Fulltone Distortion Pro

Very easy to tweak the knobs, but there is no great sounds usable so im giving it a 2.

We tested this on a 6100 4x12 Marshall and this is the worst pedal that we've heard. Guitar used was an ibanez PGM301 loaded w/ paf pros.

All the worst tones in a pedal in a small package!
- fizzy & cheap sounding.
- fake/sterile sounding
- too many knobs and no good sounds
- did I mention fake sounding?

Looks durable but the sound ain't usable.

Fulltone is the ICON of 'no aftersales support' so i'm giving them:

1

I have a fulltone OCD and it's good, but this.. this pedal is the worst ever!

Even if it sold at a price of $10, I still wouldn't buy it.

Very easy. EQ responsive with saturation being X factor in tweaking sound.

My setup is a 79 Strat, MIJ 93 50's re-issue tele & a ESP Eclipse customized with passive PAF humbuckers through a Fender Vibrolux & Fender Pro Jr Amps. I also use a Mesa Pre-amp pedal, a Vox Wah, a Xotic BB Preamp, MXR Carbon Copy, MXR Stereo Chorus & Boss Compressor in my chain. The Distortion Pro is what it is. You are not going to get great blues and clean tones out of this but usable clean tones can be dialed in. It is a Vintage Marshall like tone for musicians using clean tube tones who desire an occasional Marshall tone without buying another amp. Like any pedal it's tone varies on "your mood" when you engage it. Somedays it sounds great & other days it just sounds OK. Overall, sounds very good for what it does. Classic marshall like rock tones.

Built like a truck. My mid knob broke in half but I don't care because it doesn't effect it's usability.

Never used them.

Kind of a one trick pony but very useful as a tool for higher gain marshall like sounds.

easy plug and play, but tons of options if you want them. the settings in the manual are a great starting place, i actually really liked this pedal. great drive unit.

I was running this into a Framus Ruby Riot and a fender deluxe. sounded great. Fulltone does the overdrive distortion thing really well. clear and punchy. you have to be careful with teh eq or you can kill the sweet spots, but at the same time they overlap slightly to let you get exactly what you're looking for if you spend time with it. hard to change things up because some knobs were really small and hard to turn or see where they were live, but great if you are looking for one sound to stay solid all night long.

fulltone quality. this thing was packed too, weighed like 3 pounds and is a small unit.

I was pleasantly surprised by this unit. if i didn't send it to my buddy in europe to try (and they didn't discontinue the pedal) i would still have it. this is one that i wish i still had.

It may be more difficult for some, but I did my homework so it took about 5 minutes for me to dial in the tone that I have read so much about with this pedal. Just put your amp on clean channel, then turn the volume at about half way, distortion turn it down, and the little knobs put them at 12, and tweak from there it won't take long.

I have a Fender 65 Super Reverb Reissue with a G&L Legacy
I started to give it a 9, but honestly it is a 10. I can't believe how much Marshall like tone, and drive this pedal gives my Fender amp. I considered buying a second amp , but now I don't have to, and I saved 1900 bux in the process. If you want to know how it sounds got to www.myspace.com/postblunt and listen to the solo's on Hell's Doorman

I wouldn't worry about it from everything I know about Fulltone now it's not an issue.
No fear of not having a backup.

Never dealt with them, but I hear they're not difficult.

I play, Metal, Punk, Alternative, and this does them all.
I've been playing for 12 years, and this is the best pedal I've owned,
I would replace it in the blink of an eye if it were misplaced.
I love that it makes my Fender sound like a Marshall.
I'm not crazy about red, but thats the only thing i'm not completely smitten with about this pedal.

What a nice pedal! Great looking too in that candy apple red!
Great versatility all the way from a nice clean boost to real
nice distortion capabilities. You can really sculpt your tones
with the 4 little knobs under the level and distortion knobs.
You've got "resonance" (bass frequencies) "voice" (mids and more)
"highs" (self explanatory) and "saturation" (really varies the pick attack and sponginess).
Very interactive controls with a lot of sweet spots.
It cleans up REAL WELL when you lower your guitar's volume pot too!
It's one of the more transparent distortions I've heard. You really
hear your strings and guitar tone through it.

There is no discernable noise or hiss that I can hear.
I use it through a RI 59 Bassman LTD. and it works great with it.
Works great for a wide variety of music styles.

It's a Fulltone so yeah, I can depend on it. Mike Fuller is one
of the better boutique builders out there! I haven't used it long
but I expect no problems.

I liked it's sound when I tried it out before buying it. So I suppose it's really easy to get a good sound out of it. With that said, there are a few more knobs than on many other distortion pedals, and they're all quite sensitive to slight adjustments. This allows for a lot or fine tuning--sculpting your sound. It's necessary to adjust gain and output settings depending on how hot you're running your amp. It's also necessary to adjust gain and output settings when switching between single coils and humbuckers. Adjustments to EQ significantly effect output and gain too. So it's not the easiest distortion pedal. I haven't found a bad sound though, not that I've been looking for one.

I found the sample settings provided in the manual to be very useful starting points for experimentation.

What setup (i.e. what guitars and amps) are you using this with?:

I alternate between a Les Paul Studio model and a Squire Strat. I use two Fender Blues Junior amps run in stereo with various other analog effects in front of the amps.

Is it noisy? On what settings?:
Higher gain settings are of course, noisy, especially with single coils. It is a distortion pedal with a lot of gain.

Are the effects weak or do they always sound great?:
The Distortion Pro is not weak. It can boost your signal enormously. I think it always sounds great. I think it sounds fantastic.

Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?:
My favorite artists are legion, but they include Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Santana etc. I also love a host of old blues greats (all of 'em). Really dig the Stones. Anyhoo, this pedal covers all of that territory capably.

With the distortion knob set to full CCW (absolute minimum)it can be used as a clean boost with a VERY responsive EQ. Moderate to low distortion (9:00 to 11:00) sounds great for Blues and Bluesy rock. 12:00 and above is seriously crunchy distortion for hard rock. When I say hard rock I'm thinking Hendrix, Led Zeppelin or AC/DC. Black Sabbath at most. The Distortion Pro isn't a pedal for modern high-gain sounds.

To utilize the full potential of this pedal in any setting one must place it in front of a tube amp with the power amp section cooking. I play mine through one or two 15 watt tube amps (Blues Juniors) with their master volumes (power amp section) cranked and volume (pre-amp section) set low (2-5, depending on how loud or quiet I need my basic tone to be). This provides a slightly overdriven sound than can become sparkling clean by rolling back the volume knob on my guitar. Engaging the Distortion Pro gives me my distortion sound (unless I'm using Fuzz) and to me it's beautiful. It makes my 15 watt Fender amps sound like a pair of cranked Marshalls. I believe this is exactly what it was designed to do and it does it superbly.

The Distortion Pro cleans up beautifully when I roll back the volume knob on my guitar. I set the Distortion Pro up for a crunchy distortion sound (from 9:00 to 12:00 depending on whether I'm using a strat or a gibson) with the guitar volume full up. Rolling back the guitar volume to around 7 gives me a nice overdrive sound. Below 5 is a boosted clean sound. A very versitile, great sounding pedal.

I believe I'm getting the results I'm getting at reasonable volumes because I'm using low wattage amps (they can be run hot and not be too god awful loud). Playing the Distortion Pro thru an amp that wasn't overdriven, or a non-tube amp (yuck!) wouldn't sound so good.

I've owned a total of 3 Fulltone pedals, and they are all extremely well built. They could very well outlast me.

I've no experience whatsoever with Fulltone customer support. This speaks to the reliability of their products I think.

I'm a blues/rock/funk/psychedelic player. I like jam/improv based music as well as just playing The Blues. I've been playing for 23 years and have owned an assortment of guitars amps and pedals. My current set up:

Les Paul or Strat into:

Ernie Ball Volume Pedal with tuner out > Snarling Dogs Super-Bawl Whine-O-Wah > Electro-Harmonix Tube Zipper > Fulltone Ultimate Octave > Fulltone Distortion Pro > Fulltone Fat Boost 2 > MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay > 2 Fender Blues Junior amps.

My pedal board routing module allows me to have my MXR Carbon Copy Analog Delay (awesome pedal at a great price!) going to just one of the amps. I must say, my setup sounds so bitchin' I can hardly stand it. The Distortion Pro is an integral part and I use it a lot. The Ultimate Octave is a Fuzz pedal with an optional octave up (the Purple Haze guitar solo sound). The Distortion Pro covers all of my non-Fuzz distortion needs (blues and non-psychedelic rock).

I managed to pick it up for $100 used so to me the value for money ratio is very, very good. The list price new ($199.99) is high, but this is a top-quality pedal.

I tried out the GT-500, which is basically this pedal + a Fat Boost 2 in one pedal with the option to choose boost > distortion or distortion > boost. The GT-500 doesn't have the Saturation (compression) control and has a different midrange control (it's actually a wah pot). The distortion side of the GT-500 and the Distortion Pro sounded very similar. I actually liked the GT-500 slightly better, because of the midrange control--and I don't use much of the compression available in the Distortion Pro. However, since I already had the Fat Boost 2 and the Distortion Pro was available used at half the original price, I went with it instead of the GT-500. I have no regrets.

Very easy to use. No problem finding a great tone, well under certain circumstances that is, which you can read below.

If you try it at home at bedroom/livingroom volume levels: it sucks!
But as we don't gig or rehearse there, it's no problem to me. This pedal comes to life at rehearsal/gig volume! I tried it at home through a small 15Watt solid state amp and it sounded like a broke DS-1. But I read the reviews about it sounding this way under these circumstances. So I took it with me to the rehearsals of my band and.....it kicked some serious butt! I even didn't touch the knobs and used it as I set it at home. It sounded somewhere between my Sonic Distorion and my TS-9. I was really impressed. My set-up: Ibanez Les Paul '78 and a Guyatone 100 Watt full tube bassman clone with only a clean channel through two 12" celestions. It also sounded great along with my (3) other dist/drive pedals I use. I'm a happy man!

I have no idea, but it looks sturdy

no opinion

I play all sorts of music, from pop to rock to metal. I play over 20 years now. I do not consider this to be a stand alone metal pedal, but with an overdrive I'm pretty sure it does that job as well.
I was a bit sceptical at first, reading all these good and bad pedal reviews, but I'm happy I bought it anyway. This is the first drive/distortion pedal that made me go WOW! People that do not like it either only play at home, have no good amp/guitar to play, or need to get a doctor checking out their ears..

Tone shaping knobs can be misleading - READ THE MANUAL.

Basically, resonance=bass, voicing=mids and highs=treble. However, they don't necessarily react as you would expect from a traditional EQ.

Start with your voicing and highs at 12:00, and your resonance at 8:00. Volume half way, distortion at 0. Start adding the resonance until your amp sounds full. Then, flavor with "Saturation" to taste. Otherwise your tone can easily turn muddy or fuzzy.

Play this pedal loud! It works best with a driven tube amp - don't even try with your Fender Frontman in your bedroom.

Fender strat --> Distortion Pro --> '65 Fender Twin Reverb Reissue

If your amp is bright, and you want a chunky rhythm tone, turn the distortion level to 0 and volume halfway. Back off on Saturation. Great chunky tone with both humbuckers or single coil. Otherwise, your low end will sound muddy or will get a fuzzy distortion sound that you read about below.

For lead, increase distortion and saturation for sustain and grittiness. Ripping lead tones cut through the mix.

I struggled with my tone for a few weeks because I just plugged it in, turned everything to 12:00 and tried playing. My low end was muddy and the high end was fuzzy. But give it some time, and you'll find your sweet spots.

Don't see any problems.

Not needed yet.

Great in front of a clean, high-end tube amp, just like it says on the website. Why the heck are you people playing a $200 pedal in front of your Crate of Peavey? Of course it sounds like crap.

Great match for a wide variety of rock, even some metal (not thrash or death metal - you don't need a pedal this nice to play that stuff - go buy a Metalzone).

This pedal does take a while to get used to. You have to spend some time with it, and you have to use it live to hear what it is truly capable of. I found the manual helpful, I used it as a starting point and then went from there. If you have little patience and like simple devices, you may want to look elsewhere. However, if you are willing to spend the time it has some very rewarding sounds available.

First of all, I agree with what the previous reviewer (Chris) has stated about this device. This pedal has gotten a lot of unfair negative reviews. I think many people were expecting a modern high gain distortion. This pedal gives you a vintage sixties slightly fuzzed-out Plexi tone.

I am using it primarily through a 73 Gretsch Chet Atkins Tennessean, which has the original Dynasonic single coil pickups in it (similar in tone to P-90's). I play blues and fusion style music, and use the DP for my lead tones. I did use the DP briefly with my Les Paul Standard, and the pedal was much fuzzier and more difficult to set up. I do think the pedal in its factory form is better suited to single coils or very low output humbuckers. If you have higher output pickups you should lower the gain using the internal trim pot.

That said, this pedal is a PERFECT match for the Gretsch, and gives me thick, fluid fusion style lead tones with the neck pickup, and nice powerful crunch tones from the bridge pickup. The pedal does not mask the tone of my guitar, it still sounds like a Gretsch, its just more aggressive. This pedal is also very quiet, and even at high gain settings does not produce excessive feedback with my hollow guitar.

I use this pedal through a Mesa Boogie Studio Caliber DC-2 Combo, a Mesa Boogie Mark 1 Reissue Head, and a vintage 1973 Fender Deluxe Reverb amp. The pedal sounds fantastic through all amps. I use a Fulltone Anniversary Mosfet Fulldrive for lower gain sounds, and a Fulltone OCD for higher gain rythm sounds. I primarily use the DP for solo and lead work. All pedals compliment each other very well, and I would recommend this type of three pedal setup to anyone looking for the best in vintage sounds, from low gain to vintage high gain.

My primary influences are Carlos Santana, Al DiMeola, Jimmy Page, and Gary Moore. The DP really adds a fatness to the notes that I have not gotten with other devices. Great pedal for classic rock, blues, and fusion style tones. I will say I have been using this pedal for several months now, so my review is not based on the "honeymoon period", but real experience both live and at home.

I have been using this at home, and live once a week for several months now, and have had no issues. Fulltone pedals are built for professionals, and are made to last. I expect no problems.

This is not a pedal that will get you metal sounds, or ultra high gain sounds. This is vintage high gain distortion, like a Marshall Plexi, not a Marshall JCM 2000 or similar modern amp. You must tweak the pedal and spend some time with it, and dont give up on it until you have used it LIVE. It took me some time to find my settings, but now I dont mess with it, I just play.

I have been playing for 12 years now. I picked up the guitar at age 19 and was fortunate to have some amazing instructors. I used to focus on distortion, now I focus on getting each note to be as fat as it can be. I try to use just enough distortion to add fatness and sustain. If you follow this philosophy, which is fatness over distortion, you should check out the DP and other Fulltone pedals. One note, this pedal has been discontinued, so if you want a new one grab them while they are still available.

This is a fairly easy pedal to use. Everything is laid out in front of you. Plug this pedal in between different guitars and amps and find your sounds. You don't really need a manual, just your ear. Start tweaking until you find the sounds that work for the guitar and amp you are using because different pickups, guitars, and amps will each respond uniquely to this pedal. Think of it as an artist's palate. Fuller gives you 6 controls on the pedal to shape your tone not to mention the controls on your amp and guitar. This isn't a plug n' play one-sound-fits-all pedal. It's an awesome tone tool. If you can't find several excellent tones using any combination of guitars and amps you have, give up playing music and go play a radio because you don't have the ear to create good sounds.

This is where this pedal shines. It is quality tone all the way through. Whether you are using single coils or humbuckers, all tube or solid state amps, you can find plenty of awesome tones in this pedal. Every pickup, guitar, and amp responds differently and requires it's own tweaking to get the tones you need. This pedal lets a Strat still sound like a Strat and a Les Paul still sound like a Les Paul.

I use it frequently and gig with it regularly. Never had a problem. Quality components. Especially, the switch. I've never had a Fulltone switch crap out on me.

Very helpful. E=mailed for a manual for the DP-1 and got a .pdf of one, in just a few hours. Works for me.

I don't give many 10s because in my mind, there are only a few outstanding pedals. This is one of them. I've played guitar and gigged for over 30 years. Owned and played the original Big Muff, original Tube Screamer, Ratt, as well as countless other boutique distortion pedals. The Fulltone DP1 is one of the best pedals out there and is the only distortion pedal on my pedal board. (I have an overdrive (Rodenberg Gas) and a Menatone Red Snapper boost pedal on my board too, in addtion to my tube amp's crunch and lead tones.) Like I said above. This pedal is a tool that gives you 6 controls to shape your sound. If you can't get a good sound out of this pedal, it's not the pedal's fault. Rock on.