedals for pushing Marshalls so it makes sense to stick with them.


I bought an Ultimate Drive before the Sweet Baby, and I couldn't turn it down enough to get in the mild overdrive territory I was looking for. I have a DS-1 that I modded a bit (took out two ... something, I don't remember what ... resistors ?) and it cut the high shrill associated to the pedal. Good mod, but it's still a DS1. So after looking and looking I saw the Sweet Baby and went for it. It is a VERY mild OD and what I mostly like about it, it doesn't color my tone at all. Very similar to early tube breakup. Piled over the Tube Screamer, it is also really ... Sweet. It's here to stay.


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## High/Deaf (Aug 19, 2009)

A Tale of Six Pedals

Been there, done that. Got the 'participation ribbon'.


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## pickslide (May 9, 2006)

Cant comment on any joyo pedals other than thr vintage drive which is a tubescreamer. It is excellent...and not just for the price. I compared it to both a lovepedal eternity (fuse) and a fulltone fulldrive 3. I could get the exact same tones from the joyo so kept that and sold the other ones. Why have a pedal that costs 5 times as much when it gets the same sound. If ot breaks I can easily get another one and its still way cheaper.

Anyway I know that the vintage drive is awesome


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

Resurrecting another older thread. I'm looking for a Flanger. I don't really know if I really need one, or if I just really want one. Looked at the Joyo Flanger on Amazon. $42 seems like a reasonably inexpensive way to test the theory. I see "name brand" ones for sale here, and everywhere, but they start at $200 and go up, up, up. Unless someone here has a "good one" they are willing to part with for cheap. (obviously I would not expect to get it for 40 bucks if it's worth more)

I'm not interested in a $200 test, that I don't like, try to sell, lose value, haggle, oh OK... or $42! It's fun, OK, bored now, in the closet you go. 

If anyone has tried this particular Flanger I'd love to hear about it.


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## Verne (Dec 29, 2018)

I recently got the Joyo Aquarius delay/looper pedal in a trade. I am not a real player, so this pedal (retail at $120) is a great delay pedal for me. I haven't tried the looper yet. It's literally what you can expect for the cost. Practice pedals for serious players, or decent pedals for the self teaching basement dweller. All metal enclosure is nice. I prefer the Joyo over the Donner I have had. Mooer is decent as well. Again, maybe not for serious players, but for guys like me, these pedals fit the bill, because $400 pedals aren't justifiable for many of us.


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

Verne said:


> ...because $400 pedals aren't justifiable for many of us.


I hear that!


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## MarkM (May 23, 2019)

@ Verne and @SWLABR I have bought $100 pedals , $50 pedals and I have found what I am looking for in $350 new pedals for $200 used. I am not really worthy of such pedals but I really like how great they are, not much noise and I sound great in my mind. Who can really be judged unless they can record to a certain level and post it up on the interweb. Big difference, I do have a noisy Donner Plexi that sounds awesome and easy to dial in.


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## keto (May 23, 2006)

I got a couple of Joyos the other day and didn't know whether to piggyback it here or not, as I was going in a slightly different direction.








NPD Joyo X2


Anyone know where I can get a breathalyzer attached to my iPad? In a fit of moderately overindulgent excess, I read and or listened to a few reviews and punched BUY on Amazon last night. Figure I’ll do a small overdrive shootout, that might be of interest to someone - low gain Strat into a...




www.guitarscanada.com


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## Mikev7305 (Jan 6, 2020)

The flanger is one of the few joyos i haven't had. I think I've been through 10 or so joyos, and honestly they've all been pretty dang good. I still have a bunch of them in my pile of old pedals, and I still have the joyo phaser (phase 90 clone) on my board, and the analog delay just got kicked off this week, and not because it didn't do the trick, I just have a different delay setup now. 

They're great for learning what sounds you wanna hear. The resale value is crap, but honestly for $40-$50 it's an easy experiment.


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## pickslide (May 9, 2006)

I had the flanger. Im no expert but it was fun but a bit noisy. That said, for $40 if you just want to have a flanger to play around with for fun there is nothing wrong with it. 

Aside, my favorite tubescreamer that I ever had is the joyo vintage od (green one). It stayed over many boutique ts pedals.


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## SWLABR (Nov 7, 2017)

I bought the Joyo Flanger. I haven't spent much time with it yet, but I did plug it in just to see if it actually fired up. For that cheap, ya never know. 

I'll update when I have a better feel of it.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Mikev7305 said:


> The flanger is one of the few joyos i haven't had. I think I've been through 10 or so joyos, and honestly they've all been pretty dang good. I still have a bunch of them in my pile of old pedals, and I still have the joyo phaser (phase 90 clone) on my board, and the analog delay just got kicked off this week, and not because it didn't do the trick, I just have a different delay setup now.
> 
> They're great for learning what sounds you wanna hear. The resale value is crap, but honestly for $40-$50 it's an easy experiment.


If one's purchase of cheap pedals to "try out sounds" is the goal. Then I will recommend scoring a Line 6 M5. They've gone up in price from the initial $150CAD retail cost, but can often be had for $120 on Kijiji as people move on to other things. They're stereo and have over 120 effects, plus a tuner, plus 20 presets. Most of the effects are the Modeller series (Delay Modeller, Modulation Modeller, Filter Modeller, Distortion Modeller) plus the Verbzilla and more, ported over to the unit. Many of the effects have up to 5 parameters controllable with expression pedal.

Full disclosure, I got mine free as a beta tester, but that was the end of my association with Line 6. But if you're spending $30 here and $40 there on Joyo, Donner, Rowin, Mooer, or other budget Chinese clones, pretty soon you're up to and well past the cost of one of these. Personally, I think the Uni-Vibe effect it comes with is terrible, but there are plenty of other effects that are top-notch, and many are the sort of effects one might spend money to try out (e.g., octave divider, sequencer-based effects, ring modulator), and find you have very limited use for, so they get bumped from your board, and sit in the closet until you sell them. The M5 is about the size of one of Boss's 200 series multi-effect pedals and, just like the 200s, is digital. Failing that, there are all sorts of relatively compact Zoom and Digitech multi-FX pedals that can be bought cheap as well.


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