Joyo Ultimate Drive Review
Okay so I picked up this pedal on a whim, as it was less than £30 and it has been getting so many amazing reviews and curiosity got the better of me...and wow I am so glad it is. Simply put this is fantastic overdrive pedal, it is supposed to be a Fulltone OCD clone, now I have owned an OCD and it was perhaps the one pedal I have had that I thought was overpriced and I didn't like the sound of at all. It got sold! I found it rather abrasive and had quite a harsh tone to it (seemingly square waveform, but not it a rich harmonic distortion kind of way)....anyway! The Joyo, so I got my hands on the Joyo Tremolo and as you can see I was well impressed, so I knew the quality of this pedal would be good. Having said that I found that the knobs on the tremolo were of better quality than those on the Ultimate Drive. Having said that, they are reasonably robust if somewhat plastically. But hey it is £30 and to be honest I will generally tape them down when in position.So most importantly....how does it sound! Well, I have only had a little play, and one rehearsal....and wow! I really was so impressed, the overdrive is harmonically rich and full bodied. There is lots and lots of gain on tap, and the tone control is very responsive. As this is only a quick review and a full video review will come very soon! What I can say is that running the pedal into the clean channel of my Blackstar Ht-20, with the gain around 9 , level around 12 and tone around 1, it instantly gave me a great crunch overdriven sound with lots of body to the sound. I then moved over to the OD channel (with the gain again set around 9 on the amp as well, giving another amp sounding overdrive), hitting on the pedal and there was a great harmonically rich lead tone on the edge of distortion.Turning the gain up on the pedal on the clean channel gives a nice overdriven verging on distortion sound.This really is a great pedal for the price, the casing is great and robust...time will tell, but I am impressed!!Video Review will becoming very soon.EnjoyPeaceNeil