Joyo R-05 Maximum Overdrive

A solid 4/5

I have had this pedal for a year now. It is a very versatile pedal, but I tend to keep it on one setting and leave it rather than switch between them.

There are 3 voicings each with two settings (Mosfet vs Standard) so chances are there is a tone in here for you!

There are two cons with this pedal:

1. It can be a bit dark so you might need the tone knob quite high.

2. the boost isn't particularly useful on most of the settings. It doesn't add a huge amount of difference if you already have the gain at around noon.

However, I do love the tone of this boosting a slightly overdriven amp (Orange Terror Stamp). Great for classic rock tones.

Bang for the buck

I am happy with it and would recommend.

At first, I tried to use this thing as a low gain tube screamer replacement, but in that use case, it did not feel to be the best. But crank up the gain and holy lobster, that thing is killer. I use it at work with my "let some steam out" rig: hellokitty strat, this and harley benton GA-5 amp. In this combination, it is wonderful. I can get quite Tool like sounds with it. The distortion feels organic, able to go wild when dug in and yet, cleans up well if played softly.

Negative aspect: The footswitch layout is dumb and cramped. I keep hitting the volume knob with my feet. The switches should be laid out other way around.

Great overdrive pedal for blues and rock

The pots and switch feel a bit cheaper than for example those on some other pedals. Another con is that the boost can't be used separately (but this is also true for the FD2 it's based on). It sounds almost identical to my FD2 (you need to put all controls a bit higher on the Maximum), and that's a good thing since that's a great pedal. It's very usable for blues or rock. Oh and the looks have to be your thing, but I dig the design and lighting on the front and a lot. You can also disable this light when the pedal is turned off or completely disable it if you don't like the leds.