JHS AT (Andy Timmons) Drive V2 Pedal - Black with Red Logo - Sweetwater Exclusive Reviews

I purchased this after many weeks of demos online. This was a demo but flawless in operation.Several other pedals were in the running as I demoed this at Sweetwater, after almost deciding to not but a pedal I couldn't get the tones out of my head.On to the review. The controls all function as stated very responsive to the tweaking. I love the 25,50,100 toggle is a great addition. The gain and volume are very interactive but never get muddy even dimed the note seperation and articulation is incredible. The presence knob really slow to tame or bring out a realy nice cut in any mix and a nice little bite that's not icepicky at all. The boost is a gem for pushing this pedal into sweet od almost hairy distortion likened to ZZ Top,also it will push another pedal as well another plus.There's not much this pedal can't get tone wise. I think this could work in any music situation. I think this pedal has many gems tonally that are yet to be tapped. So I say this if your on the fence with this pedal get off the fence and purchase this pedal. It's just a great piece of gear.

I have had this pedal for a few weeks now, and I have enjoyed it immensely. The separate boost circuit is a great addition to this distortion. I wasn't aware that the boost function was independent of the distortion until Alex Mattingly from Sweetwater shared his insight about the pedal with me when I bought it. I am very happy that I switched from my old distortion to this pedal!

Absolutely the best drive pedal I've owned to date! Doesn't take long to dial it in. The addition of the separate Boost is AWESOME! Great creamy drive tones. Used with a Marshall it is a marriage made in heaven. I like to use drive pedals in my clean channel and the AT is PERFECT! I've been using it for a few months now and it is a definite KEEPER! Thanks to Josh Pippen & Sweetwater!

Best Rock/Blues pedal I own! This pedal has such a incredible range of tone and distortion. I'm a big Gary Moore fan and this tone gets me there. Everything is dialed in at 12 so I know if I want shake the house I have so much more room to on this pedal. I own lots of pedals like the boss blues and the OCD. Still love the JHS AT the best. You can play even Metallica with this pedal.

My reissue Vibroverb just does clean plus it's 30 years old. I just got the Morning Glory V4 to bring some new life to the old guy. That it did and covered the edge of breakup. Low to mid dirt boxes are in my DNA evidently and I could never tolerate the noise that comes from high gain pedals and such. Plus it's hard for them to cut above the mix because of how saturated they are. The @ pedal is quiet enough to record and the boost switch saturates or boosts all while retaining ,"YOUR SOUND". I originally got a different dirt pedal and Sweetwater switched it for the @ and that made the difference.. Thanks guys.

Let me start out by saying I know OD's are a very personal effect for guitar players.
But if you are searching for "that tone" in your head the AT+ is absolutely a great place to start! Love the addition a separate boost. The switches are close enough to engage with one stomp of the foot. The tone controls cover a lot of ground. It pushed my vintage Fender Twin very nicely. But WOW does it make my Marshall DSL40CR sing! Really showcases that classic British sound…from slight crunch to all our saturation. You know it's a great pedal when you hook it up for the first time and get lost in it for two and a half hours! Just watch the videos…if Andy Timmons & Don Car can't sell to you, no one can! Go for it!

I had tried this pedal out in a local music store a few months back, and it was very intriguing to me.
So when my asked me for gift ideas, this was what I wanted.
I typically run my amp in it's clean channel and use an overdrive in my pedal board. And this pedal is perfect for me.
It's got headroom, it's got grit, it's got sing and scream. And my favorite thing about it is how dynamic it is in its response to touch and attack.
Want more? Dig in harder.
Want sweet and creamy? Lay off a bit.
It feeds off of your intention and intensity…..and that makes it more than just a great overdrive pedal, it adds to your expression.
That makes it a musical pedal.
Mad props, and don't take my word for it…..see what it can do for the musical words you can speak.

The product demos you've seen and heard are all true when it comes to amazing . This pedal has a permanent spot on my board. This is actually my first JHS pedal and I am NOT disappointed. I think you'll feel the same way... just buy it already.

This pedal is truly great!! it's ton, color and array of possibilities tonally is insane. The looks and design matches all the tone aspects, I absolutely love it!

Looking to inject your Fender amp with steroids? This will give you the top end distribution you want without feeling like jabbing a pen in your ears.

After months of extremely detailed and thurough research on a versatile yet superbly great Marshall tone for my studio, I decided to go with the @. A little skeptical at first since to be honest, I hoped that this pedal had more gain since my main use for it is in the studio and as a very experienced producer for many decades in the industry, I need something that will provide more flexibility and a wider range on possibilities. When I connected this pedal and I stetted playing with it, WOW!!! another category on it self! the tone is superb! and extremely easy to use, It feels like an amp in a box! I give this pedal not 5 stats, but 6!

This pedal exceeded my expectations which were already on the higher side. I have been playing professionally for about 26 years and have played pretty much every pedal and amp out there up to now. I am picky about gain pedals and have sensitive ears that hear everything. I always loved Andy's tone and wanted something similar. This pedal does that tone perfectly. I have a ton of nice overdrive and distortion pedals by Friedman, King Tone, Keeley, Rock Box, Suhr, Vemuram, Xotic, Jetter, the list goes on and on. This pedal is perfectly dialed in and can get you the tone you want fast due to the intelligent eq design. Lead tones are fat, juicy and responsive with great smoothness but the midrange voicing allows it to cut through in a sweet way that is easy on the ears. The boost is great and adds gain when you want it. Settings for the Timmons tone are: gain all the way up, volume at 11 o'clock, air at 11 o'clock, eq at 11 o'clock boost at noon and in the 100 watt middle toggle setting. Fat and smooth tone is this pedals best thing. Sustain is great too and the pedal is silent with no noise. They really did a great job with this pedal, it is honestly in the top 3 high gain pedals I have ever played which is crazy, but true. The only thing I wish it did better is clean up more naturally, but it was designed for Andy Timmons who uses a treble bleed in his Ibanez so I am guessing that is why it cleans up darker. This pedal sounds awesome in stereo with a Strymon timeline. Currently using it into two clean tube Amps (Friedman) with 2 212 Friedman cabs with V30 speakers.

You can only get this color here this is the Andy Timmons version. 3 choices of wattage 25, 50 and 100 watt. It's out of stock for a reason right now. It says more on its way. It's a great pedal. All the versions of the Angry Charlie are. I have all of them for a reason from the brown one with red knobs to the red one to the AT in red and also in black and the red AT plus. All keepers. Great great high gain pedal. Not fizzy. Just a great high gainer.

I've owned alot of pedals through the 30 years of playing. Probably my favorite. And to make it even better it has a boost switch for alittle something more. Great pedal, worth every penny.

Not only does it sound great and has a bunch
of options it looks cool too. It's
in my top 3 distortion pedals. Mine's quiet as can be. I use humbuckers but I can split them and it's still a quiet pedal. And a shout out to my salesman Chris whose the nicest guy around.

So I purchased it and really liked the amp settings for various flavors of gain. 25, 50, 100. 100 gives you the most headroom. However, I struggled in trying to clean up the drive using my guitars volume half way. I did not work for me so I returned it. I really wanted to keep it. That being said it is an awesome pedal for that high gain. Rock even metal sound. It's built very well and it is tonefull.

I was since long time looking for a pedal able to do what this pedal can do. It is impressive that wherever you set the knobs this thing just sounds amazing. My very first JHS pedal and I am really pleased with it and always the plus is the excellent customer service that Sweetwater offers!

I passed this pedal up for a long time (despite a fair collection of other JHS pedals) because I thought it was just a slightly modded Angry Charlie. But just to show what snobbery gets you, I couldn't be more wrong! It tackles that tone, certainly (which is a fantastic distortion by it's lonesome). But with that presence control with the tone it can bite exactly where it needs to with any amp (evidenced by Andy Timmons himself using Mesa Boogie despite being a Marshall based circuit for the drive) and the boost is so perfectly voiced for guitar that it really eliminates the need for a separate boost unless it's a treble booster on your board. With the wattage switch and the 9-18 volt option it almost replaces four pedals on the board (overdrive, distortion, boost, and preamp if you're feeling particularly generous). And for palm muting it's hard to beat. It has that tight bottom end of the Marshall and the rich harmonic content to match. Plus the Sweetwater color scheme reminds me of black forest cake so you can't go wrong there! Solid choice for anybody rhythm or lead! Overall it could patch any board together!

This is a quality well built pedal with vey low shelf noise. It goes from overdrive to a pretty descent distortion. Singing, smooth, sustain. It does not rip your head off. Extra pedal is for boost which can be used independently or with the overdrive, A musician friend who also uses Sweetwater for gear bought this so I was intrigued and decided to try it myself. The gear review and videos on Sweetwater are very informative. Once order was placed the pedal made it to my front door in 3 days which was impressive with the Covid pandemic slowing shipping, It came well packed and undamaged with the bag of candy, a sticker, a flyer, and itemized bill. Instructions on how to return it if needed. I won't be returning this awesome pedal.This one will be on my board a long time, Use just the overdrive, or just the boost, or the boost and overdrive together, That's 3 pedals in one,

I really enjoy this pedal. The AT offers great tones with searing leads. The variable switch is super effective in offering headroom options. I like using the 25w position (top) for late night playing and the 50w (bottom) for a good rhythm and lead tone when I play louder. The 100w setting (middle) is great too, of course, and is Andy Timmons' preferred setting I believe. I think the boost is a nice feature too, it does add some gain to the lead tones that helps with sustain. It does not act as a clean boost after the overdrive, which would increase volume, but more like a clean boost before the overdrive, which increases the sustain/overdrive saturation with minimal volume changes. Anyway, I love the look of this Sweetwater exclusive paint job; I highly recommend this JHS pedal!

Absolutely great sound. Very versatile for both my rhythm and lead sound!
Wish I got this earlier HAHA

Spent a few days with this beast of a pedal. I wanted to give it sometime before i did a review.
Right off the bat, this pedal blew me away. I thought that by not having a full 3 band EQ, it would not be impressive.
I was wrong. So many options to chose from. Three way toggle for different headroom preferences. 25, 50 and 100w choices. 100w setting has the most headroom, my favorite is the 50w setting where it's not too compressed, where the 25w setting is the most compressed.
The on board boost is nothing to frown at either! It's great with the drive or can be used as a stand alone boost.

Gotta give a huge shout out to my man AJ Becerra!! AJ is such a huge part of our enjoyable experience every time we make a purchase From Sweetwater!
Ask for AJ and he'll treat you like Family!

Aloha!

I have had the same plexi style pedal on my board for almost a decade and always thought it sounded pretty good. Then I bought the JHS AT+. All I can say is I am blown away by how open this pedal is. Loads of great harmonics that I never got out of my old pedal and the air control really lets you dial in your tone.

Warm sound , super sustain and still maintain clarity.
Recommend for everybody , not only Andy Timmons fans.

WoW! This JHS pedal is exceptional. Everything I've read and heard said about the pedal before buying is exactly on the money! The pedal has a broad-ranging sweet spot of Marshall like driven tone and crunch that has warmth but searing tones. I can dial in a multitude of driven tones with Strats or PRS guitars with just this box, amazing. I starting using it as a versatile all in one practice overdrive for my BOSS pedal, but it is just too good for that. It is going to my main pedalboard right next to the Ts808. One of the best features is the added Boost switch which can be applied to boost any other effects currently engaged, even if the JHS drive switch next to it is not engaged. You cannot go wrong with this pedal. Sweet stuff!
AR

Over the past 35 years, I have owned more than 100 distortion/overdrive pedals, ranging in price from $45.00 to $450.00. No joke, the JHS AT Drive is the best sounding and most powerful I have ever owned. I use the pedal through a Fender 65 Twin Reverb Reissue, with 2 replacement 1250 Eminence Speakers. The sound I get with a 2011 Am. Strat (Super Distortion Hum-bucker) is full, powerful and either smooth or biting depending on where I have the Wattage toogle. With very little effort, I was able to nail the exact tone on Andy Timmons True Fire Lesson (The Melodic Muse). Amazing pedal at a discounted price and limited ed. black and red coloring.

The sound is in the middle for overdrive pedals -- it's more than transparent, but less than metal. It matches all my amp settings, whether it's a Fender Twin, Dumble, or Marshall. My tube amp overdrive already has a compressor. I layer in the @ pedal in front of my amp overdrive so I can get the overdrive sound I want at any volume. I like the matrix approach of 25W, 50W, or 100 W with either a 9V or 18V power-supply. So this pedal gives six different operating points with varying headroom, where 25W at 9V is the least headroom, and 100W at 18V is the most headroom -- which I typically use on stage. The boost is a plus for maintaining the right volume. I have no problem with noise because I use a 1spot (isolated) power supply. I give the pedal a 5-rating considering the price at $220 (in 2019). The sound quality is very good. There are better OD pedals our there for more money.

In short, I can plug this pedal into any amp and get a great tone without having to worry about having "my rig" in the house. This pedal was clearly well thought out and built for that purpose. Blues to hard rock, single coil, humbucker, P90, whatever you play will sound better through the AT+!

The only overdriven tone I ever like is the tone of an overdriven amp...all other overdrive / distortion pedals seem thin and lack balls...except this one! This delivers great tone all the way from crunch through full overdrive and the boost pedals gives me exactly what I need for solos. Since buying this pedal I have become a big Andy Timmons fan and feel like I've been living under a rock listening to Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani when I would have benefited from listening to Andy all these years!

As always the service from Nick Beach at Sweetwater was phenomenal. He sets the standard for customer service with emails and phone calls to confirm the order followed by emails and phone calls following delivery to ensure I am happy with my purchases. Thanks very much Nick!

My wife asks for a Christmas list so I have been looking for a new overdrive pedal and I gave a list of several. She called AJ my Sweetwater engineer and ask for his input. Knowing the type of music I play he suggested the AT+. I have to say, perfect recommendation. This pedal sounds amazing through my Fender Super Reverb amp. The boost feature by itself adds a slight amount of gain and depth that is very musical. The overdrive portion can go from subtle to raging yet all very usable tones.

I can get Andy Timmons' tone but I found many other settings that I like even more. The toggle switch that allows you to go from various simulated amp watts provides a wide array of tones. Using single coil, humbucker and even P90's I was able to find great tones for each guitar by adjusting the toggle.

Great sounding pedal. And as always, incredible customer service from Sweetwater.

Title says it all, the AT V2 is the best distortion pedal I have ever owned, period. The boost is perfectly voiced, the eq and air knobs are extremely interactive and allow superb tone sculpting. The pedal is amazingly quiet, even with the gain cranked and boost turned on. The mids are perfectly voiced, giving a slight bump that helps cut through the mix - but without sounding like a bad AM radio or a cocked-wah. The base tone sounds great, and the boost thickens it up nicely for solos and heavier sounds. This pedal also saves me space with the integrated boost, I no longer need a separate overdrive for boosting. Great job JHS. If this thing breaks (I have no reason to think it will) I have already decided I will get it fixed or just buy another one. The pedal is very sturdy, and the pots and switches feel great. I also love the black finish with red accents. This is a great pedal, and in my opinion worth every penny I paid for it.

I paired this with my JHS Morning Glory to expand my overdrive options and it sits perfectly in my signal chain. Awesome high gain saturation, tons of flexibility and response, and the added boost is exactly what I was looking for. I dont use high gain much, but when I do need it this thing delivers! Works great with LP, Tele, Gretsch, and everything else I've thrown at it! Only reason I didnt give it 5/5 is because the footswitches are a touch close together for my taste, but that's obviously a result of the enclosure size.

I put it in front of my Blackstar HT Club 50 and compare the amp distortion with the AT+, it is the same feel very close to the tube sound of the preamp distortion, the mids are not like distortions type Boss DS-1, it is a distortion with more mids that gives clarity to the solos.

I've been through a few distortion pedals and combos - amp gain plus overdrive man I feel like I've tried it all. For me and my guitars and amp (Ibanez Jem/J Custom + Orange Crush) this is perfect. Give it a shot! Distortion is a huge personal preference but this pedal is for sure worth a try. The only reason for 4.5 stars is I wish the buttons were the silent type.

This is a great sounding pedal. I own the old version of angry Charlie and love it. I think the AT has little more clarity in the sound and more definition. The boost it does help good and makes the pedal even more useful. Anyway I"m happy to own two pedals by JHS.

Definitely a "Marshall in a box" pedal in my view. Very touch sensitive, dirties up as you dig in. You have to fight the pedal somewhat, sort of like when you string a Les Paul with 11's, the more you fight the better it sounds. Making it sound "angry!" Boost is a plus. Not as open or transparent as say a Fulltone OCD and definitely better through really clean amps like a Fender Twin vs through the "clean" of a Marshall. It's a keeper, just know that it has a specific place.

Impressively 'mimics' the headroom of a variable watt tube amp. I am pleasantly surprised, I thought I would be disappointed and I am not. Using it to 'push' a riverside into an Iridium straight into P.A.. Doesn't become 'grainy', thin, or overwhelming. Great job JHS and as always - Evan at Sweetwater and customer service is Top Notch!

This pedal is very FAT sounding! Its also fairly dark but the controls let you dial it in easy. Tone is juicy and big, great for leads and power chords, very Marshally but with a Mesa like fat low mid frequency, so don't expect it to do a proper brown sound type tone because its very fat. Notes sustain and sing well, higher notes retain fatness and the boost is great. Toggle switch adds girth, compression and headroom. The only thing I don't like is that complex chords can get muddy and when lowering the volume knob on the guitar the pedal simply gets darker and non musically dynamic. Also there is a weight to the notes on the wound strings that creates a sort of punchy effect, great for single note and diad or triad chord playing, but faster linear lead lines sort of blur or lag a bit. This pedal does Andy's tone very well, but its almost so close to his tone it makes you want to play his music more than your own. I bought this to use as a lead tone on my clean amp pedal board, so I will keep it on there for now. It also does a good Eric Johnson Shawn Lane sort of tone as well.

Well, I got this to compare with my AT+clone from d/fx. The d/fx one sounds so good I thought that the JHS one must sound much better and with the price being four times as much it has to be a night and day difference. This was by far the most I have ever payed for a pedal in the 30+ years of playing. This was also my first JHS pedal. The JHS pedal is a very well made unit. So as for the sound between them you can tell they are going for the same thing. But I do clearly notice the JHS one has a darker more muddy sound than the d/fx one. The d/fx pedal has a more glassy tube feel with more definition with notes and chords. I ran the JHS one at 9-18volts which does give it a little different feel and sound but I still could not shake the mud and fuzziness of it. The boosts as a stand alone are a little different also. The JHS one again is a little more dark. I don't want to knock the JHS pedal as it was the pedal the other one was cloned from but you can clearly hear they did something different in it. I have to go with what I hear and like to hear.

The pedal sounds nice. It took me some time to get the sound I want. It's just very noisy. Forget about turning the boost pass 12 o'clock, it's just feedback all over the place. The only guitar I can use this pedal with, is my Strat with the noiseless pick ups, and it sounds awesome with it. But, when I use my Les Paul, or any of my other guitars, I still prefer my old Wampler Plextortion.