Harley Benton Ultimate Drive Reviews

Too much gain for my taste

To me it doesn't sound anything like an overdrive pedal, it is much closer to a distortion sound.

Too much gain wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the controls are too sensitive and reaching the "sweet spot" for a high gain sound was very difficult in my experience.

The sound gets very dark as you turn the gain up and it's not easy to compensate for it with a tone knob the only affects the highs without cutting the lows

Simply great

This overdrive pedal is really great, especially for the price.

I use it as my main lead sound, in conjunction with lower-gain drives. It really works nice with rolling your volume knob on your guitar.

It has loads of gain even on lower gain settings, at least for my use. It does everything from lower gain Blues, to hard Rock and everything between.

I also run it at 18v, without any issues or signs of being burn. So if you have spare 18v output on your power supply, stick it there and see for yourself. In my opinion it sounds little bit fuller and bigger than on the 9v.

Better than I hoped it would be

This pedal is cheap, but that doesn’t mean the sound is. I’ve used this pedal just to tighten up my sound and add a small amount of break up with the Gain right down low. Also, I’ve used it to give a thick distortion with gain cranked up. I don’t find the high/low gain switch makes too much difference. The Tone sweep is wide. The pedal can be very bass-y, but adjusting the Tone can sort that out.

Is it the best pedal I’ve ever bought? Definitely not, but some pedals on my board cost nearly 10 times more. I’d recommend that everyone should try one of these.

Good for bright pickups

Summary: It adds a lot of low-end (bass tones) to your guitar signal, and it can get really noisy. However, it seems to go well with single-coil pickups (at least much better than humbuckers).

I wanted to have a pedal in front of my amp that has overdrive/distortion characteristics, specifically to use with humbucker pickups. Since this is a cheap option, and it has relatively good reviews, I wanted to give it a try.

First of all, Low/High switch doesn't change too much if you are connected to a cranked amp.

The pedal is quite noisy (both with clean and cranked amps), especially if the gain and level knobs are beyond 12 o'clock.

The worst part for me is that it adds a lot of low frequencies to your guitar signal i.e., it adds lots of bass tones.

When I tried it with humbucker pickups into a Marshall DSL, due to the nature of humbuckers, the bass response was awful such that I couldn't even tune it with the EQ of my amp.

Then, I tried it with my telecaster (single-coil pickups) into my Fender Twin. I liked that sound since it added a bass response on top of the brightness of my tele. However, I didn't plan to add a pedal to my 'clean' rig. So I returned the item.

Great budget pedal

Bought this pedal to tighten up my sound a little bit, and it does the job pretty well.

A great pedal for a very friendly price. Just as expected: nothing fancy, basic overdrive.

I use it mainly with the gain way down, almost zero, the tone around noon, and the level almost all the way up. Sounds great with the high-low switch in either position. If I raise the gain to about 8 o'clock it gets pretty noisy, but I expected it with single coil pickups. No problem with humbuckers, tho.

Sturdy construction, not likely to break any time soon. I use it with a battery, and it seems to last pretty long. One month, and still running on the first one I put in.

I highly recommend it, and not only because of the price.

Mixed feelings

I think this is a fairly sound and useful product with a few flaws that kind of serve to limit its versatility.

Starting with the pros: sturdy metal casing with a good weight, all switches and dials are smooth and function properly. It is an effective boost/drive that on selected instruments and used in selective ways (very low gain settings, bright sounding guitars) can be most effective.

Cons: It has just one pretty major issue in that the tone gets overpoweringly

bassy as the gain is increased. This can only to some extent be sorted with basic eq controls. You can turn the pedal tone right up to compensate but it sounds horrible. Basically for giving the amp a boost and a tiny bit of gain it sounds pretty good, anything else is a matter of carefully chosing instrument and dialling away until you get a usable tone!

Great sound for my guitar and bass

I ordered this pedal to add some extra sound to my guitar and bass. I'm a beginner at both the guitar and bass but wanted the same sounds as some of my favorite songs have.

The pedal arrived on time and it was well packaged , no damage and even though I'm new to my instruments , I know how my favorite songs sound and I was able to get that sound with the HB Ultimate Drive. Nothing negative that I can think of

Good cheap alternative of an expensive pedal

Great to have an opportunity to play a copy of a great and expensive pedal, for that little as this one costs. Didn't try the original, but I am pretty happy with this one. I use it for a mild amp like overdrive on a clean amp, and it drives the sound the way I like. Unfortunately this effect can be obtained on a very short range of the Gain knob of this pedal.

The high gain sounds don't really impress me on this pedal, as I don't really like high gain at all, so I use it mostly with the Drive maximum to 10 o'clock.

I like that it is a buffered pedal, and using it as the first pedal in the signal chain, is really up to my liking.

I have it for many months now, and it keeps up very nice.

Less is More

I needed a pedal that could add some sugar in various scenarios. Different Instruments, pickups, pedal chains. And this has been great. For years.

Personally I think the sweet spot is at the lighter end of the low gain.

I have had eye wateringly good tones from a low Harley Benton Vintage Overdrive stacked into a low Harley Benton Ultimate Drive into Harley Benton Tube Combo with Reverb and Delay. I've used it successfully as the main beef on a octave up + 5th Bass split into a guitar amp, set-up.

I do think it could be easier to dial in, I sometimes feel like a safecracker on a shower thermostat, but that is the sacrifice for all the good stuff you are getting for the amazing price.

If and when you get one, I urge you to resist your human programming to instantly see how many wasps you can fit in the jar, (The answer is loads) and try to dial it in at the low end for the beauty. After all, Less is More.

Can't be beated at this price

For the price, this is an awesome overdrive pedal. Regardless of the price, it is still a great overdrive pedal.

The build quality (exterior) is as good as any other brand or pedals that cost 3x as much.

You can get some great sounding drive tones from this pedal. There are a lot of unusable tones too, mainly because of the vast tone knob range.

Here is my full review: https://youtu.be/bnItThijA5c

Great for the price

Have absolutely no complaints with this. The build is really solid and all the controls feel suitably robust and well fitted. The sound is great for crunch rhythm parts offering a warm overdriven sound which also works really well for bluesy parts and solos. This isn't going to work as well for metal or screaming rock solos but there are plenty of other options out there if that's what you want. I've been using it with a separate power source but the battery option is handy, however, I would be interested to get the same thing in a smaller footprint without the battery option to get the same functionality and leave a bit more space for other effects on the pedal board.

Pretty good

It's a very nice pedal it has a very nice sound it looks good and it has protective foam underneath so it damage/scratch the surface on where you will place it

Big sound, small price

Great sounding pedal! Provides surprisingly huge amounts of gain.

Tone control could be a little less dark according to my taste. Only after turning it beyond 12 o'clock the sounds start to be useable. Other than that the pedal performs way above my expectations.

Amazing value for your money

How can i say anything bad about this OD pedal? its fasntstic, and costs 30 quid?! It bafles me how good it sounds, I use it as a boost infront of the dirty channel to tighten things up, at home with a Idcore 20 from blackstar and at rehersal infront of the orange Crush 120 combo, if youre looking to get that extra sauration and tight tone for metal this thing has you covered, it really colours the tone the way i need it in front of both amps. And even in fron th of the clean channel, with the settings the same Gain at around 1,on the orange amp in particular, it gives you that beautiful blue's breakup on the signal for that really nice spanky sound.

all in all i absolutley love ths pedal

Good pedal for the price

Good pedal. Overdrive and distortion sounded clean but muffled

Best OCD clone out there

I use this pedal with my Vox AC 30 ,Gibson Les Paul and Fender US Stratocaster. The tone is incredible. Great transparency when rolling gain somewhat down. Works well with my Strat and LP but with different settings ofcourse. The pedal is kind of bass heavy so you have to deal with that. I like to push this pedal with a Harley Benton Vintage Overdrive for soloing. I really love that tone but a noise gate may come in handy.

Unbeattable clone for the price. It's a no-brainer. If you have any doubts, I highly recommend the various Youtube reviews of this pedal (or the joyo ones).

My "always on" pedal

This pedal is a fantastic clone of the OCD drive. You can go anywhere from a slight crunchy clean to all-out Distortion bordering on Fuzz. Rolling down the volume on my guitar is super effective and the pedal adapts to how hard I'm playing. This would be one of my desert island pedals. If I had 1 or 2 things bad to say about this pedal they would be this:

The low high switch only sounds good on the high setting and is way too muffled on low.

The tone knob below 12 o'clock is practically useless unless you're in Sunn O))).

Overall brilliant and would recommend for any styles of rock all the way up to hard rock/metal.

Very good pedal to start with

This ultimate drive pedal suggests to be the ultimate drive, however for me it is indeed the ultimate drive in combination with my Bugera G5 Infinium. For a very reasonable price you can get great tones on a 6 string, even with a Baritone 6 string with some low end sounds.

You cannot waste any money with buying this pedal if you are new to the use of distortion/overdrive pedals.

OCD clone but not only

We all know how close Chinese clones get from original pedals, or how better they can sometimes sound (hi, Mooer Blues Mood). This is supposed to be a clone of the OCD, but without the internal true/buffered bypass switch (this is true bypass). I know there are different versions of the OCD, so it's pretty hard to actually make an accurate A/B test, but most importantly it sounds good. You can dial all sorts of overdriven sounds, to the point that you can actually get lost in the tone, and spend/lose days dialing something you really love instead of only like. So if you like twiddling, this is for you.

Build quality is very solid, as for the design... Yeah, no idea either.

Sounds like a beast

I use this at home with a HB SC-custom mostly and a Fender Forntman 15G. It really boosts the signal and provides a great overdriven tone. Compared with similar pedals this has more clarity, boost and gain. My only complaint is that I would like to be able to adjust the gain a little more. Turning the knob does not provide a huge range of overdrive.

But overall a great buy for me.