Harley Benton California TrueTone

Be prepared to be surprised ! The HB California TrueTone pedal is superb in every way. Great value for money (c'mon, you could pay more for a T-shirt !!!), solid construction, looks cool, nice positive action on the control knobs including the footswitch, not too loose, not too tight. Possibly the best ¤30 I've ever spent on a piece of kit.

And the sound ? Well, I absolutely love it. Nice clean and clear at one end of the range right through to raw and very crunchy at the other without any unpleasant noises up to the moment when you have everyhing turned up to 10 when it really starts to break up, but hey, what would you expect from any pedal at those settings.

I use this pedal mostly through a small amp with the amp EQ set to 0 and effects set to 0 also except when I want a bit of reverb or delay. My personal favourite settings on the pedal have the low EQ at around 5, mids at 4, high around 6 for that scooped sound and then the level at 6, voice at 7 and gain anywhere from 4-7 depending on how much crunchiness I need. Each to their own, you'll find a setting on the California to suit almost every taste I can think of (maybe not if you're a classic jazz afficionado though !).

Is there anything I don't like about it ? Eh, no. If I could afford to I'd buy one of these as a present for every guitarist I know because I think they'd all find something good in it that would suit their personal sound pallet.

This purchase was a real eye-opener for me as I wasn't expecting it to be quite as good as it is despite having read and watched numerous reviews, thank you Thomann. Thank you for giving me access to that fantastic rockin' Anglo-Americana sound that I love in a neat little box that's a genuine pleasure to use almost daily.

Do I reccommened you get one ? Yes, indeed I do, you won't regret forking out ¤30 for something that is effectively giving you so much range and scope in your sound all in one box.

***Handling***
The Handling is fairly easy. You can either use this device as a normal overdrive or distortion pedal in front of your amp, plug it in directly to your Power Amp Section as a Preamp or you can also send the signal directly into a PA mixing board, since it emulates a guitar speaker.

***Features***
Six knobs: Low, Mid, High, Level, Voice and Drive. Input / Output and a connection for a power adaptor.

The Voice knob is the really interesting feature. It controls the shape of the mid frequencies. The more you dial in, the thicker the sound will get, ranging from early Mk II Sound to the super thick Hi Gain Sound of the latest Rectifier series.

***Sound***
This device is supposed to emulate guitar amps that are build in Petluma, California. And it does! I did an A / B comparison with a Dual Rectifier and it comes close, very close.

Like with the original amps, be careful with the amount of Bass you dial in. This pedal has LOTS of it.

The integrated speaker emulation cannot be turned off, although that is not a big deal, since you can compensate that with adding more High Frequencies.

When you dial in full Drive and full voice, it makes a very strange humming sound.
But in reality this is never a problem, because the pedal have tons of gain reserve, you actually do not need to turn it all the way up.

Therefore I tend to presume it's the Chinese sound for: Warning! Too much distortion.

***Quality***
From the outside this thing is built like a tank. The knobs are very easy to move, some will find it a bit too easy. The on/off switch is indeed positioned a bit close to the knobs, but that is no problem because it is elevated and you will not touch the knobs with your foot.

The only thing that is to criticize about this pedal is the battery compartment. The battery is to be clamped directly under the PCB circuit board. And that can't be a good thing.

I got this pedal for use while busking and on the studio.

It has great tones and is very versatile, specially when you use the voice knob. You can go from crystal cleans to full on metal.

It's very solid and feels like it can take a beating. I thought it was going to be made of plastic but it's aluminium, which is a nice surprise. The knobs feel solid too but the footswitch looks like it's cheap and might need replacing one day.

The eq is very sensitive so you don't need to move it much to get the changes in the sound that you need. If you use the super high gain settings it can get really noisy.

Even though the pedal has a simulated speaker output, you may want to try using it along with a cab impulse response while recording directly to your interface. The sound of the pedal is bright enought that you can get away with it and it just sounds su much better.

I completey recommend this pedal and I would like to get the other models to have all the sounds available.

As I put in another review, of the British version of this pedal - it amazes me how one pedal can perform pretty much like a full amp nowadays. This won't give you the headroom of certain California amps and it won't give you all the nuances - but then again, it doesn't cost a few thousand pounds and you can get an approximation of the sound in the comfort of your own living room. Without being served with a noise abatement order. 'Santana On A Stick' is how I'd describe this. One of the super-talented musicians who you can identify from just one note - this pedal will *not* make you super-talented, but by gum you'll get a lot closer to having the amp tone of the dude. For the price? Tremendous. For stadium gigs? Get yourself the real deal. For home and pub use? Save yourself the cost of a small car and buy this pedal. It's not noisy and it'll make your guitar sing. Amen.

In the past few years after getting into pedals again and to have fun during lockdown i have bought, played, and sold over 100 pedals, most of them boutique. I have also bought some cheap chinese pedals but most of them have let me down. This series of pedals however, are not only good as cheap pedals they are just great pedals. Just figure out how to properly set them up. The California has way huge amounts of bass, if you want a classic tone just dial the bass almost all the way off. Also, make sure to have a good isolated power supply and if you get noise switch up the order of pedals and it should solve it.