I got my Divided By Thirteen Joyride last week and had 3 rehearsals and 2 gigs to put it thru its paces, so here goes.

Click here for info pics

Cosmetics / Controls

As you can see from the picture of Brad Whitford's board (which of course now looks a little different but still has the Joyride on it ) this is a biggish unit. It's rather tall and also long. the advantage is that the layout allows for accurate stomping and lets you foot tweak volume and gain if needed. It looks really nice too - I like the design of the pedals. The finish of the box is hard to describe but beautiful, sort of like baked on matte paint in a grey ish color with black graphics.

The controls are volume (which can do a hefty boost if needed), bass and treble which have a nice wide but also usable range and drive which goes from almost none up to singing sustain. The drive changes little at first and from 3 o clock upt to dime increases a bit more suddenly and changes the pedal into a lead beast. I still managed to dial things in OK, but I wouldn't want to foot tweak between 3 and 5 o'clock by accident!

There's a 9v jack (boss type) on the side and batteries can be used (change by unscrewing base-plate).

Sound

I'm not exactly sure if this is Germ, Sil or hybrid to be honest - there are 3 transistors in it. I hear the juiciness of Germanium in it for sure, you know how those highs have a nice fatness yet still can cut. The clean up factor is really nice (I really appreciate pedals that do this well) yet is a little different to a germ fuzz. The Joyride stays clear and crisp all the way down but doesn't change as quickly as the fuzz would. So you get your shades of OD more gradually (FYI - I have treble retention mods on all my guitars 1000pF + 150kohm in parallel).

I used a Tele, a NR Firebird with HBs and a Les Paul and I love the fact that one setting worked for all. Often ODs can be too bloated on hums if you set it for the Tele, or too thin on the Tele if you set it for the Les Paul. This is great for live - no tweak needed.

Uses

I dialled in a nice crunchy boost / light OG with everything on 12 o'clock, which is a great starting point. This gives and articulate crunch with good string definition. Then I tried it with gain around 3 o'clock and volume dialled back to 9 0r 10 and got a nice sustaining lead sound which still cleans up great. The pedal only got noisy when the gain was dimed or when the treble was dimed. I ended up with the bass and treble both on 1 o'clock and the gain on 12.

Stackability

I had the Joyride in my switching system and tried the following:

Joyride into DRD - nice to fatten up the DRD for leads
Joyride into Klon - worked nice to bump up the Joyride a notch yet kkep the character.
McFuzz into Joyride - both set with lowish gain - a fat combination and less noisy than I would have thought.

So... will you keep it???

YES! The Joyride suits me well. Add the juiciness (I keep coming back to that word to the really usable clean up and the fact that both low gain and higher gain stuff sound good to the usabel eq and you have a great pedal. The Joyride has pushed my Red Llama off the board.

Any questions, specifics just fire away.

PS Amp was an EL34 50W Orange Retro 50 into a 4x12. Amp set slightly crunchy.

If I recall the Joyride I had was sili, BC109s I think.

Great review Chrissy...thanks!

chrissy

how tall is the box? i was looking at the "Lift" pedal, but i'm concerned it's going to sit too high on my board.

jonc

btw, does anyone have any feedback on the Lift pedal?

Could you make a pic from the insides? I'm curious how it looks, him being (primairaly) an amp-builder.

quote:

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Originally posted by jonc:
chrissy

how tall is the box? i was looking at the "Lift" pedal, but i'm concerned it's going to sit too high on my board.

jonc


btw, does anyone have any feedback on the Lift pedal?

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Jon, I'll be at rehearsal tomorrow and try to remember to measure it

quote:

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Originally posted by John Stax:
Could you make a pic from the insides? I'm curious how it looks, him being (primairaly) an amp-builder.

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Will see what I can do. I'd rather email you the pic than post it tho'...

quote:

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Originally posted by chrissy:
Will see what I can do. I'd rather email you the pic than post it tho'...

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That's ok with me!

quote:

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Originally posted by jonc:
chrissy

how tall is the box? i was looking at the "Lift" pedal, but i'm concerned it's going to sit too high on my board.

jonc

btw, does anyone have any feedback on the Lift pedal?

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I measured the Joyride - apologies for the metric measurements, I only had a metric ruler with me.

Width: 93mm, Length: 144mm, Height: 48mm
Í checked the height including the knobs / switch whilst the Joyride was velcro'ed to my board and you'd need 70mm clearance.

Hope that helps!

Chris

Thanks for the review Chrissy.

Could I ask you about the mid-range content of the OD tone, especially when using single coil pick-ups? The TIM has a similar control configuration and I'm now using an EQ in the loop to add some mid-range to my Strat tone.

This GAS is killin' me!!

I've used my Tele a lot with the Joyride and I like the fact that the mids are beefy enough to get fat tones from single coils, yet there is still enough jangle and high end for string definition. Sort of a nice mixture really. I like mids in my sound, yet also love clarity, sparkle, jangle and all those words. So far the Joyride is doing a good job of giving me that fat yet defined vibe.

thanks chrissy. and metric measurements are just fine. i was in grade school/junior high when the push to go metric was reaching a high state of awareness. of course we know where that went.

thanks for the sizing. i like the looks of the boxes, but the height concerns me. also, i have been unable to find out much about the Lift pedal including what chips it's based around.

thanks again.

jon

Yeah, there's not a lot of info about that (or the Stardust Fuzz for that matter) about.

I'm wondering if the Lift isn't in the same size box as the Dyna Ranger I have (it's smaller than the Joyride). It looks like that on the pic of Brad Whitford's board on the D13 site. If so, we're talking 44mm high (and only 62mm clearance needed. The other dimensions are 80mm wide and 108mm long.

Chris

After hearing nothing but positive things about the %13 stuff, I think I'm finally going to pull the trigger on a Stardust fuzz in about 3 weeks or so. The potential for tone shaping with the Stardust's many knobs has got me itching to give it a shot. (Between the 5 position "character" pot, the Fizz and Mid pots, I'm hoping I can get some fuzz tones that have eluded me for some time.)
Thanks for the review Chrissy.

Oooohh yes! I'd love to hear what you think if you do pull the trigger. Seeing how cool the Joyride is (and the ERT33 is a great amp too) I'm really curious about the Stardust for the same reasons as you.

The Dyna Ranger is a really cool modern takie on a treble booster (I've tried a few) so I'm guessing the Stardust will get you into cool fuzz land!

Highly kept secret but I have a Stardust. Haven't had much time at all to play with it. I'll see if I can free up some time after what's left of the hurricane blows thru.

Hi J,

So you got a Stardust? Cool! Stay safe with all that bad weather, won't you. Hope to hear from you soon!

Hey Dyer Maker,
I'd be really grateful for a Stardust review if you get a chance. There's only one review on HC, and its hard to find info on the variety of tones acheivable. I'm especially interested in a) how nasty it can get
b) what exactly the 5-position switch changes &
c) how useful the fizz and mid knobs are.

I'm definitely gonna buy this one and check it out regardless, but I'd love to hear a report on it.
Keep your self safe and take care.