Harley Benton British TrueTone Reviews

A good entry level distortion

I doubt this pedal can be used far from home playing and amateur rehearsal. Beside that, it guarantees a good sound and a very good handling in shaping a tipical “hi-gain” “trebling” distortion of UK vibrations. It's definitely up to its price!

GREAT VALUE FOR THE MONEY! I Use it to Marshall-color the sound of a different brand preamp. Allows me to set a pretty accurate AC/DC tone.

Love it!

Buy something else IMHO

Modeling pedals are the core of my rig, and I wanted to see if this one would add a different color. No. First one had a faulty battery connector -- as others have noted, battery compartment is a tight squeeze, invitation to damage -- and the jack for exterior power supply was broken. Sent it back for exchange. Second one "worked" but the various controls have no effect on the sound except for the volume. That's why I am rating this pedal so poorly -- a pedal you can't adjust is simply dead weight, and if the features don't work, they're purely cosmetic. It's possible I just got two lemons in a row, but that's two too many. I own two Tech 21 character pedals, from which this series was cloned. Tech 21 costs six times the price, but what a difference. My brother, a famous harp tone freak, has the Joyo American Sound and likes it a lot. Maybe others in the HB series do the job. I won't try this one again.

Love it...

Let me start by saying I built an entire back up pedalboard from HB pedals for less than the cost of ONE pedal from my main pedalboard!

That said…

This is one of the best sounding distortion pedals I have heard… It just sounds good!

Most pedals have such a “digital” sound to them, but with a little tweaking this one can sound warm and almost analog!

I am impressed… like any pedal… start tweaking the knobs a little and you should get what you’re looking for, from a little drive to a full on stack that goes to 11!

OK As A Standalone But Better With Assist

Tones straight from the pedal are OK but I have found it needs an assist from amp/speaker or external speaker/amp sim to sound at its best at which point it does sound really good. So, good but not quite at the level of the American or AC Tone from the same series.

Nice product but similar to the American TrueTone

I bought this pedal since I was excited about the American TrueTone pedal from the same series. As a bedroom guitar player, I use it all the time with my pedalboard to practice and even record.

Pros: You can achieve a nice sound with the proper tweaking of the knobs and with the help of a Tubescreamer pedal and a compressor.

Cons: The sound in indistinguishable from the American TrueTone! There's no point buying both. This one has a bit more highs it seems, but the timbre quality is the same for both.

Overall, don't expect miracles if you just plug and play. Especially for more aggressive styles of music, it needs support by other pedals.

Sturdy pedal only just getting to grips with it

Build quality is excellent. as with all pedals take some time to find 'that sound'. Luckily I stumbled on 1 the other day which when coupled with the HB Delay pedal with all knobs set to 12 o'clock seem to do most of what i need. Works well with my cheapo Chinese Wah Wah in front. either in cocked mode or in full operation.

Worth more.

excellent pedal for the price.

Very nice pedal

I bought it a couple of days ago, and used it only a few times (so far).

I'm real satisfied with it, but as so many have told it before: this pedal is rather for the effect loop, than before the amp.

Drive and Voice knobs give plenty of possibilities to mix out a good overdrive sound, while you can control the output with the Level knob. Then you still have Low, Mid and High knobs, which I found interesting at the first try: they also modify into the volume level, although - if you ask me - they should not... but this is a feature you can get used to pretty quickly.

Sound?

Sound is - as I've already written before - prety nice. Don't expect a metal sound, this is not that kind of pedal, but I really achieved a pretty nice Mark Knopfler kind of sound with it. Also, this is rather for rock'n'roll or hard-rock. That's what it is.

Look?

Well, it's pink. Pretty rare color, but you can get used to it. :)

You'll be satisfied with it, I tell you. ;)

What a pedal!

Using with my Boss Katana, makes THE sound more believable.

Well built, works flawlessly. If you look for the BIG M sound, get one...its really worth it!

Nice pedal! but not on the guitar imput of the amp

This is a great sounding pedal for use directly to an fx return or direct on a soundcard. As a od pedal in front of the amp its not working that well.... but i guess it isn't designed for that.

Brilliant marshall in a box

The reason I bought this was I needed something that allowed me to use my valve amp at home volumes but with an overdrive sound, it was purchased for that but is so much more. On first glance it's just that Marshall in a box that so many others offer, but at a price that no one else can offer it at.

The enclosure is suitably chunky feeling, robust and should stand up to regular use no problem at all. The colour is a mad pink and while not everyone's cup of tea is very easy to see on a dark stage.

With minimal but all very useful controls it's very easy to use and no matter where on the dials you are every sound is useable. Lots of classic Marshall sounds in here, from just on the edge break up to balls to the wall all out drive.

This pedal is one that everyone should own, it saved me at a gig when my amp died and this became my amp, so simple and sounded great. It really is worth the money to just have as a back up option should your amp decide to die at the worst possible time (isn't that when they always die?) It also really handy to just go direct with for recording. This box does so much and for so little cost.

It's True !!!

Same as for my American TrueTone, this British TrueTone has the sound right.

This one is Brash and Bright just like the real thing.

The 3 band EQ makes tailoring the tone so easy.

Good with Strat pickups, HBs and P90s.

I wasn't really looking for the other offerings in this range but I'm tempted to get the lot. If these two are anything to go by .

If there's a Con it's that the speaker simulation is always on but a bit of extra brightness soon sorts that out when you're looking to use it as a pedal.

At this price point you could get them all for the price of 1 mainstream pedal let alone the boutique stuff.

I'll say again, it really sounds right for that M type sound.

I've no reservations in recommending it.

Edit - Stumbled upon it's Bass Guitar capabilities.

Just as convincing as the tones for guitar.

I was messing with a looper and wanted to lay down a bass part.

Not wanting to fart around with rewiring for bass I just chucked some Precision on and used the Pink one (British TrueTone) to add some bass EQ.

Wow! Nice crunchy semi-breakup pleccy rock-bass tone. Sounds real and dynamic.

Who knew? They certainly don't advertise it as such for bass...they should for sure.

Marshall in a box

This pedal is basically 50 years of British amps in one small pink box! It's a lot more than just a distortion pedal.

You can run it like that; at the end of a pedal chain it did a great job of sounding big into a clean Peavey Bandit. It also worked well as an overdrive with the gain and voice settings lowered. I also tried it into the Peavey's Fx send jack so it worked as a preamp - what a great sound! The British Sound works wonderfully into a powerful solid state poweramp and if anything has even more character. The final method I used to test the British Sound was into a PA - again, great results, largely thanks to the built-in speaker simulator. I would happily use this as a gigging backup in case my main amp went down.

In terms of tone, the British Sound emulates the entire history of Marshall amps, right from the early Bluesbreaker and JMP models with their lower gain and woody sounds through to the JCM800 series and the JCM2000 DSL series of amps - the voice control lets you change the type of amp you are emulating and the rest of the controls work as a normal distortion pedal would.

In summary, the amount of voicings and applications this pedal has is really impressive - whether it's as a backup rig or the centre of your live rock sound, for the price it's definitely worth giving it a shot.

Great purchase

I am surprised how so cheap effect can simulate a tube amplifier. The sound is wonderful. In my opinion, this thing can pretty well simulate multiple Marshall amps, from JTM45 through 1959 to JCM 900. The effect is made of quite quality materials. Definitely I recommend it.

It is one of my main pedals in my board since I bought it. It does what it exactly offers. I use it with my Fender Showman (blackface), H&k TubeMeister 18 and also with my Fender Champ 5f1 clone to have vintage Marshall era sound and I am very happy with the result. but the chronic problem is 9v power input. There is always problem with it and it seems to be real problem in the future.

"Classic Rock in a box"...

Well, maybe not - but this is a really comprehensive modelling pedal that does a very good job of evoking the spirit of 60s Brit Rock. And 70s. And 80s - it's the quintessential Classic Rock tone. It surprised the heck out of me that one little box could actually do so much! I come from a time when pedals were pretty much a couple of transistors, maybe an op-amp, a diode or two and a few resistors and capacitors - to make fuzz sounds, essentially. Or wah-wah.

To have a pedal like this - and for the price?! Incredible. OK, so it's never going to give you the SPL and rich harmonics of a 100W head plus 2 off 4x12 cabs - but put this in front of a clean amp and it's brilliant for home use, at levels tolerable by 'the other half'.

Well recommended.

Great sounding pedal. As the name says itself, it produces an original british sound. Very good value for the money.

True tone- true that'

Got exactly what I was expecting.

Don't really see any cons with this pedal, it sound good, the voice control is great, You can even get some fuzz-like tones if you play around with the knobs. Very responsive, actually works pretty fine as an amp simulator - don't have an amp at home? Just plug this thing into your speakers and jam away, it really sounds pretty decent (not like a real amp, mind You, but close enough for fooling around. Anyhow, it isn't quite it's purpose, so complaining would be silly). It gives of a certain mars******esque sound, I find it sounds best with a strat, definitely some Hendrix there. Only "negative" thing that I can think of is that it doesn't have a lot of gain, but then again, I didn't need a high gain pedal in the first place, so I'm happy with what I got, but for those who are looking around for a distortion pedal - maybe go for true tone california, or that extreme metal one, because this one is pretty tame and soft, I guess You could call it "bluesy". Quite dynamic, works well with volume swells. Would recommend.

UPDATE:

I played around with the pedal using different amps, and it is great! The voice control has a lot of scope, and with the right amp it has quite the range. The amount of available gain depends on the position of the voice knob: all the way to the left - Hendrix'ian sound, almost a fuzz, sort of like a fully cranked old-school stack, dirty and fat; at the middle it sounds like a standard 70's rock setup, especially with a Les Paul, a tad to the left - definite Jimmy Page territory; all the way to the right has more gain, and is a smoother, more "concentrated" sound, similar to a more modern mar***** sound - mixed with the right amp and a LP I easily get Metallica tones.

At first when I got this, I was slightly disappointed, but now after I've spent more time exploring the sounds that it provides - it's great! Later on I'll upload a review of this and the Harley Benton ST-62 MN SB, so stay in tune.

Great Marshall-ish sounds

These pedals are clones of a US manufacturer who makes them as direct input/recording devices. And simply put, they are excellent is what they do. I feel that I can get a very convincing reproduction of a Marshall tone right from a clean sound through a breaking up plexi through to full on metal. However I use this as a preamp going into the return of an FX loop in an amp for live work, and I do wish sometimes that this (and it's similar bretheren) could have two channels as now I have to stack them ... I'm not sure how hard that would be?