The most surprising thing I've learned from this is that handling pedals while wearing white gloves imparts a more refined tone to all the pedals involved.
Silly people, tone is in the pedal board material: the part of the pedal board to which the pedals are mounted. Don't even get me started on the huge impact on tone caused by velcro mounting the pedals vs. zip tie/hard fasteners.
@@eastbaystreet1242 Not to mention how the pedal casing and the finish affect the tone. The pot metal and powder coating they use don't allow the pedal to breathe as well as sitka spruce and nitrocellulose lacquer.
Exactly, a circuit is a circuit! Well said. Electronics are governed by the component values and the layout. The magic is entirely within our heads. Kudos to the crew at JHS for having the courage to make it real!
And the little variance in values that we just can't remove will make two pedals set the exact same way sound slightly different, whether you can hear it or not
Totally agree. It seems to me that "more expensive" will mean "better quality/sound" up to a point, but then the law of diminishing returns takes over. $7,0000.00 for an overdrive pedal is a prime example.
I think theres a King Midas moment that keeping going on and on for the Klon. I dumped mine long ago sadly. I say that only because I’d sell in a second now for more. I still use a clone and I have several. I do love the pedal. Im the guy who has used a tube screamer since 1983. Ive prolly had 50 TS pedals. Love them both as boosts.
Agree. I think of that in every A/B testing. Do an A/A testing. Or just pretend to switch it. When we are so focused on looking for differences, we can see them so clearly. We find evidence of whatever we're looking for.
There’s a lot of blind A/B tests that show up in Gearspace forums about plugins, and I’ve noticed that the most ardent arguers of “this one sounds better than the other” suddenly go quiet and leave the thread when the blind tests show up. Refuse to participate. Cuz….. confirmation bias is a helluva drug
I thought the same. I don't know what did it for you, but to me A seemed to have more dynamic range. When he was strumming quite hard, they sounded the same to me.
having 2 clones and one original would lower the chance of a lucky random guess, and it would be cool if the third pedal was something like a digital multi stomp!
Yeah A/B blind testing is one thing ... but even then a 50/50 shot ... particularly when your not really matching unity or levels so a crap shoot at best ... funny how the cheep n cheerful wins almost every time! ... aka do a shootout of say 7 RATs or 12 big muffs ... there's no chance anyone could tell the difference especially when it's in chain of pedals, in isolation I suspect they will be slightly different, and potentially identifiable... just pointless which is what I love about JHS, the demystifying of circuits! :D I'm so getting a 39$ Klone! :D
@@jarrodcross1482 why would anyone do a shootout of the same pedal, let alone a dozen of them? Unless you’re saying with a Muff vs Rat, which would be silly because they’re very different circuits. Not to mention one is a fuzz, while the other is distortion.
@@tds2117 I think you answered your own question, either do or don't ... while the variations of say a RAT or a big muff are well documented plus having production runs over decades with revisions n component substitutions, while they are basically voiced to create the same effect at the output jack ... a bit like how most old boss CE2s sound subtley different, the real question is let's say, is a 500+ vintage unit better or worse than a current production model let alone a cheep 30-40$ clone ... While it's just a circuit, take the klon for example ... with some now hitting 10,000$s plus how many were hand made by Bill, that introduces so many variances surely, if he was hand building all those?
My main concern when buying pedals is build quality. I have a couple of the Amazon basics pedals (Compressor and an ABY switch) and they've held up really well. Definitely better than some of my more expensive pedals. *Ahem* I'm looking at you TC Electronics... 😠
@@NORMIES_GET_OUTmy son had a Walrus Audio Voyager and had to replace the stomp button because it gave out, we were able to do it ourselves but it's an expensive pedal.
Man, it's like buying a watch. You could spend thousands if you want to, but at the end of the day something for a fraction of the price can still tell you the right time.
Josh and Crew this is the best guitar pedal review ever in the history of RU-vid. Proves what I have been saying for years -- a pedal sounds only as good as it looks !
Would love to see "analog vs digital" in this type of show format for effects like modulation and delay. Even digital overdrive/distortion/fuzz like the Ultrawave against analog equivalents.
Well as an audio engineer i can tell you i have fooled a lot of amp lovers with amp sims and digital stuff. Nobody can discern it. And i say this as a tube amp lover who owns 8 amps. Live with my band i play a tube amp, other guitarist plays a digital rig. Truly both sound just as good. Theres slight differences here and there in feel sometimes. Sometimes not, in the end who cares. We live in an age where theres about a million ways to make good sounding things and its all valid.
Just throwing out ideas. I've never played a real full stack or a fully digital rig, so all I have for reference is my orange micros into a cheap 4x12 and a lil crate tube combo, so I can't voice any opinion. New idea: Test plastic enclosures vs. all metal at obscene levels to see if one is noisier than the other, since shielding/grounding with a metal chassis blocks out more rf.
I had a peavey deuce vt tube amp from like late 70s early 80s maybe? Was older. sounded better than my fender twin cyber which I got brand new. That peavey was crunchy and warm as fuuuuck silky smooth tones on both ends. Tube amps are king imo vs solid state and digital. Depends what you're going for though too it's almost too subjective to draw a conclusion it's more preference person to person I think.
Cool, funny and informative as always! I’d never thought a Klon had reached 7k. But at the moment I’m so happy for the eventual owners who ve just realised they can get a better sounding pedal for 29.99 bucks
The initial popularity and success of the Klon was due to the innovations in how the circuit was designed. Since the circuit does not involve any super rare or expensive components, cheap copies can be made and faithful reproductions will sound as good as the original (or at least to the point that human ear cannot detect any difference). The inflated price of the Klon is only due to the fact that it has become a collector's item, and it has become a collector's item because there are relatively few units, not because the original units sound better.
i haven't heard anything come closer than the KTR, i like the ryra a lot and the centura can sound even creamier than a Klon. Sold my Tumnus as the transient was icepick-ish, inducing the most rapid ear-fatigue of any other boost pedal since my keeley time machine. Kind of wish I'd kept the Archer but only a little, as my DIY silver pony 2 does the job (and more) just fine.
The klon much harder with very little output difference but tone was pretty spot on. Had 3 klons back in 2003. Sold them for $350/$400 back then. Thinking I made it out good. Damn I hate myself.
I want to hear an episode where you compare the actual pedal to a variety of modelled sounds, such as Helix, or even some software plugins. For example, Helix Native’s chorus sounds or the Digitech RP360 chorus sounds, versus the actual pedals they are modelled after.
@@TheMuffinMan01yeah I think that was more what people are hearing. A ton of vintage pedals just have weaker output signals than modern stuff. They need to set the levels accordingly before they start in the future
2 rather significant things here: - equal-loudness contours / Fletcher-Munson bias due to unequal volume - B doesn't sound even 50% like a Rat, and is much closer to a mid-period Big Muff. So it plainly fails by a mile as a clone, but if you prefer it to the old specimen then that's great. Happy accidents and serendipity make for half of the innovation and joy in the world,. anyways :)
I preferred the sound of the cheaper Klon, straight up, and I do music and production professionally 😂. Maybe there’s no accounting for taste but I’m absolutely certain that $6,950 can be better spent just about every way imaginable.
I feel like I preferred the authentic Klon, but honestly…not by much and I imagine any difference could be dialed out with actually seeing the knobs and getting what you want. If I had to absolutely pick which one sounded better? B. But honestly I wouldn’t even consider wanting the original, the knock-off is so close I wouldn’t think twice about buying it. I’m honestly considering buying one right now because it’s so good and I would never justify the money to buy an original.
I feel like the mis-matched volume contributed to the answers more than the tone difference. Perceivable louder tone tends to sound better. Its weird but really true. Great tone a quiet level usually doesn’t sound as good as poorer tone louder.
I absolutely love this and the JHS show. It’s great wholesome and informative guitar pedal videos. This was great to watch after a long stressful day of work. Cheers!
@@paulcowart3174 I stopped buying Overdrives and Fuzzes about 3-4 years ago and started playing with EQ Pedals instead. Not near as glamorous, but they have a huge impact on sound.
@@coreyclark6505 EQ is the secret weapon of tone sculpting, it has made me like dirtboxes that I hated. So that Source Audio EQ2, I was looking into that when it first came out. Well I was looking at the first version, then the next week the 2 came out and the vids on it blew my mind. I need it right?
Good show! Please make several more episodes. Some pairing ideas: wah wah pedals and their "magic" inductors; blues breaker pedal variants vs original; modern chorus/vibrato pedals vs Boss CE-whatevers; modern analog/tape delays vs "the good ones" from yester-years.
If you are spending more than 100-200, it's just hype. Even in that range you are paying for the same Chinese parts but maybe not Chinese labor (though most of the time you are just paying middlemen.)
This was a lot of fun because I know through my crappy speakers I rarely hear the difference, and it was nice to see that live with no bias they couldn't really either
for the third shootout (silver klon, $29 vs $7K) : that means you can buy 233 x Bezos Clones for the value of a single authentic Klon that just proved to sound the same ? Extremely surprising, interesting and baffling all at the same time !!! Definitely Food for Thoughts !! Thanks a lot Josh for bringing us back to Planet Earth !!!
3/3 for me, but 1 and 3 were total guesses. Also I guessed the OG rat would be more scooped and a newer style would me more mid forward. But NONE of them were significantly better or worse in this test. Amazing!
That was great! 😆 Defo up for more of this series - I'd like to see a 3 way comparison though: Expensive pedal vs cheap pedal vs cheap multi effect pedal like, say an MS-50g - We also need two participants: Gen-Z with hearing intact vs Gen-X with burned out ears but experience.
great show idea ! i would recommend trying to have an equal volume comparison... specially in the RAT example, version A (expensive) was lower in volume most of the 1 minute test, and that is a big BIAS when comparing... Louder is going to sound better most of the time.
yeah, the orginal RAT sounded thin and not set how people use the RAT. The original Klon soujnded less good near the end. It kinda sounds like Josh was trying to fool people with his pedal settings.
Thoughts: Use a looper pedal to ensure that strumming or playing doesn’t affect how each pedal is played. Play in a band setting - in a genre specific to the pedal’s most appropriate purpose -
This was very interesting and I think it absolutely proves Josh's point of confirmation bias being most of what we "hear" when we decide one piece of gears sounds inherently better than another piece of gear. (I'm totally guilty of this myself) We buy into the whole package and history just as much if not more than the sound. The Rat clone totally fooled me. I guessed the Tube Screamer correctly, but since I'm not a fan of Tube Screamers anyway, I dion't know if that really counts. I got the other two wrong. I do have a suggestion though. For future episodes Josh should do a little "pre production" and find settings for all the boxes ahead of time that he can dial in when he plugs in each pair of pedals, so right out of the gate they sound close. THEN you can start twiddling knobs. Set up the expensive one the ways most people use it, then try to match that with the cheap box, and use those setting before anyone even plays a note. I think it would be even more challenging that way.
Yes and not necessarily amps meant to sound like other amps. Just put a cheap amp on one side and an expensive amp on the other and ask him to guess which was the expensive amp
Yeah, but I'd hope they do a better job making them sound the same beforehand (especially, at very minimum, volume matching), instead of just looking at pots and approximating.
Good object lesson in confirmation bias, an affliction that combines with FOMO resulting in severe GAS. An additional point to add, when you get in the thrash and crash of a pub gig, I think it gets even harder to hear differences.
I had to do sound in some local shows, and it's amazing to see how the psyche influences the musician "hears". There is always someone who insists that you correct their mix, more volume, more treble, more drums, etc. And when you already know that the guy is going to bother you all night because he "doesn't listen", you just make a gesture on the console, as if you were adjusting something. And the guy is as happy as if you had given him more volume. Always works! LOL
I have the Mosky Silver Horse. I absolutely love that pedal, and feel so good about my cheap purchase after hearing this. It sounds really, really similar to the Klon.
This was awesome! I have been saying for a long time to all the cork sniffers out there that the Mosky Klon is AWESOME, and gets you there for 25 bucks (closer/as close as the 400/600 'boutique' versions ...) ... but hey-ho ... a fool and his money ....
Agree that this can be a really fun series! There are soooo many good pedals out there and knock-offs from Caline, NuX, Mosky, Moorer, etc etc, you could make it a weekly thing! One that I think would be a tough one to pick is the Jan Ray vs. Caline Pure Sky✌🏻
I love the opening about silencing phones and hushing babies. And that it is on screen for like 20 seconds , like seriously hush that baby or we will not continue Haha.
First off, KUDOS to Addison for putting himself out there for this challenge. My suggestion would be even more risky/challenging for another brave or foolish JHS soul - can a current JHS employee do a Versus episode using JHS pedals versus the OG reference pedals of their types? Maybe if they can get *all* the JHS pedals correct, they can have a paid, nice lunch or something (I'd certainly chip in for their meal)
Sweet. That's the Rat clone I have, and that's the Klon clone I have. Love them both, and they were dirt cheap! Would like to see some fuzz comparisons: I have the Behringer Super Fuzz, and the Soniccake Fazy Cream Muff clone
Thanks to you I bought the Klon clone and the Rat clone on AliExpress for 20$ each. Best deal ever ! My favourite pedal on my pedalboard is the Rat clone.
I know the vid has been out for a while ... but you fellas kill me about this being the pilot episode and will be soon replaced with better cast members 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 fantastic sense of humor
A 'basic' chorus pedal shootout would be pretty interesting. ie: each pedal should have the same parameters because obviously an Eventide ModFactor is going to sound better than a $30 Amazon pedal but what about a vintage Boss CE-1 or CE-2 ?
I used to manage a guitar shop and I was downright amazed how often the "lowly" Dano Fab Chorus for like $25 used to beat out way more expensive chorus pedals back to back
The Tube Screamer was louder. So right there, the perception is that it's better. Take two identical sounds, make one just slightly louder and it will always be picked as sounding better.
It's important to point out, sometimes a higher price is not because it sounds better... but sometimes its a collectable factor. Like with anything, collectors seek certain things and that affects price. Supply and demand. Also, of course, what sounds better is completely subjective. Use and enjoy the tools you prefer for your sound and have fun.
Agreed! How about; Klon v Caline Pegasus Boss CE2 v Tone City Angel Wing Strymon (shimmer) v Caline Wonderland Fuzz Face v cheap alternative etc. v cheaper etc...
@@unitedstatesofmordor Indeed, cheaper doesn't always mean worse, often comes down to the builder getting the components and circuit right. The propper Klon clones also come with germanium diodes which only differ in being a tad smaller these days, electrical they do the exact same thing, besides the tone boost one expects from such a pedal, the tiny difference one might notice will drown in the mix anyway. Only reason to buy an expensive old classic is for the investment, besides that I personally never would take a 7000$ hard to get classic with me to a stage. DIY brings even more fun into it, since there are some kits that include close to every possible mod and by that add way more versatility to the pedal while still keeping the price under $80.
no way, Todd! its clearly rigged to confirm Josh's agenda on making cheap pedals seem appealing. Any aficionado of tone can see through this charade. You clearly haven't played long enough and haven't spent enough money on pedals, peasant.
I think people get the assignment wrong. We’re listing for which one is the REAL version, not “which one sounds better. If you know how to identify what it should sound like you can guess it right. If you’re trying to decide which one you like more it could go either way.
@@BoltBrethren The question posed has the undercurrent purpose of debunking paying obscene money for the original. Knowing which is the original doesn’t provide any real-world utility unless you’re trying to not get scammed after paying $7k for what may be a convincing fake
"Confirmation Bias" best thing said all day! That Klon / clone test was epic.......$7,000!! That has NOTHING to do with tone, and everything to do with collectability-gone-mad! 😂
There are 100s of those videos because Boss sent them to every guitar channel on RU-vid. Same as the original sound, but the originals are limited in their feature set. At this point, you can get all of the Waza pedals for about half retail cost. I paid less than $125 for the Metal Zone and DM2 each, so in any case, great pedals and value.
I luckily had them right throughout but it's because I played a TS and RAT for a long time. I got lucky on the Klon, it sounded fatter. I will say: the cheap pedals win overall here: the player will be the difference! I play a JHS Series 3 Fuzz and it is such a great sounding swiss army fuzz in the studio! Thanks to Josh and team for these enlightening fun videos!
I had the Mosky for about a year or so and it sounded great. It stopped working on me but for 30 bucks I couldn’t complain. I just got the TC Zeus. And I really like that one.
@@asterisk606 not sure honestly. It wouldn’t power on. I think I fried something by accident when I tried to plug it in with the power supply already plugged into the wall. So that was on me.
The Klon circuits were really hard to tell apart. Sounded identical to me. But I definitely prefered the real RAT. Just liked the high end much better. Would never pay $7xx for any pedal, though.
This was a great show! Can't wait for the next installment. I got the Ibanez and the Klon right and got the RAT wrong. Honestly, the Ibanez sounded better, so I picked it and lucked out. The Amazon RAT sounded better than the actual Whiteface RAT, to be honest, so I biffed that one and guessed wrong. I owned a Centaur a long time ago, and there was one small sound I heard at either :13 or :14 secs left when Addison was playing the cheapie that the Klon wouldn't make (it was the guitar equivalent of a mic being overdriven...sort of a microsecond of bad saturation), but that one small microsecond was the ONLY way I could tell them both apart; otherwise, they both sounded great.
I picked like Addison. So, I purchased a YMUZE Moskyaudio Mini Silver Horse Effect Pedal Overdrive Pedal for Electric Guitar and saved thousands. Great VDO guys.
I'd love if you, prior to shooting, marked out a couple settings on both pedals (like a high gain and low gain setting) to dial each pedal in and get them sounding identical. I find myself picking the louder or brighter one each time which in itself is a good conclusion of the video. Video on a marshall bluesbreaker, Boss CE-2, and maybe some delay could be cool.
Agreed. Perhaps Josh shouldn't be the one to adjust the pedals, but someone else should be doing it, changing the settings, and because they see it all and know what's what, they can't comment on it.
Hilarious. Reminds me of the time the Gear Page was collectively blowing it's load over the new hand made boutique overdrive pedal that turned out to be a painted Joyo ultimate drive. You guys need to do some digital stuff like Line 6 Helix vs the real pedal.
To be fair... The Klon is built on modern components so tolerances and differences will be minimal if the clone is a faithful copy. A good match would be between germanium pedals where picking transistor specs matters. Like a tonebender mk2 where each transistor has to have the right properties.
That was really cool! I was surprised with the klon! I felt like the original had more bass to it. Addison, you should have known that the white faced rat wouldn’t have had so much bass to it.
I think the elephant in the room is Josh. With his experience, expertise, knowledge of how the the pedals sound, and being able to manipulate the controls on the fly to make the pedals sound similar or different has a huge impact on the test. In my experience if l take an expensive pedal and a cheaper version and put both pedal knobs in the same spot they can sound completely different. If l set up the expensive to sound a certain way l generally can manipulate the cheaper pedals knobs to come very close in sound in a side by side comparison. Obviously some cheap pedals are just inferior so your mileage may vary.
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I have no words, Excellent show and challenge! Grettings from CHile!
The Klon is like any collectors item, the value is in owning something rare and desirable… Like stamps or baseball cards… It’s sill worth the 7k to those who own them or want one… But anyone that actually has one Velcroed to a board for giging with is pretty crazy… it’s like licking your $7,000 rare stamp 😆
Great vid as always guys! Also, always pleased to see the cheapo pedals I have holding their own against their more expensive brethren (i.e. the actual, original pedals). I have most of the Mosky drive pedals and fully recommend the Black Rat and silver Klone, but their Mini Muff (now changed to “Mini Fuzz Distortion” presumably because of the “Muff” in the previous name!) and Crunch Red distortion are also cracking pedals. Their Timmy and BB Preamp overdrives are pretty handy too 👍 But, for Rats, I think you missed a trick: on my main pedalboard, sat right under my Keeley Caverns v2 (which I know Nick will approve of!), is a Dolamo Vintage Distortion, which is a fantastic pedal. Three Rat voicings cost me £17.22, which I guess is around the $25 mark…gets my full endorsement. Keep up the good work folks, and the sick burns 😂
I’m going to have to pick up a black rat and a silver horse on your recommendation dude. Already have a real vintage big muff that has seen a ton of use on my board.
@@BlueBarrier782 I think there's a handful of clones for the tremodillo out there. An example would be the joyo tremolo. For the deluxe memory man, there's an Xvive delay that was designed by the same guy who designed the original DMM. As for the Nobels, it probably won't make sense to clone it as it's affordable enough already, isn't it? I mean, you'd probably find more expensive clones of the ODR-1 than cheaper ones.
@@rhrdth, some people, and Tim Pierce in particular, think the original ‘90s production ODR-1 sounds better than the current versions. The originals fetch $400+ nowadays. Maybe the mini up against an OG?
@@ebeep You're right. I should've realized that. After all, the Rat is so expensive even though it currently is still in production and even has a mini version.
Love the concept for the show! Keep it up! SPOILERS! -> At 20:10 I felt like B sounded better, so I guessed that would be the Klon (correctly). However, there were other points before that where A sounded better to me. Most of the time they just sounded basically the same. I also agreed with Addison that the Mosky Rat sounded better!
I have the silver and gold Mosky Horse pedals. Picked the silver on a whim based on prices and reviews. Arrived quickly from China (about 8 days free shipping about $21 for each). Amazing tones. Who knows how durable they are but if that price you just buy another one.
