So, the JOYO Vision Dual Modulation Effects Pedal arrived, and I have been playing with it, quite a lot!
As expected, it does not meet all of my criteria for 'perfection', but sometimes, the immediacy of having lots of 'live' controls can be very useful, and I am very tempted to add an additional 'essential' feature:
- Having real-time control over a number of parameters simultaneously...
Which can be achieved in a number of ways: either directly via rotary controls (as in the Joyo Vision), or via a MIDI Controller.
 |
| The JOYO Vision Dual Modulation Effects Pedal |
Review
I promised a review of the JOYO Vision, and I'm more than happy to do so. The JOYO web-site provides some information, but Amazon did not expand on that, and there were no detailed reviews, so this will hopefully provide prospective buyers with a bit more detail.
The JOYO Vision (I'm really not sure if the 'JOYO' should be capitalised, or not) is a budget modulation effects pedal, but it has some features which move it upwards towards some much more expensive 'boutique' pedals. This compact pedal is 130 x 110 x 50 mm in size, and weighs a 'not-unusual for a pedal' 425 grams. The power consumption is 170mA from a standard centre negative barrel connector, again not unusual, and not excessive either. There is no mains adapter provided in the box, which is very often the case nowadays, when lots of people put pedals on pedal boards with sophisticated power supply (and audio routing) arrangements. The sampling rate is stated at 44.1 kHz, and the bit resolution 24 bits - I did not hear any glaring aliasing or noise artefacts whilst using it, and I do not have the test equipment to verify these figures. In any case, 44.1/24 is a pretty standard set of audio-to-digital converter specs for a modern budget pedal...
For the price, you could find any number of chorus, phaser or flanger units, but the added flexibility that the Vision offers is very welcome. This is a 'Dual' modulation pedal, with two independent effects processing sections (A and B) that can be connected in series (for complex modulations) or in parallel (for complex stereo images). But it is also a stereo in, stereo out device (or mono in, stereo out, or mono in, mono out), at a price more normally associated with mono in, mono out. You are probably expecting to hear that it is noisy (not particularly so), that the modulation effects were poor (variable would be a better word), and that it is a bit limited and unsophisticated (where you would be wrong).
The first clue was that audio routing. Dual effects pedals are quite rare, and the ability to have the two effects in either series or parallel gives you two very different end results. Series connected effects gives the complexity of chained effects that blend together as the audio is processed , whilst parallel effects gives complex stereo imaging where the two effects are distinct and separate but mixed together to give the final stereo image. If you are one of those people who finds that most budget chorus pedals lack depth (and stereo connections) and only give limp detuning , then this is a notable exception - especially since you can combine chorus with phasing, or flanging with tremolo, or any of the 9 'A' effects with the 9 'B' effects.
The two sets of effects are different, in what they do, how they are named, and how they are arranged around the 9-way rotary switch. This feels like a deliberate design decision with the intention of nudging you to trying out unconventional combinations, and it works: I had great fun, both trying to decipher the slightly cryptic and abbreviated names, and then seeing how they worked together. If the two selectors had the same effects at the same positions, then it could easily become a bit 'paint by numbers', but this arrangement almost forces you to try juxtaposing effects.
For the 'A' effect, the first effect is Mod-Ph, which I interpreted as 'Modulated Phaser', and which seems to be a chorus/vibrato and phaser combined. Next is 'Cho', presumably for 'Chorus', and this was slightly deeper chorus effect, but with no phaser. The ext effect: 'St-Ph', which I assumed meant 'Stereo Phaser' caught me by surprise, because it seems to be a phaser driven by a noise S&H circuit, and so gives some of the 1970s random filter S&H mod feel - not standard in any way, and far from mundane. 'Flanger' was a typical low feedback flange sound. 'Ring-Mod' was obviously Ring Modulation, and this has quite a broad range: about 4 octaves. 'Rot' was the Rotary Speaker emulation, and was rather like the 'Mod-Ph' with less resonance. 'Trem' produced tremolos with the 'Control' rotary varying the waveform from a sine-like smooth to a more choppy square wave - although the two channels were in phase - so this isn't what I would describe as a 'stereo' tremolo because there was no side-to-side stereo panning effect. 'Liqu-Ph' was a smoother (more 'liquid'?) variant of the Stereo Phaser, although the waveform was not random but seemed to be an 8-step sequence - again, more in boutique territory than I was expecting. 'Tri-Cho' was the thickest, most-detuned sounding chorus so far, and the name suggests that three different chorus effects are being used.
The 'B effect starts with 'Opt-Trem' which suggests an Optical Tremolo (bulb and photo-resistor), although it seemed to be a sawtooth waveform and no major stereo effect. The 'Sm-Cho' seemed to be a smaller version of the Tri-Chorus effect, but still a deeper effect than the Cho(rus) in A. 'Lo-Bit' seemed to be a bit reduction effect, and this was able to add interesting edges to some sounds, but the 'Control' rotary control didn't seem to do much. 'AutoWah' was a sine wave modulated band-pass filter. 'Anlg Flange' had much more feedback the the 'Flanger' in A. 'Phaser' was a conventional phaser, in contrast to the three unusual ones in A. 'Octa' seemed to be another ring modulator, although with a smaller oscillator range - about one octave, and so dropping the input frequency by one octave. Having two ring modulators on a pedal is quite unusual, and if it had been me designing this, at least one of them would have been modulated by an LFO... 'Stut' is for 'Stutter: a chopper effect that always has a square wave this time. Finally, there was 'Vib' which gave a vibrato effect.
If you were counting, that's 18 different modulation effects. Note that this doesn't cover all of the effects in the table in the previous blog post...
There's a slight 'click' as you switch the effects in and out, which is not that unusual for budget pedals, but you can use the Mix rotary control to avoid switching the effect in and out, which means there are no clicks! The flanger effects in A and B are both slightly prone to the buzzing sound from any mains pick-up in cabling, which I have used as a way of checking for ground loops, showing the advantages of balanced connections, and other 'studio-optimisations' many times... As in many pedals, both budget AND boutique, for some of the effects, there's sometimes a difference in volume between the dry 'through' audio and the wet 'processed' audio. For the cost of a look-up table and an extra couple of multiplies in the code, then I'm surprised that this persistent niggle still exists.
If I was being picky, then top of my wish-list for additions would be an expression pedal input... But this just raises the importance of looking more throughly into a mechanical linkage version... a homebrew 'third hand' (The original TIP 'Third Hand' hasn't been made for several years, apparently...). It is on my list of projects...
One thing that I did notice, and which might be seized upon by some people as proof of the budget nature of this pedal, was the lack of much stereo imaging in most of the effects. Even so, having Trem on A in parallel with Vib on B, did give a very independent LFO Tremolo/Vibrato effect that worked very nicely with a little external reverb, and sounded very wow and fluttery at times. There's more to designing a stereo version of an effects pedal than just doubling up on the circuitry, and although there's no obvious way of updating the DSP code, I suspect that a few minor changes are all that is required to produce a marked improvement. I should point out that I'm slightly notorious for creating mastering problems by being overly enthusiastic about broad stereo, so I'm on the extreme side of good taste in terms of stereo imaging in effects pedals.
But back to the real joy (no pun intended, really) of this dual modulation effects pedal - having two different things happening at once, either in series (complexity) or in parallel (slight stereo wobbling) is so much nicer and more sophisticated than a mono chorus pedal which just sweeps back and forth (in mono!) monotonously. With every combination of A and B offering two different rates of LFOs (I forgot to mention that they both have independent tap-tempos on the two foot-switches!), then you get a much more interesting modulation, which is exactly what I want in an effects pedal! Given the flexibility of effects combinations in the JOYO Vision, then I would be hard pressed to justify going for a similar priced but less varied mono alternative. And stereo in and out is a bonus, although I can't help thinking 'if only' for just a little bit more pan-breadth. (Now, there's a word: pan-breadth! I will see if I can work that in more often!)
Improvements
That probably set you thinking that I was about to suggest ways in which it could be improved, and I have to say that the stereo imaging was the only internal weakness I found. Oh, and the slight clicks when enabling the effects with the foot-switches (although there is a workaround with the Mix rotary controls).
 |
| An 'angled' viewpoint - note the right hand side readability |
Externally, there was the strange arrangement of the Speed/Rate and Depth rotary controls for A and B, which didn't match the mirroring of the rest of the controls, but that is being picky. Perhaps best described as a 'quirky' arrangement, then.
But the thing that I found most irking was the colour scheme! The background colour of the case is a metallic brown colour, which goes lighter when the light catches it. Unfortunately, the text is printed in an orange/yellow colour, and so it tends to vanish when the light catches the background colour. at the wrong angle, which seems to be too often... Yellowy-orange on yellowy-orangey/brown is not a good combination for easy readability... You can see the difficulty of reading in the photo at the start of this blog, but the other angled shots show very clearly how the background colour changes depending on the lighting...
 |
| The opposite angle... |
So I made two little sticky labels (see my Roland TR-505 mods post), printed them out and stuck them to the top panel, giving high contrast, stage-use-friendly, easily readable labels!
 |
| The prototype 'Labelled' Vision... |
You can find the graphics files here, and feel free to print it out and make your own labels - as below. I have recently found a source of matt-finish clear sticky-back plastic, and this makes much better looking custom labels!
 |
| The 'Improved' front panel rotary selector graphics... |
Rather than putting 'commercial printing'-style cutting marks just at the corners, I have added light grey outline boxes - because I suspect that anyone who uses these labels will be cutting them out with scissors or a scalpel. For maximum flexibility I have also added marks in the file, as well as providing an 'inverted' version with white text on a black background (and brown/yellow too!).
This set me thinking - is there any interest in additional 'Improved' front panels for electronic music devices? I know there are skins for lots of things, but I'm thinking more UI improvements rather than just appearance.
Oh, and one extra 'feature' deserves mention - there are extra blue LEDs inside the pedal, which light up two translucent plastic inserts and make the pedal look very sci-fi and hi-tech. Very cool! (You can see a photo in the previous 'Dual Mod' blog post...
Conclusion
Starting out with a quest for a dual modulation effects pedal with a distinctly 'boutique' flavour, and buying a dual pedal from the budget end of the market may seem strange, but I'm rather delighted with the JOYO Vision. It doesn't have USB or MIDI, and is not perfect (or expensive!) but those 'live' rotary controls, stereo I/O, and the 'different' set of effects make this an interesting tool for sound design and 'What effect is that?' kudos on stage or at practice sessions. Plus, you could easily pay several times the price and end up with something far less flexible, which is always good in my book! I can definitely see myself sprinkling a little bit of Vision here and there...
The Zoom...
I'm still waiting for delivery of the Zoom MultiStomp pedal, and it will be interesting to compare it with the JOYO Vision (which is still cheaper than the Zoom). Will the immediacy of 'live' rotary controls beat several effects at once? We will see...
Resources:
The Roland TR-505 Mods blog post...
JOYO's web-site page for the Vision
The previous 'Dual Mod' blog post...
The graphics files for the labels...
---
If you find my writing helpful, informative or entertaining, then please consider visiting this link:
Buy me a coffee (Encourage me to write more posts like this one!)... or...
(Encourage me via a different route entirely...)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment