Are Freekish Blues Alpha Drive pedals just repainted + gooped Joyo pedals? 17th June 2011

This is really quite amazing. Why you should always look inside the box, and if it's gooped, be wary.

Is this how the JOYO Ultimate Drive became the Freekish Blues Alpha Drive*?


UPDATE 18/08/2011 -
REDACTED CONTENT

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Update 7th July 2011

So much has happened since! First TGP temporarily banned everyone who mentioned the whole controversy, accusing them of trolling. So everyone bundled into the Harmony Central thread here. Then, after consulting their lawyers, TGP changed their rules to allow people to post what the hell they liked, providing posters took personal responsibility and inserted a few weasel words like 'allegedly' and 'in my opinion'. So this happened- finally! However it wasn't to be. By now all the folks on TGP allegedly taken-in by Freekish got angry and started baying for the blood of the pedal maker and for the endorsee of the pedal, Thaddeus Hogarth, to comment on the fiasco. So the TGP moderators locked the threads in the hope they'd drop off the internet.

Trebor Renkluaf on TGP produced some beautiful side-by-side shots of these two pedals:
http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=920939

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Update 26th July 2011

I got my Joyo Ultimate Drive a few days ago. The board construction is really neat. I like the board-mounted Alpha pots. The external construction wasn't so hot though: the nut on one pot was at a funny angle and had been jammed-on, and they clearly don't know to put the lock washer INSIDE the box!
I added a 4PDT switch to swap between the stock and modified state. The mod just neuters the effect - reducing the range of the pots so the pedal stays firmly in m@j@ overdrive territory rather than the brash extremes possible in stock mode.



The pedal isn't strictly true bypass. It seems to be a version of Millenium Bypass, but implemented wrongly so no signal is passed in bypass with the power off.

Oh yeah, it sounds really good. I'm not really into 'amp in a box' pedals, but it does sound good. As good, easily, as a Box of Rock.

I banged-together a quick diagram in DIY Layout Creator. I stuck the resistors on the switch lugs and insulated with heatshrink. You can use tape or whatever. The only slightly tricky thing about this easy mod is the removal of C9 from your Joyo board. Careful not to overheat the thing or you end-up with ugly scorch marks like you get in a 'real' Alpha Drive*.



*All product names used herein are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no way associated or affiliated with myself. These trademarks of other manufacturers are used solely to identify the products of those manufacturers whose tones and sounds can be achieved with this pedal.