Joyo Ultimate Drive vs Fulltone OCD
Joyo Ultimate Drive verses the Fulltone OCD.
Joyo has built a name for themselves by building guitar pedals that are not only affordable, but bear a striking resemblance in both physical layout and tone to many higher priced and/or boutique guitar pedals. So close in fact that Joyo could almost be called a knock off or clone.
It's one thing however to simply say they sound alike, but what's the truth when you play them side by side? To find out I picked up the Joyo Ulitimate Drive and did a head to head shootout against my trusty Fulltone OCD.
My first impression.
First of all, the Joyo is both slightly larger in size and lighter in weight than the OCD. The Joyo is built of a firm plastic, whereas the OCD is built with a metal chassis. The three knobs are larger and turn with much less resistance on the Ultimate Drive. Obviously it's all about player preference, but this can definitely be a deal breaker for some guitar players. The free flowing knobs of the Joyo make adjustments simple, especially if you're a player who likes to make adjustments with your feet on stage. However if you're player that prefers knobs to stick to avoid the risk of accidentally bumping and changing sounds, the OCD is probably the better fit. Again, it's all player preference.
Both pedals run off 9 volt batteries or your standard Boss type adapter. The Joyo has the adapter input at the top of pedal, with a simple plastic battery compartment cover on the back of the pedal. The OCD on the other hand has the adapter input on the side of the pedal, underneath theť jack, and the battery compartment requires removing the baseplate with a screwdriver to gain access to. Neither is really a deal breaker, but when it comes to powering these pedals, they have vastly different layouts.
How do they Sound?
From the sound clips in my video, it can easily be understood why people call the Ultimate Drive a clone or a copy of the OCD. It's almost spot on. Or at least upon first listen it appears to be spot on. However when you get down to the finer details, that’s when you start to see the differences between these two guitar pedals.
To start with, the volume knob is where these two pedals have the most in common. Turned all the way up, or at unity gain, the pedals seem to be about equal. That’s really about it.
The tone knob and its sweep range are where I noticed the biggest difference between the two pedals. Although they can easily be dialed in to achieve the same sort of sonic results, the Ultimate Drive has more focus throughout the sweep in the low end and midrange verses the OCD which has a wider frequency sweep. As a player when I'm dialing in my settings, I find the sweet spot to usually be around noon, which is where I'm used to setting it on the OCD, however the Joyo achieves that same middle of the road setting cranked to about 2 o'clock. Now that doesn't imply that the Joyo sweep is bad in any way, just that the OCD has a much brighter tone sweep in the upper register, which can be good or bad depending on your tone preferences. Personally I find most pedals to be an icepick to the ear when cranking tone beyond their sweep spot, not to mention they’re not really very musical beyond that point, so really it's a non-issue between the two pedals.
The Gain or Drive knob also varies between the two pedals, not as much as the tone, but in very distinct and equal ways. With the Joyo, the pedal has a much more pronounced compressed gain throughout the entire sweep. This is probably the one place my demo video where you can hear the biggest difference. You can clearly hear it on the lower gain settings later on in the video. The Fulltone OCD acts more like a very transparent clean boost or mild drive pedal with the gain set lower than 1 o'clock, however beyond that the compression kicks in and the OCD starts to border on more of Metal type drive pedal. The Joyo seems to have the compressed gain sound from zero to ten. So in that sense the Joyo really isn't capable of the OCD's finer settings.
Which is better?
If you're reading this you're probably in the market for one or the other, and are wondering if it's really worth spending the extra money on the OCD, or if you can get by with the Ultimate Drive instead. Obviously it's a big price difference, given that you can buy about four Joyo's for the price of one OCD. And after listening to the clips in the video, even I would be hard pressed to say there is that much of a difference to justify spending the extra money on the Fulltone OCD.
As a player, I still like the Fulltone OCD better. Although they may SOUND the same, they definitely have some mild player differences. The OCD simply feels more open and does not compress the attack of the notes as much. Also the lower gain settings are much more open and it has the feel of the gain boost rather than a distortion pedal. With the OCD I feel like I am getting more of the raw guitar coming through in the sound, rather than an effect with the Joyo.
Truthfully though, I'm just knit picking. The Joyo Ultimate Drive really is a great pedal is hand down the most accurate clone you’ll find for the Fulltone OCD.
I hope you found this little write up helpful.
