JOYOJF-09 Tremolo Guitar Pedals Guitar Effect Pedal Single Effect with True Bypass

As with all of my music gear reviews, I would begin here by letting folks know that I've been a musician for over 30 years now. In those years I've done work on both stage and in my own home studio and my experience includes guitar (lead and rhythm), guitar synth, bass, drums, a bit of keys, etc... At the moment I have around 25 guitars and a dozen amps in my arsenal (not to mention 3 drum kits, 2 PA's, recording equipment, yadda, yadda). In other words, I do have better than moderate experience when it comes to music gear in general.I would also add that my primary interest in this pedal is that in both of the cover bands in which I'm currently working, I do a couple of "oldies" tunes that I felt could really benefit from this particular effect (ala Tommy James, Johnny Cash, etc). While I do have 3 amps that do have built in tremolo, including a vintage 1973 Fender Bandmaster, they are not the amps the amps I typically gig with...for the 2 or 3 songs I would use tremolo on, it's just not worth lugging another amp around (for reference, I typically gig with a Lab L5, a Bugera V22 and an old Fender Princeton 112 Plus).Alrighty, I got my Joyo Tremolo this week and now that I've used it a couple times, I have a few comments. Before I get too far here, I would like to say that my pedal was shipped from China...while it arrived about 2 weeks sooner than Amazon estimated, it still took a while to get it. That's NOT a complaint...I expected as much...just want to let people know that the shipping DOES take a while, at least for those living here in the US. Unless you're willing to pay a truly exorbitant amount for shipping, do NOT expect to get this pedal "over night". I was a bit disappointed that there wasn't any box for this unit - also not really a complaint per say, but I'm the kind of person who hangs on to all the boxes for his gear. That said, the unit was in fact well wrapped and arrived in my mail box in tact and in good condition.Like many folks, I do tend to be a bit skeptical when it comes to this issue of "Made in China". I don't consider myself to be a "gear snob" by even the longest stretch of the imagination and I have guitars made from all parts of the planet...I have (or have had) guitars made in the USA, Canada, Spain, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, etc.. While I know what good gear sounds and feels like, I likewise know cheap gear...I've had my share. With that said, I also have to admit that I have been very impressed with some of the music gear coming out of China in recent years. Along with 2 Crafted in China Squiers, both of which play much better than their price range would suggest, I also have an Ibanez Artcore and I am truly floored by the quality of this guitar...it truly is on par with some of the nicer, higher priced semi-hollows out there.With that stuff out of the way, I have to say that so far, I'm really LOVING this pedal. This is my first Joyo pedal and from the quality and the sound, I suspect it won't be my last (I'm already eye-ballin' that JF-06 Vintage Phase pedal...). Since I started playing back in the mid 80's, decent effects pedals have usually been on the pricey side and today a good pedal can run anywhere from $80 to $150 or more with the "boutique" market being considerably higher (come on...how many different ways can you really make a freakin' distortion pedal? LOL!). There are some budget pedals out there, but the majority of them (that I've tried at least) tend to sound that way...cheap. It's very refreshing to see a company out there that can build quality stuff and NOT try to rake people out of their hard earned bread!While I haven't actually cracked it open, the pedal itself does appear to be very well made. While a metal casing isn't really that much of a selling point for me personally, as I don't typically abuse my equipment the way some do, for those who are a bit exuberant with their gear, I suspect this sucker could really take a good pounding. The metal casing and foot switch are on par with any high end pedal I've ever tried. The controls are simple..."Intensity" and "Rate", which is the same as you'd find on any vintage amp. In my book, this is a plus. Unfortunately sooooooo many pedals these days come with additional "tone shapping controls", however for myself at least, I already have tone controls on my amp and my guitar...I really don't need a ton of redundant tone controls on my peddles muddling up my sound (the more EQ controls you have in your sound chain, the less genuine guitar sound gets through). The switch is a true bypass...and as I discovered with the battery issue mentioned below, the signal does go thru to the amp when the pedal is off, even with no battery connected. While a small thing, I discovered the LED does dim and brighten with the rate of the tremolo...a nice little touch as it gives you a visual indication of the rate. The unit also ships with a standard 9 volt battery...ok...I have to admit to feeling a little stupid here as I didn't realize the battery was actually wrapped! LOL! When I got the pedal, I popped the battery cover off, saw the battery was in there, put the cover back on and plugged it in...and began to wonder why it wasn't working. After checking all my cables and such, I thought the battery was simply dead...perhaps as a result of it's long journey overseas...and when I went to put a new one in, that's when I realized the silly thing still had it's cellophane wrapper on (doh!).Ok...let's get to the meat here. To me the real defining factor of ANY piece of music gear simply comes down to how it sounds. Personally I don't really care if something like a pedal has a plastic housing (again this one is metal) or if it's got cool graphics or if people like it because they think it's expensive, etc.. To me the singular defining aspect of a given piece of music gear is how it sounds and how well it performs...in other words, does it do what I need it to do? This Joyo JF-09 doesn't disappoint! Of the 3 amps I own that have this affect built in...a vintage Fender Bandmaster, a mid 80's Custom Lead III and a small Roland practice amp, I have to say this pedal is very reminiscent of my Fender. I was very pleasantly surprised here. Between the price and the whole made in China thing, I was half expecting this pedal to sound a bit thin and...well.."cheap" (which for the few select tunes I'll be using this on, would have been acceptable). This pedal however really does produce a very "tube-like" tone. For the sake of reference, I tested this pedal, both quietly in my basement and at a full band practice, using a Bugera V22 and an Ibanez Artcore semi-hollow and I have to honestly say that I doubt most folks would really know the difference had I of used a genuine Gibson ES-335 thru an old Twin....very sweet tone to say the least.Unlike another reviewer here, I had no problems with any "boost" to the signal. If any thing, the pedal sounded (volume-wise) comparable to turning up the Intensity control on my old Bandmaster. The Intensity control on the pedal wasn't quite as "deep" as I expected...being this pedal is very likely all solid state, I thought the depth of the Intensity might have been similar to my Kustom Lead III (which is compatible to "The Smiths" or "Love Spit Love"), however again it was simply more comparable to my Bandmaster...still more than deep enough for anything I might need it for. The rate control of course goes from very slow and mellow to a very fast speed...however as with many electronics today, I did find that most of the presence there was geared towards the last 1/4 of the knob turn. Not something I'm gonna knock points off for, but a more linear rate control would have been preferable.So to wrap this all up, I have to give this Joyo JF-09 Tremolo pedal a rock solid 5 out of 5 stars, In fact if this pedal were $70 or more, it would STILL get 5 out of 5....at the $27.53 I payed, I wish I could add an extra star or two there! For those looking for a good quality tremolo that has a very good vintage-like tone and for those who are willing to lay their preconceptions aside, this pedal truly delivers. Kudos to the folks at Joyo for making a quality product for working musicians....and for pricing it for us working musicians! Well done!

Sounds great, looks cool, an incredibly fast highest speed, but always difficult to get the cables in and out. The second joyo pedal where I've had that problem

This is a budget version of a traditional optical tremolo effect that compares very well to much more expensive pedals. It's made in China using good quality components. The two knobs control intensity (depth) and rate, which work and sound like the standard optical tremolo found on a Fender amp. There's no tonal change or filtering associated with the effect, and the (internally adjustable) effect level is well matched with the bypass level. A red LED flashes in time with the LFO when the effect is enabled. The true-bypass switch is the standard 3-pole switch found on many DIY pedals which has a relatively loud click noise.Internally, there's a two-layer fiberglass main PCB with through-hole parts, and a separate PCB for the bypass switch. The pots are Alpha Taiwan (very good), the opamps are TI and STI TL061 and TL062 low-noise J-FET input opamps, the resistors are metal film types (excellent) and the coupling caps are plastic film types (very good). There are two trim pots on the PCB (accessible only by removing the PCB) that set the overall volume and the maximum LFO intensity. The case is cast aluminum, and the bottom is an 062 sheet steel baseplate. There's a Roland-like adhesive rubber non-slip pad covering the bottom plate, and there's a convenient clip-in plastic battery access door.Pros: great sound, true-bypass, low noise, good levels, good control ranges, good LFO shape, quality construction and components, inexpensive.Cons: DC input jack is recessed and slightly off center (may cause problems with some budget daisy-chain cables with wider plastic overmolds - but it works fine with One Spot and Power All cables).Overall, this is an excellent pedal that's well worth having.

Pretty cool knock-off of the Schaller trem or Diaz Tremodillo. This is my 2nd or 3rd Joyo pedal, and my favorite thus far. I don't care for the cheap jacks, but you get what you pay for, and I can always replace them if they break (I work on pedals all the time).I've got a scratchbuilt improved EA Trem (with two footswitchable speeds) and a cheap little Danelectro Tuna Melt. Other than the crummy bypass and plastic construction, the Tuna Melt is my favorite since it has the hard/soft switch. The improved EA has a great preamp for guaranteed unity gain (or more), and the footswitchable speeds that I added gives it extra flexibility. But I think the Joyo trumps it by just a little bit in that the core trem sound is a nice blend of the Tuna Melt's hard and soft settings.So part of this is really a subjective take on this flavor of trem, but suffice it to say if you've tried a few, this one will probably satisfy you at least a bit. No unity gain issues, and the speed and depth have a good sweep throughout their ranges.And it's just a niggle, but how hard would it be to get the word "tremolo" silkscreened so that it's centered on the box? At least there's no skull and flames like on the High Gain Distortion.

I love this pedal! It’s a quality build that does exactly what it’s supposed to do (i.e. give that rich, pulsing sound we all love) at a price point that is incomparable.I’m sure I could have spent twice as much and got extra bells & whistles like a dedicated wave knob or a variety of modes — but I really don’t require that level of tweak-ibility on a standard gig pedalboard. The Joyo tremolo does the job flawlessly with minimum fuss. What more could you ask for at a price less than $40?!

I have been in the market, as it were, for a tremolo guitar pedal for some time. Having read the plentiful positive reviews on this inexpensive bit of kit, I thought that, shading just under thirty pounds, it was worth a shout. I am very glad for having done so. This is a simple, no-frills tremolo effect that delivers a very satisfactory and professional range of tremolo effects (a good sweep of slow through to over-saturated, almost Leslie cabinet style sound), with a solidly built pedal that is simple to use straight out of the box, and is noise-free in usage. Believe me, I have tried far more expensive tremolo pedals that deliver equally satisfying results - except Joyo undercuts them. Indeed, so thrilled am I with my purchase that I will explore the Joyo effects pedal range still further.,

First of all, this would be a 4 star review if not for the calibration issue (see below). For a £35 it certainly punches above it's weight.Simple, effective and did what I wanted. It's not going to compete with comething more specialised, but it has a decent range annd smooth action. I've only gigged it a few times so can't speak for the build quality long term, but so far so good.Biggest problem I had was that it did not come calibrated out of the box. The effect was barely audible and the signal was stifled. Turns out there are two adjustable mini pots inside the pedal. After adjusting these the pedal worked beautifully. Dissapointing lack of quality control allowing this out of the factory door without such a simple check being done. I imagine a lot of these have been returned as faulty due to this

I bought this as an upgrade to my Donner tremolo (another very inexpensive pedal) and after watching several YouTube demos and reviews splashed out not very much money. It’s a great pedal and does exactly what it says it does. Easy to control and set up and for the price you cannot possibly argue with the quality of this. If you’re not sure that something of such a low price can be of good quality then don’t worry, this is superb. I’ve got quite a few pedals and, to be honest, would say this is probably one of the best value for money pedals I have.

I can't fault this for the price. Simple, robust and to my ears it sounds very much like the tremolo in a Vox AC30. Proper vintage sound. I have yet to see how it holds up to gigging, but at the moment I'm very impressed.

Bought this for my son. He says very good pedal for the money but his friend has one and speed control is working differently to his so production consistency may not be there with this model.