Review 1: Fulltone OCD Pedal (with some references to
the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 )
Since the Fulltone OCD is one of our
best sellers, we are going to start off our pedal reviews with it, and
since one of the most common questions we get here at Humbucker Music
is how the Fulltone OCD compares to the Fulldrive 2, we’re
going to hit upon that
as well.
To begin with, the OCD is
different than most overdrive pedals in its dynamic qualities.
It’s easy to find that setting that allows you to play softly
and maintain a non-overdriven sound (assuming your amp is set to
clean), and then get
that warm, punchy, overdriven sound when you bite in to the
strings.
The rich sound of this pedal can achieve the chime of a nice class-A
amp or you can run it very hard to achieve thick, almost distorted
sounds, with all of the ringing overtones (a.k.a.
harmonics). This pedal works great in front of master volume
amps as well, driving them harder than most overdrive pedals.
I use mine in front of a Vox AC30 (soon to be a Dr. Z Maz) and love
every sound.
The OCD is one of those pedals that’s hard to get a bad sound
out of.
Features of the OCD include a drive
knob, volume knob, tone knob, and an HP/LP
switch. The drive knob controls the drive of the pedal,
turning it clockwise for those warm, meaty overdriven tones; keeping it
at lower settings will give you a cleaner sound or more subtle
overdriven sounds. The volume knob controls the amount of
signal coming from the pedal.
The HP/LP switch is a feature not found
on other overdrive pedals, essentially giving you 2 pedals in
one. HP gives you
more bottom end, increased overdriven sounds, more volume, and just a
noticeable amount of upper mids (think Vox and Marshall). LP
will give you all the accuracy to the original sound of your guitar and
amp you could want, almost no coloration. Great for boosting
clean
sounds and finding tones different than those British amps (think
Fender,Blackface or Tweed-style).
The pedal also has true bypass
switching, so you lose no tone having this pedal in your chain of
effects. Considering the small structure of the pedal,
real estate on a pedal board is not a problem either..
We do get a lot of questions about the
differences between the OCD and the
Fulldrive II and I will attempt to go over those differences.
To me, there is not really a better or worse between the two
it’s more of a preference issue. You can definitely
achieve sounds of each pedal from the other, but there are noticeable
differences. The Fulldrive is great at maintaining your
original amp sound, very transparent. While being transparent, it does
enhance the gain and sustain of your amp, while I have to reiterate
that it does maintain your original sound. The OCD is a much
punchier and warmer sounding overdrive. The sounds are
thicker and the overtones are richer, while the FDII is more versatile
in it’s array of sounds, with the three optional settings via
toggle switch as well as a built in boost.
You can actually get some
really great sounds engaging
each pedal together. Violin like sustain and beefy sounds to
chunk through chord progressions, as well as a number of sounds in
between, giving you the option to really experiment
with new sounds of your own. Both pedals are great, some
players, including me, found the best way to pick was to get both.
Josh Bates
Humbucker Music
PEDALS
REFERENCED IN THIS REVIEW:
