Joyo Ultimate Drive OCD Guitar Effects Pedal Buffer Bypass Jf-02 OverDrive Distortion

This pedal (for those who do not know) was the basis for a company in the US buying a job lot, painting over the casing, changing some components totalling about £2.00 and 30 mins work tops, and charging about £150 for a 'boutique' pedal. the result caused uproar in the Boutique FX market to the point of forum bans etc. The changes they made however made sense and are worth carrying out (which will be explained later on).

The pedal itself is based on the Fulltone OCD pedal which is one of the better pedals on the market right now. I've never played an OCD so don't know how it sounds, however what I can compare it to is a Tubescreamer type of pedal. That's more appropriate as you would probably be buying this pedal as your main OD or main boost pedal and would have to make a decision against the TS pedals out there.

The pots are touchy and it is tough to dial into the sweet spot on the pedal quickly. The 'track' of the pots are not too great either but is helped with resistor changes to each pot as per the 'Alpha Mods'. There is a High Pass/Low Pass switch that does what you expect. The gain pot does nothing past 12 o'clock, however there is so much gain in this pedal that you generally won't need to head that far up. The tone is very wide and this means it is easy to match it to your overall amp tone, or just create a whole new sound. There is also a lot of volume which pleased me as I would rather have too much volume than not enough.

Compared to a standard TS pedal (such as the Vintage Overdrive) there is less mids (almost scooped), lots more volume and lots more gain. I would recommend this pedal wholeheartedly even if you own more expensive equipment. This currently stays on my board alongside a Jekyll and Hyde V2 as my 'hard rock' sound for when I need extra grunt and it does the job admirably.

If you only buy one pedal regardless of how much money you have then buy this. It fooled an entire boutique effects community, and those of us that have already bought this pedal know exactly why!

NOTE : there have been tons of words written about modding this pedal. It sounds great out of the box, but found that making the 'Alpha Mods' changes made this pedal even better. The only difference is by soldering a 10k resistor across the Tone knob rather than the suggested resistor you keep the tone pot in check without introducing an analog blanket.

For the money this is top banana.
Read lots and lots of reviews before taking the plunge. The pedal looks a bit naff & tacky , but I can live with that , that aside, this pedal delivers. I will be looking to get additional Joyo pedals and see if they live up to this little beauty .

Apart from the horrid graphics, this is a great sounding pedal, more bite than an overdrive but very very smooth, think tube screamer but more bass and smoothed out harshness.

The tone control is very sensitive and the hi/lo filter switch is a little hard to operate due to the layout of the pots.

THIS PEDAL SOUNDS BETTER WITH A 9V POWER CABLE. When I tried it with the supplied battery the sound was dull and unresponsive, very muddy, as soon as i plugged it it to my powerboard removing the battery the whole range of the tone came through and I am very impressed with the sound.

Very transparent and volume roll off on the guitar can achieve brilliant hendrix style blues feel, winding the volume back up for solos.

After trying against a t-rex mudhoney, various boss overdrives and an mxr 78 distortion this is the clearest of all and sounds very natural.

You can't really go wrong for the price....