Visual Sound: Son of Hyde

My latest acquisition is yet another distortion pedal, this time a product by Australia's Visual Sound. This year, the manufacturer decides to release some trimmed-dimension pedals, some of which are actually detachments from the original unit which features a 2-in-1 module. The Son of Hyde here, is the distortion half of the parent Jekyll & Hyde. This SOH is only one such pedal in a series known as the V2 range.

As this pedal is a solitary distortion unit unlike its parent's twin offering, the reduced feature afforded trimmed dimensions as mentioned & this would be a welcome news to pedalboard mongers (of which I am not). Your eyes are not deceiving you- yes the pedal is missing a BASS control but it's not entirely unavailable, just hiding underneath the housing (that white circular contraption at the top portion), mounted on the circuit board. This isn't the only concealed tweaker, the board also features a built-in noise gate (the other white circular contraption at the bottom portion). It is activated by a minute slider switch so the user has an option to deactivate it should it get in the way of his/ her utility. The final noteworthy feature which I'd like to mention is the hinged battery flip cover; the fact that it's attached to the baseplate means you would not lose it should you fumble in dark performance venues.

Tone-wise, the SOH is my current favourite distortion unit. The mere 'distortion' label to many of us would invoke an image of a certain mild-mannered orange distortion box but 'mild' isn't what this pedal has to offer. Yes, at lower drive settings, the SOH is more than capable of a mild, booster-type distortion which many of us swear by, but turn the drive up & you can hear the rage of this little ditty; there's enough intensity & saturation to rival a metal-type distortion. The BASS control is maxed-out by default so there's lots of bottom end but it did nothing to muffle the overall drive voicing- this is what I find impressive. The noise gate function here is set to 'ON' inherently but dialed up to a rather low treshold value, however it did its job by suppressing excessive background hissing/ humming.

All in all, the SOH is a great discovery on a personal note since I have tried the original Jekyll & Hyde unit & could not credit its overall performance on grounds of tonal/ drive excellence (it may be a preferred unit to some of us but certainly not me). If you are looking for an alternative to the Landmine distortion because you need a more responsive EQ section, this is one to consider.

Driving hyde!

My VS' Son Of Hyde is one of the most rewarding distortion unit I own (it might not be so for you, it's ok... you are not me) due to its grittiness. Today I had the chance to pair it with the Cool Cat Transparent OD, on other days, I usually coupled it with my TS7. The result was a thicker, overall distortion voicing. This pedal would be more rewarding with an external bass control knob...

Seymour Duncan: Power Grid Distortion- test results

I gave the Power Grid a good testing today:

• The pedal in general is a very well thought out distortion unit; the wide distortion sweep + active EQ section do wonders to tone tinkering but it's a trade off- you can sit down from dawn to dusk to experiment with incremental differences which translate to an elaborate palette of tones but getting immediate results isn't gonna be easy. Guitar players enjoy doing nothing but tinker with tone so it doesn't matter...
• The manufacturer was careful not to let the upper/ more intense distortion voicing to cross over into metal territorty. What you get in the upper reaches are great saturation & still sounding distortion-like.
• The pedal sounds wonderful with humbucking guitars but if you play single coils, watch the treble control, even at noon position, the tone generated sounds quite piercing.
• It does well pushing a tube amp's overdrive into saturation but it's not as impressive being a driver of another distortion pedal. I feel that it has excessive raunchiness to act as a restrained unit for this intention; you are better off with a Tubescreamer type, smooth overdrive instead. In this light (as depicted above), the Power Grid enjoys being boosted, choose a very mild drive drive unit to enjoy maximum satisfaction (I had my Austin Gold fulfilling this task).
• Battery access is a chore though, it's a complete base plate removal as the manufacturer continues to ommit a battery flip hatch cover.

The Power Grid would definitely give the Land Mine distortion a good run for the money in terms of distortion but this one has a more dynamic voicing range so it's a winner in terms of versatility. In comparison to the BOSS DS-1/ MXR Distortion +, it has more aggression in whole (yes, you can still do a restrained employment in the distortion's lower levels), what the (Visual Sound) Son of Hyde has in store but a little bit more raunchiness at the distortion's maximum end.

It's true

Visual Sound effects are now known as Truetone & the manufacturer is slowly phasing out the former brand name from the shelves. Starting off with the Jekyll & hyde pedal above in its Ver 3 manifestation, the manufacturer will be re-looking into other offerings as well, including its popular One Spot adaptor for pedals.

Visual Sound: Son of Hyde (Part 2)

I've tested the SOH thoroughly today & was content with its performance, suffice to say that if you are not interested in the DS-1 type of mild serving, the SOH is one to invest in.

The pedal's drive benefits from its Volume level enhancements; the higher the volume, the more saturated the distortion.

Being me, I simply had to pair the SOH with my 'workhorse' booster, the Ibanez TS7 & it's a lethal pairing indeed- this pair can match whichever metal-type distortion you have in store, bring it on! As this set-up benefits from a cascading gain effect, the saturation & harmonics trigger would surpass a stand-alone metal distortion & that's definitely good news for solos.

Ibanez: Return of the (Tube) King

So his majesty, the (Ibanez) Tube King has set foot in my humble abode. Ok, cut the shenanigans, if you are interested in the padal, please note the following:

• it's strictly adaptor powered (12V)
• it's heavy- 2kg
• it's BIG- refer to the relative size comparison above (TK999 vs TS7), so pedal board proponents, please tkae note...

Tone wise, there's definitely a marked, tube presence upon activation. As Ibanez anticipated a lower-frequency mush-out when a tube saturates, a presence feature had been wisely included to offset the predicament. The other thumbs-up feature here is the pedal's VOID control which is a noise gate pot (that knob nearest to baby bear...) & it works wonders eliminating the background hissing typical of high gain devices. The TK999 is impressive as a stand alone pedal, capable of invoking that Les Paul type wooliness in the neck humbucker & all things creamy for that matter. Despite being labelled as a 'distortion' by the manufacturer, the pedal is indeed a high octane overdrive (for all things distortion, kindly refer to Visual Sound's Son of Hyde). It works very well boosting your other, lazy/ mild-mannered overdrive or simply opiating your amp's tubes to give you that tone nirvana. If you are looking for a metal type tone assault (despite the manufacturer's allegations that it could), you are reading the wrong literature- are you drunk?

Distortion R Us...

These are all the distortion units I own bearing the 'Distortion' tag on them. They aren't excessively intense, just enough to out-drive an overdrive but nothing excessive to be worthy of a metal-type assault:

• Visual Sound: Son of Hyde
• BOSS: DS-1
• ARTEC: Soloist Distortion
• MXR: Distortion +
• Toadworks: Mr. Ed
• Seymour Duncan: Power Grid

PS: Elmo is not a distortion unit...