HC Newsletter

User Reviews Details

Currently Being Moderated

CJOD (Clay Jones OverDrive)

  • Features:
  • Sound Quality:
  • Reliability/Durability:
  • Ease of Use:
  • Customer Support:
  • Overall Rating:
  • Brand:
    Clay Jones
  • Model:
    CJOD (Clay Jones OverDrive)
Tags: tax#aqb brand#clayjones

Reviews

Items per page
Reviewer Background:
Purchased From:
Iunno... I don't even have one. What an odd request/question.
Price:
Features:
Sound Quality:
I don't actually own this pedal... Furthermore, I've never played this pedal, let alone been within several hundred miles of one :) I've never heard a clip of one. All that said, it MUST sound great because they're like $1000+ (up to $2000)!!! I LOVE the "sound" of this pedal! WAWAWEEWA!!! Clay Jones for president, Clay Jones for president! Make me a pedal, Dr.Jones! This pedal LOVES *ALL* of my amps- especially my special amps! Clay Jones. I use this with a (not)*REAL* '59 burst and the first stratocaster EVER (not) made! Pickups in the guitar are special wound Seymour Duncan's that were special wound by Seymour Duncan for all this special gear. I'm rich, kind of, you see. I think it's an amazing pedal. Clay Jones. This pedal has haunting mids, sustains for days, nails the ever so elusive "brown sound", nails that "D*mble" sound, and the whole damn enchilada. It also is Robben Ford's & Larry Carlton's go to pedal. I'm just kidding about that. I just wanted to see how you'd react. Ceiling cat is watching you! hi. Ummm... What else? Did I mention how good this pedal sounds?!  Clay Jones, please. I LOVE this pedal.
Reliability/Durability:
This pedal is VERY well built and VERY reliable! I've not gigged one on and off ever since it came out, and I gotta say... my hats off to Clay Jones. Clay Jones. I actually drive a National 18-wheeler and I tried running over the pedal to see whether it was worth the 10 I was originally gonna give it or not, and sure enough... it's worth it, no doubt! It survived an 18-wheeler running over it. How many boutique OD's do you know that can do that? besides the CJOD. Clay Jones. This pedal is AWSOMELY reliable. You should buy one.
Ease of Use:
It's fairly easy to use. I can use it. I've never used it, but I could. Clay Jones.
Customer Support:
Clay is a GREAT guy, and while I've never spoken with him, I feel strongly about his GREAT customer service. It's just fan-didly-tastic! Wow. Clay Jones. Clay Jones. Clay actually was very nice and hospitable. I stopped by his place to try out the pedal before I bought it use off him and he offered me some peach juice, beer, milk, bbq pickles, the whole shebang! wow. What a GREAT individual! I wish I had actually met him, though.
Overall Rating:
Well, what can I say... I've been playing about 1 1/2-35 years, and this is BY FAR (read: EXPONENTIALLY!!!) the best darn-didly-arned pedal I've *EVER* owned. Like omg. Seriously. Like cha. Like. Like dur. You *ALL* have to get one!!! I'm kinda' really rich... the investor type, so I know what I'm talking about. please, for the sake of my unborn children, buy every CJOD you see and FLIP it! I LOVE this pedal. You're probably not as rich as I am, but chances are that you are, so I'd advise that you get one of these pedals, otherwise you just won't be taken seriously. Cheerio old chaps (and chapettes!- mainly chapettes ;)) 10'S ACROSS THE BOARD!!!! madness, man! madness.
0 Comments Tags: tax#aqb brand#clayjones

CJOD (Clay Jones OverDrive)

Review By:
Donnx
Donnx on 3/17/08 1:00 AM
Reviewer Background:
Purchased From:
Price:
Features:
Sound Quality:
One of the best.  I sold my landgraff OD to have this instead on my pedal board.    Never kept my KOT, fulltone pedals, KLON, TS08..but I am keeping this.   The tone is very sweet and musical.   And the dynamics are better than or good as a tubescreamer.   Cleans up really nice to get that Hendrix tone... I think its one of the best overdrives ever built.
Reliability/Durability:
Never had any issues yet.
Ease of Use:
Really easy to use.  Nothing complicated..  Three knobs like a typical overdrive pedal.   Gain, Tone, Volume.
Customer Support:
Don't know who Clay jones is.. Maybe he doesn't exist.  All I know is someone trade this pedal for my original Tycobrahe octavia and $900 cash.   It was a good trade.  
Overall Rating:
Like I said, if you get a chance to own one get it...I am a strat clean amp player.   I don't do the humbucker thing or marshalls.   I get my dirt from pedals and clean amps overdriven.  Carrs. DR. z etc. Fender super reverb...
0 Comments Tags: tax#aqb brand#clayjones

CJOD (Clay Jones OverDrive)

Review By:
sklein
sklein on 1/24/08 1:00 AM
Reviewer Background:
Purchased From:
Price:
Features:
Sound Quality:
How does it sound.  Well, the most direct way to express its quality is to tell you that after obtaining this pedal I sold my 1981 TS808, my low serial-number Klon Gold Centaur and my Landgraff DO.  They are all fine at what they do.  This pedal is better.  One way to describe the difference is that the other pedals respond and feel like, well, like pedals.  The Clay Jones, by contrast, responds and feels more like an amp.  I'm sure that description makes little sense; you just have to try one to appreciate the difference it makes.
Reliability/Durability:
Had it one month.  Still works.
Ease of Use:
Very simple to use.  If you can master a TS808 or Landgraff, you can handle a Clay Jones.  Has three unlabeled knobs -- volume, tone, and gain.
Customer Support:
Don't know -- have had no need (and from what I have read, fortunate to not have to track down the maker).
Overall Rating:
A rating of 10 means fantastic value. Well, it is "fantastic"; but the "value" part of this criterion is a tough one.  These pedals, when available (there are only @ 50), go for stupid money.  So, before you purchase, you need to really be sure it does the job, and does it better than the competition. I came to the conclusion that it was worth the cost (which I easily recouped on the sale of my other three overdrive pedals).  So, for me, at least, it is a 10.
0 Comments Tags: tax#aqb brand#clayjones

CJOD (Clay Jones OverDrive)

Review By:
DFS44
DFS44 on 10/16/07 1:00 AM
Reviewer Background:
Purchased From:
Price:
$450.00 USD
Features:
Sound Quality:
I've tried this pedal with both vintage and newer guitars, primarily Les Pauls, Strats and Teles...I will say that these guitars are really good pieces, and they have taken me decades to vet/acquire.  I play through vintage and vintage-style amps (Fenders, Marshalls, Voxes, Matchless, Komet).  I found the CJOD to sound best at higher drive settings, into Vox style amps - at higher gain settings, the notes had a nice bloom to them, but I found it to be voiced similarly to the Landgraff DO (though much brighter and harder edged than the LDO).  Most of the lower gain sounds were just painful to my ears.  Frankly, I was a bit underwhelmed given the almost mythical status of this pedal.  I found better high gain tones in other pedals (to my ears), and again, I didn't care for the lower gain settings of the CJOD at all. 
Reliability/Durability:
The reliability is decent, though it is apparently unrepairable if it were to break.  The entire circuit it encapsulated in hard black epoxy (it looks like someone dropped a deuce on the circuit).  I guess there's a fair chance you'd be SOL if it were to break - from what I gather, the manufacturer is a great guy but a bit cranky - I hear he has a bad taste in his mouth over these pedals. 
Ease of Use:
The pedal/effect under review is the Clay Jones OverDrive, widely known as the CJOD.  No manual was supplied with the pedal, though it is quite simple to use.  It has three unmarked knobs: (1) gain/drive level, (2) tone, (3) volume.  It's relatively easy to dial in the drive and volume knobs, but I found the tone knob to be very trebly with all of my amps, so the useful range was only about the lower 20% of the tone knob rotation. 
Customer Support:
No idea - see above.  I gather that the builder has bad juju over these pedals.  I'd hate to ask him to repair one (especially if you are not an original owner). 
Overall Rating:
In summary, I was very underwhelmed - this was a decent overdrive, but I have many others that I preferred for *my* preferences for tone.  I paid too much money for it, and yet (to my surprise) I still sold it for a profit.  The mythical status of this pedal is a bit ridiculous - it's a friggin' pedal fer chrissakes....it's not going to make a huge difference in your tonal chain.  Buy any one of the reasonably-priced great boutique OD pedals available today, and invest a few hours learning some new licks or writing a new song - you will be far better off than spending a boatload of $ on a used CJOD. 
0 Comments Tags: tax#aqb brand#clayjones

Comments (0)

Comments (0)

There are no comments on this user review.

Actions

More Like This

  • Retrieving data ...
%s1 / %s2