Harley Benton American TrueTone Reviews

Excellent

This is amazing, really convincing Fender tones from clean Blackface to overdriven Bassman. There are a lot of youtube videos of this pedal. Nice that it is all analog components rather than digital for all the tone purists. Works well with a clean amp as a Fender coloured overdrive pedal. I have also used it for recording and it was great. Something nice about having a box with knobs on it rather than an onscreen menu, more tactile.

All metal, feels solid and the knobs have just the right amount of resistance for me.

For the price it is amazing.

Recommended.

Good and cheap preamp for direct recording of guitar and bass

I bought this pedal primarily as back-up for live situations when my amp fails (it happened before), so I can run my pedalboard directly into this pedal and then to the soundboard. It works excellent in this role, and it led to another very useful purpose: direct recording in home studio.

I just finished recorded an entire album (8 songs) using Harley Benton American TrueTone as the pre-amp for all guitars and bass, and it worked really well, especially considering the fact that I did not have the time or space to properly mike guitar amps.

I just wish they made it smaller, like those mini pedals.

Excellent starter

Great build quality

Great price, wanted bang for my buck as I begin experimenting with pedal and effects.

Also bought AC tru tone from harley benton, good combo imho

It's a tweed in a box

Similar or Inspired by TECH 21 - BLONDE pedal.

It's very easy to use and you can consider it as a "Tweed in a Box".

I was also surprised by use it straigth to an audio interface when recording. Great results even direct to a PA. It's cheap and for my humble opinion a "must have" pedal.

Will make any solid state amp sound better

This amp sim pedal sure made my solid state Kustom PH2012R amp sound much MUCH better. Joy to play and the build quality is fine. I cant compare it to the amps its to emulate because I never played those F amps but the sounds I get from it are very pleasing to me and I sure can use them.

Great pedal for bassguitar too

Works great on bassguitar, from mild to wild overdrive.

I use it mainly with a very light overdrive setting, pedal is always on.

Nice sounding eq, with the bass mid and treble controls you can shape/enhance your sound.

The power input jack could be placed better, but that's the only minor downside.

All Fender Amps in a pedal

American TrueTone is the solution if you want to obtain the sound of all vintage Fender amps in a small pedal. The sound is great. The available buttons allows you to control the equalisation and the sound shape with precision.

I can compare it with My Fender Blues Deluxe from the 1990's and the pedal is very close in sound.

I just only regret that the pedal is not completely TruePass; this seems more a simulation of TruePass (like the ThroughPass of Zoom) than a hardware TruePass.

Good deal taking into account of the price.

Review on bass

This is my first Harley Benton effect pedal. I bought it to use on bass, and as it is my main instrument it is about it's performance as a bass effect that i am going to base my review on.

First of all, i'm going to talk about bass loss: you really don't need to worry about it, as the bass loss is really insignificant, and you can correct that easily with the 3 band eq on the pedal.

In terms of sound: it sounds good!

If you don't push the drive knob past half it gives you a warm sound with some light distortion in it.

When you push the drive past 3/4 it starts to sound fuzzy like, wich i really like.

It's a very versatile pedal, as it sounds good both in light distortion and in fuzz like distortion

Great Value, Good Sound.

Sounds just like the pedal that it mimics. I found that it is best used in front of an amplifier, and it very much gets you into that tweed area. The construction is fantastic. The pedal comprises of a quality enclosure, decent pots and a solid 3PDT switch. On top of which the pedal is true bypass. Impressive.

The only area in which the pedal falls down is when used directly into an audio interface. While it does a pretty good job of amplifier simulation, the speaker simulation leaves a little to be desired. However, when combined with an appropriate impulse response it gets the job done.

I sold my Blues Deluxe because of this pedal!

Yes I did. The demo I saw of it on YouTube and the reviews I read were sufficient for me to invest the princely sum of 30? for this pedal. Originally I was wondering if it might provide a more authentic and responsive tweed sound for recording than Guitar Rig software. I'd never been happy with that and it doesn't work well with a clean wah pedal I found. I also wanted to eliminate all possible AD/DA latency. Well, I'm happy to say it does!

But I also discovered something else. I could run it through my Boss tremolo pedal and old Laney 30w transistor amp (which has a great spring reverb in it) and get a brilliant, almost totally authentic tweed sound out of it at LOW volume. My original Fender Blues Deluxe, which is now sold, only got that sound when cranked right up. It was even too loud for my band's rather small practice room and just drowned out the PA.

The pedal itself is a solid orange enamel metal casing and a sturdy metal on/off switch. There are 3 eq controls, level and drive controls and a "voice" control that, when used judiciously in conjunction with the others, can seemingly change the "model" of amp you're emulating. There's almost a very subtle compressor feel about it and it operates noiselessly.

Conclusion: It's superb. The price is almost a joke. Yet another winner from Harley Benton.

Awesome amp sim(s) in a pedal

My touchstone tone is the Fender tweed sound for blues and rock. This pedal gives me this and more - both DI and into my 15W practice amp. The voice control is surprisingly responsive and you have to be careful with the tone controls but that gives it a great flexibility rarely found in such pedals. Drive goes from sweet subtle overdrive into distortion territory. I was somewhat surprised that the output signal level when used DI is less than I expected but that gives plenty clean headroom.

The battery space is ok but tight and I think one needs to be careful not to damage anything on the circuit board when replacing the battery but that is a minor concern. Otherwise the build is very solid and while I haven't and wont be gigging it (I'm strictly a bedroom muso) the construction appears to be on a par with pedals costing much more.

Well recommended and I'll probably go for the AC Tone next.

Harley Benton American TrueTone

I already owned the Actone, but fancied a change. I didn't think the change would be this good! There's a definite difference between the two, this gives a much deeper, almost mellow sound compared to the Actone. There's enough drive there to satisfy the most fervent distortion fan, and the Voice control allows that additional "tweakability" for the control freaks. I've actually combined the 2 pedals now and may have accidentally found my own perfect sound! As with all of the HB pedals I've tried or bought, the quality of the build is good, it should withstand excessive use and "stomping". It isn't a boutique pedal, but it doesn't claim to be, so give it a try and I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Astounding

Over the years I've owed many distortion and overdrive pedals ranging in price from £25 to £250, this cool little Harley Benton American TrueTone is as good as, and in most cases better, than any of them. With the bass middle and treble controls you have an eq set up which is very similar to that found on many classic American amplifiers, the voice control gives a further valuable overall tonal adjustment. The drive control works very smoothly making fine adjustments easy. Another feature which is usually only found on much more expensive pedals is the true bypass switching which means that when you switch the effect off it is in effect eliminated from your signal line.

If you're looking for a high quality distortion pedal at bargain price give this one a try, there are loads of great tones to be found from this great little pedal.

Quite unbelievable value

I'm using this extensively for recording directly using a computer or iPad. I have this box set to "clean vintage fender" sound, and I'm feeding my pedalboard to this. Sound is on par with the best amp models in Amplitube (iPad) or GarageBand (Mac). And even better and useful as I know exactly how this behaves with my pedal board. I have also used this as a backup "amp" in rehearsals.

Ok, it probably is a rip-off of some well known brand, but nevertheless works great. Only minus is the huge amount of knobs (and no possiblity to save sounds) so you really have to mark the preferred settings with a marker in order to keep the sound you want.

Takes time.... but well worth it.

This is a great pedal with guitar into a 30W valve amp. The secret is in balancing the Voice and the Drive controls - a little goes a long way! Voice and Drive set low and a very good clean tone is found and as the drive increases then that SRV sound is found. Voice set past about 1:30 and Drive to taste.... a Tele tuned to open G and instant Keef. A boost pedal or tubescreamer into the American behaves as you would expect - adding drive to your sound. I've only begun to scratch the surface with this pedal but I think it's fantastic. At this price then it's a steal as long as you're prepared to take the time to learn how to use it.

Can be excellent for home recording or flavouring a clean sound

This pedal functions greatly as an "always on" preamp that can give a life to any full amp. I have used it with recording on a computer and the pedal makes a great job of that "American" tone played through a speaker. Can take pedals before it well and can definitely be used in a pinch when your usual preamp, or even amp, fails you. Check out the others in the series.

Always on and

Firstly allow me to say that enjoy some of Harley Benton/Joyo products.

I have the Harley Benton Power Plant [the big blue one], a Harley Benton Dyna Compressor and this little box of Fender-ish amp-sounds-maker.

And what a delight it is both in sound and simplicity.

It has 3 EQ knobs on the upper row [Bass, Mids, Treble] just like an amp.

On the lower row you get the Level knob [to the set the overall level of sound in the unit], an interesting "Voice" knob [that further sculps the mids] and a "Drive" knob that allows you to go from clean to break-up to a harsh overdrive.

I don't really care if this is a faithful replication of another pedal by another brand that so happens to emulate a Fender amp. And neither should you if what you care about is having an inexpensice good clean/break-up/harshy overdrive sound at your disposal for a ridiculous low price.

For me, it's an "always on" pedal, just like the Dyna Compressor. You set it to your taste and leave it on all the time, forgetting it is even there.

Simple to use, sturdy and takes little realestate in your pedalboard [or on your table].

If Fender-ish sounds is what you are looking for, look no further.

Great amp simulation pedal direct with a PA

This is a great pedal with an amp as well as to a Direct PA. when you connect this to an amp you can find great tones like bluesy and and a bit fuzz crunchy sound. but this pedal really shines when you need to connect direct to a PA. This thing could save a gig if the amp breaks up in the middle of a set or you just wanna keep things simple to just plug direct with your Favorite drive pedals to the front and some reverb and delays to the out. i have been using this with all my small 3 piece band gigs all the time to a PA now and i love how this response. Please don't judge this by its price,i know bigger brands costs a lot and we always think they will be great right out of the box. but now i can see even the cheaper ones are competing with great sounds to the giant brands just right out of the box and are mostly getting better. just buy this to believe it.. cheers

sort of extra amp

First i thought it was an overdrive pedal, used in front of my jcm900 Marshall.

It actually gives a nice warm overdrive sound. So it sounds a bit as a different amplifier. Inexpensive and fun.

(It can do Neil Young sounds. )

It is the same as the more expensive Yojo, and everyone on the internet says is is the same as the really expensive pedals they copied this from.

The build quality is good, you set the basic sounds with the top 3 knobs, and dial level, desired "color" and distorted level with the lower three.

I don't know if it can last as long as the old Boss pedals, but for the money it's good.

gigged with it a few times. Ill keep it because it has a different usable tone as my other pedals.

Finally used it with my computer. Yes, it has good sounds for recording. Perhaps that is what's it is intended for...

edit 2017: New use: bought a T20 tele. pedal drive at 9, voice at 11. Bass at 13.00, middle at 11.30. Rest neutral.

Place after all pedals, straight in input amp. Best spanking Fender sound for all my amps...

American Truetone Pedal

I bought this pedal as a cheap clean tone option for home recording purposes. I realised that the Blackstar HT-5 has a relatively bad sounding clean section and so bought this.

Based on a Fender Blues Jr. (I think!) this pedal really gives off a strong Fender vibe the cleans really coming out with the voice and drive knobs being turned almost completely down and the level turned right up. The knobs feel like good quality alongside the switch itself, something I was not expecting for a pedal of this value.

My dissapointment with this pedal was turning the drive and character knobs up, whilst it does a very excellent coloured clean sound, I found that the drive, even to a light level did not sound how I expected, quite a dissapointment however it was not really what I bought it for. A more natural sounding distortion would have made it more usable.

Overall, if you are looking for a cheap clean sound from a pedal, look no further, it gives a creamy clean tone, only improved with a reverb.