Joyo JF-36 Sweet Baby overdrive anyone?

[mcnach]

I'm weak.

Today in my inbox I have an email from amazon showing me a bunch of things I might like based on previous purchases.

There it was, a low gain overdrive at the right price and... of the right colour! (orange!)...

So I bit.

I wonder if it's any good on bass. I have not seen any reviews about that. Anybody?

I have a Joyo Ultimate Overdrive that I quite like on both bass and guitar, although I use it for low gain stuff and I'm hoping the Sweet Baby will have a range that will suit be better.
It's orange! Did I mention that? If the led were blue, it would be perfect

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 16, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[mcnach]

Ha! Great!



Although I really like the very low gain sound on the Ultimate Drive. It's just that the gain knob is too sensitive, and a little turn can be a lot. I was hoping a lower gain pedal would be a bit more "tame" in that respect. If it's nice on guitar I'd still keep it.

[MiltyG565]

I once had a person argue with me on YouTube (the place for intelligent debate) that using overdrive was the only way to play bass, because it cuts out all that filthy, nasty low end (because what BASSist would want a low frequency? madness!). He then went on to say that only a "pussy" would use a "Gallien Krueger 4x10 piece of sh*t" and that you had to use some 2x18 bass monstrosity to be a man...

Gain to cut low end - 2 18" speakers...

I don't know that this guy knew much at all about gear.

Anyway, if you don't want to lose the low end, you might want to get an overdrive pedal with a bass control on it, or put an EQ pedal after the overdrive.

[mcnach]

youtube, a place for discussion? joke of the day!

nah, if the pedal does not work welll for bass... I'll just not use it for bass. I really like low gain overdrives on guitar, so it'll be tested against another couple of pedals I have, and sell the one I like the least.

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 16, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[MiltyG565]

[quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1360838427' post='1977116']
youtube, a place for discussion? joke of the day!
[/quote]

I know! i couldn't believe this guy. he was probably a pointy player.

[Inhibition]

While I can't give you any information on this pedal, I have a Joyo California pedal for my guitar which sounds brilliant and seems to be very well built. They seem a pretty reliable company as they shipped my pedal very well packaged and very fast ! I still need a good distortion for my bass but after what you guys are saying on this one I might need to look elsewhere haha.

[terryat]

The sweetbaby and overdrive seems to be better in joyo effect.

[mcnach]

Well, the Sweet Baby arrived today. I just had a quick test, on guitar first, and then about 15min with a Jazz bass.

It is really low gain. So... nice! That's what I wanted. It goes from clean to very low/moderate gain, using a stratocaster. It seems that there is a bit of a "bump" with the gain knob at around 9 o'clock: with the gain at minimum, the volume increases a bit until it reaches that point, after that the volume does not change significantly and it's just the grit increasing very very very slowly as you turn the knob clockwise. The "focus" control is like a very subtle tone control, changing slightly the tonality of the overdrive, shifting where in the midrange it sits. I liked it on guitar. But what about bass, which is what I really wanted it for?

Very good!

It adds just a tiny bit of overdrive and it's pretty smooth. The fact that the amount of distortion increases so slowly, and that there is no volume changes to speak of after that 9 o'clock position means that it's extremely easy to adjust on the fly. The ultimate overdrive is extremely sensitive: you turn up the gain a little bit, you need to bring the level down a bit, and viceversa. NOt here. Also, as long as you get the gain knob in the approximate area, you will not hear any big differences from one time to the next.
So, in that respect, it's just the sort of thing I wanted.
Is teh sound good?
It is. It has a *slight* "raspiness" to it as you increase the gain, but I doubt it would be heard in the mix with the band, and turning the focus control anticlockwise helps too.
It has a reasonably nice tone, and it bumps the midrange ever so slightly (adjustable a little with the focus control).

Oh, I don't hear a bass loss. But this is at home, at volume this may well be another story. However, many other pedals suffer from low end loss and it's veyr noticeably at low volumes, so this is promising.

I think this might work!

I'm going to mount it on my board right now, as I have practice at 9, and I will see then how it behaves in a band context at proper volumes. I will report back.

As a very noticeable in-your-face kind of overdrive I don't think this would be good, but as a "mostly always on" overdrive, I have to say it's looking very good, and it only costs £37!
I have spent considerable more in other pedals that did not sound or did the job as well as this. I won't name names as some are a bit sensitive around here.

I ordered a "Vintage Overdrive" as well at the weekend, after listening to the reviews on Youtube. I want it for guitar, but I will try it on bass too. I have also figured out how to record clips using my laptop and the DI from my RH450 head, as I wanted to record some pickup test clips... so I might as well make a couple of clips with this pedal.

[MiltyG565]

Great stuff! you should check out how chris commerford got his overdrive sound when in RATM. Although i couldn't blame anybody for not choosing to go down that route (unless you have money for 3 ampeg valve heads and cabs and a complex pedal board which switches and blends between the heads, set at different levels to give different amounts of drive).

I just came back from a lesson where i was plugged in to the drive channel on my teachers preamp. I cranked the bass on my on-board preamp, and the thing just fuzzed up. It was cool.

[mcnach]

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1361222299' post='1983161']
Great stuff! you should check out how chris commerford got his overdrive sound when in RATM. Although i couldn't blame anybody for not choosing to go down that route (unless you have money for 3 ampeg valve heads and cabs and a complex pedal board which switches and blends between the heads, set at different levels to give different amounts of drive).

I just came back from a lesson where i was plugged in to the drive channel on my teachers preamp. I cranked the bass on my on-board preamp, and the thing just fuzzed up. It was cool.
[/quote]

Tim's methods are a bit... special
He does get a great sound, 'though!

[mcnach]

Well, I tried the Sweet Baby at rehearsal. I did not take my amp head today and... what do you know? I had to use the PA. So let's just say that I have sounded better

But the pedal seems to be pretty good for what I wanted.
I put it in a single loop on a LS-2, together with an OC-2... that way I can blend it with clean bass if I have to... but I did not bothered with that, I did not notice any substantial low end loss. I imagine if you like a very boomy sound you might notice it more... but I'm a bridge pickup kind of guy... and with the Jazz it sounded great. The Sweet Baby fattened up the sound nicely and it did not really feel overdriven unless you heard it by itself.

I'm liking it!

[mcnach]

For completeness:

I did like it that one time I talked about above. But ultimately was not that nice, so I sold it after a few months.

There are better cheap low gain overdrives out there. The TC Electronic Spark Booster, for example. And the Caline Orange Burst which although it seems a bit thin on the low end, it does sound very good (I have been using one for over a year now, the bass control quite high up). 

edit: the Nobsound Little Bear B3 valve overdrive is pretty cool too, weird little unit. But its power requirements are a lot higher than most other pedals. Mine is going to eventually go in my pedalboard, I just haven't got around to redoing it, but I sometimes use it on its own and I like it a lot. It was only about £35-40 if I recall correctly

Edited September 23, 2019 by mcnach

[Al Krow]

4 hours ago, mcnach said:

For completeness:

I did like it that one time I talked about above. But ultimately was not that nice, so I sold it after a few months.

There are better cheap low gain overdrives out there. The TC Electronic Spark Booster, for example. And the Caline Orange Burst which although it seems a bit thin on the low end, it does sound very good (I have been using one for over a year now, the bass control quite high up). 

edit: the Nobsound Little Bear B3 valve overdrive is pretty cool too, weird little unit. But its power requirements are a lot higher than most other pedals. Mine is going to eventually go in my pedalboard, I just haven't got around to redoing it, but I sometimes use it on its own and I like it a lot. It was only about £35-40 if I recall correctly

WOW!! So you've been letting this gnaw away at your soul for the past SIX and a half YEARS?! 😂😁

Glad you've finally found peace with your last post.

EDIT

I take it ALL back! The truth is that you had completely forgotten about this until @stewblack dragged this thread up from the deepest darkest dungeon from a time when no one had even heard of 'Brexit'!! to find new life in 2019 by giving it a sneaky 'like' 😊

Edited September 23, 2019 by Al Krow

[mcnach]

7 hours ago, Al Krow said:

WOW!! So you've been letting this gnaw away at your soul for the past SIX and a half YEARS?! 😂😁

Glad you've finally found peace with your last post.

EDIT

I take it ALL back! The truth is that you had completely forgotten about this until @stewblack dragged this thread up from the deepest darkest dungeon from a time when no one had even heard of 'Brexit'!! to find new life in 2019 by giving it a sneaky 'like' 😊

 

Indeed, I only saw it when Stewblack 'liked' it... and I thought I might as well update it, seeing that my love for the pedal was short-lived  

[stewblack]

Who knew a simple 'like' would stir up such controversy! 

For the record I picked up my Sweet Baby last night. I am, ironically perhaps, baby sitting my granddaughter at the moment so can't try it out just yet. 

Will report. 

[AngelDeVille]

I’ll be careful what I like!

 

I have a few joyo pedals and while I liked a couple for bass they all ended up on my skinny string board. (American Dream,  Ultimate Drive were ok. Vintage OD was quite nice. Phaser was shoddy at best for bass)

The Boss DS-1 won the distortion game for my tin ear over the Vintage OD, but not by much.

I have a Danelectro blue paisley OD I haven’t even tried yet

[mcnach]

14 hours ago, stewblack said:

Who knew a simple 'like' would stir up such controversy! 

For the record I picked up my Sweet Baby last night. I am, ironically perhaps, baby sitting my granddaughter at the moment so can't try it out just yet. 

Will report. 

 

Trouble maker!

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited February 16, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[mcnach]

21 minutes ago, Jus Lukin said:

I'm keen to hear what you think, @stewblack. Sounding excellent for 50's guitar stuff, mine was sold for a few pints on tour to a guitarist some years back.

 

That's right, for guitar it was pretty cool. A telecaster sounded great with it

[stewblack]

Not gigged it yet but I have it in its own loop on my tri parallel mixer and running alongside the clean signal it's very nice. Just a little overdriven, it knocks the edges off. 

A minor financial crisis has forced me to sell a couple of things including a valve distortion pedal. While this isn't as good as the real thing it will certainly do for now. 

[stewblack]

I'm not suffering from any loss of bottom end by the way. But running it in parallel with the clean signal and having a tone control on the tpm is probably helpful with this. 

[stewblack]

Played in a smallish part of a largeish pub last night. Horrible to get gear into; pedestrianised outside, no parking nearby, huffing down with rain. Also a longish drive. 

So I travelled light. Bass in a soft case on my back. One small case for leads mic tablet etc, TCE 208 and a single 10"TE extension, all on set of sack trucks. In and out in one lift, happy days. 

However while the little TC combo copes well at gigging volume, especially with a second cab, it can be a little, how can I put it? A little sterile perhaps, lacking in je ne sais quoi maybe. 

Any road, I'd slipped the Sweet Baby into my bag and glad I did. Left it on all night. Lifted the sound, coloured it, and helped it cut through. Lovely.