Joyo American Sound, British Sound, AC Tone and California Sound: How Good Are They?

who is the win pedal after this? i prefer the joyo American sound?

These aren't floating my boat. Thanks for a decent video but small bucks is small bang and large bucks is huge hole in the budget. The acid test is how prone these gain boxes are to flying into strings feeding back - not the p/ups, the strings - at even modest volumes. If it's "taking off" like a jazz box every time you let go of the strings, it's telling you that your overtones are full-fat present and correct. If not, it's hard work because it's sterile. Another way to check a gain box is to unplug and roll the tip of the jack around in your hand. Buzzing is no good, it should howl like a recorder (the wind instrument you were forced to play at school) with fingers doing random on the holes. This is good too for figuring out where to put it in your effects chain but - never after a wah wah. The rest of it is the "no-buzz-saws-please" balance of square wave and third harmonic. Any box that does that - dustbin.

Effects loop or front-of-amp? Either - to preference. F. of A. goes into the tone stack and pre-amp, effects loop by passes those. Cleaner, less control "in your hand". Either.

TBH, the best is an old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape recorder and the massive background noise just adds to the excitement. Gain without that is....wet lettuce. Live, just switching that on before you play a note wakes the audience up no end. You need to be blowing airports up, don't you?

Strange, really. With all this said, a lot of it is in the fingers. RIP Jeff Beck who used a lot, lot, lot less gain than you'd think. Your fingers need to control the strings and it takes practice every bit as much as rapid playing.


Nice video, thanks. Good value for money, that's for sure.

the california is not supposed to sound like a rectifier, it's a model of a IIC+

Excellent work. Thank you

AC Tone is a bit different. Set it clean to clean-ish and then drive it with a boost or OD pedal.

What would be the closest to the Hi-Watt?

Do you find that the pedal adds compression? Does it raise the noise floor?

Thoroughly impressed with the American pedal. I brought it to try making a silent stage rig as my Mesa amp is not exactly quiet. Really impressed with it, my amp developed an issue a while ago and Im having to wait to afford getting it fixed. In the meantime I've been relying on this pedal along with a Amplitube X-Time (which features a cab sim function too). Together they have enabled me to create a really useable set up. I'm now even questioning returning to using a real amp on stage again.

Thank you, good comparison. I am leaning toward the American as well, and I want to put it in as the preamp stage for my Powerstage 170.

Echo d menos probarlo con singles

I think they were going more for the Mesa MKIIc than the Dual Rectifier with the California Sound pedal.

The interaction between the voice, drive and mids requires far more tweaking than you offered - everything you did started with the drive at 12 o'clock...you missed a lot of what these boxes offer.

Plenty of various clean to dirt sounds with that "American", and the knobs make notable differences even with slight adjustments. I'm really glad I bought one.

I used the Cal, Amer n the acetone live for 3 years through a rack reverb n 1500 watt power amp. The only problem was voice knob over like 3/4 up made a lot of noise. N noise gate didn’t help much.

Sold on the Fender in a box. Impressive. The others are ok but not as useful. Good demo thanks

Your clean guitar sounds terribly wooly already, hence it affects all the pedals

Is it possible to plug headphones into this little box?

What power supply are you using? Which kind would you recommend for a beginner player.

Nice job on the comparisons! Thanks.

Worship qual é melhor? Para tocar com uma les paul

which one has better and more powerful distortion?? and would it serve better as a pre amp for bass??

Starting a pedal board build with all 5 (AC / British / California / American and Oxford) with a Taichi (Dumeble-esque) to be able to switch between amp sounds in as home recording setting - feeding into a cab box. A Tauren overdrive on the front end. Almost a pure JOYO board, with a keeley compressor, and a few other things. I'll leave modulation and verbs / delays to the DAW. Wish me luck, should be done in a week.

They're awesome pedals. I use an American Sound for all guitar parts on my channel backing tracks. DI into an audio interface, effects applied in the DAW.

I've even A/B compared it with a friend's Strymon Iridium, which is obviously a more versatile, featured pedal. For the actual recorded sounds though, there is really not much in it. Amazing considering the price difference!

In the long run its probably better to invest in the Tech21 pedals that these Joyo is based upon instead.

These are the best pedals at this price point. I've had my American sound for years and have used it in several gigs. An amazing value.

Are you recording this through a tube amp or a digital recording set up? Whichever one it is, It sounds great. This is definitely the point where I gotta decide between tube or digital.

Thanks Jason, really informative.

Can be connected to an amp?

The American is just great as a pedal platform straight into the PA. No fancy IRs or anything just a reasonable speaker emulation.

Do u only play these through a clean amp or

I’m looking for a cheap substitute for the Mesa/Boogie pre-amp/ boost/ OD type pedal- would one of Joyo’s pedals best approximate that sound and give me some DIRT?

I love how you say that the Chinese are more than willing to copy existing designs. That is what the Chinese do about EVERYTHING. They have been stealing intellectual property around the world for years. To them, it's not a bug in their process - it's a feature.

I have the California. It tries to emulate Mesa Boogie Mark II combo. From Santana, AudioSlave, Nirvana and a lot more, it has possibilities.
On high gain settings, it may sound muddy and fuzzy. Not my vibe. I prefer it on the edge of break up.
Tip: turn the low knob down.

I just got the American. I think it’s great for not having an amp.

Yep, the Brittish one is the best in my opinion!

Thanks so much for the overview review here, it really pointed me straight towards that American sound emulating a classic Fender 57 style sound, and the AC tone which was a pretty good Vox AC30 emulator. The British and the California have potential but there are much better emulator pedals out there and I'd rather spend the extra for something I'm going to use as opposed to a novelty but the American and the AC tone were pretty cool. Understand with your thoughts on the AC tone, effectively it takes a bit more tweaking, I've seen better pedals myself. However the price is unbeatable for what you get with these pedals and that's the point. You could afford to have these stollen ocasionally at gigs, whereas loose a Strymon Iridium for example and you'll have tears in your eyes. Thanks so much for the comparison review.

Genial🎉🎉

My wife has an American coming for me today from Amazon (late Xmas present?) and I was all set to send it back and get the AC pedal but the American seems more versatile, the AC couldn’t seem to make a decent clean sound. Not really interested in the others.

Do you think the American sound with jive with the humbucker pick ups?

I completely agree with your option on these, I still use a Tech21 GT2 to get tones like these. The American is the only one of this series that I found to be a keeper, all the others were very underwhelming and didn't sound as good as the GT2

OK now I have FINALLY listened to a great demo on this pedal series, hosted by an excellent and informed guitarist 😎👍

the American gives you a darkish Jazz tone, as well as a Fender Tweed tone, all for 30 bucks!!

Very good video. Thanks!

The California Sound pedal takes pedals in front very well, particularly distortion pedals. Enjoyed this review of all these, thank you.

you have to work your EQ to get closer to the sounds one expects from each type of amp...

I used to use the American last in line on a low OD setting and let other drives do the work before it. It really works well for direct to DAW.

How are the noise levels? Are they useful for recording?

I'm glad I don't know what a Vox is supposed to sound like, because I bought the AC Tone with no preconceived notions and I love it.