Fulltone Distortion Pro

Simplistic in its layout, this pedal is very easy to manipulate and use. Manual is very useful illustrating how to taper some innards of the pedal (and how to reset them).

This is a very musical and muscular pedal. Used with my Budda Stringmaster head (Budda's take on the ol' charged-up Fender - Dumble-esque design), it accentuated the amp's natural harmonics and feel - but with 10x gain. It gives a very natural amp like distortion (iMO), it is very expressive, and it brings out your guitar and amp's natural characteristics (which i like). Through my rig, this pedal can also give you sounds ranging from soft Plexi-esque gain to Black Sabbath-esque tapped out Laney distortion. I prefer to operate it in a medium gain mode, which gives you bluesey shaded of grit and overtones (Knopfler esque). This is also the quietest distortion pedal I have ever ever ever ever heard - with the drive maxed out, it is still dead silent (!!). It compresses the sound slightly is a very musical way - evening out the attacks and accentuates legato techniques.

I haven't managed to break a distortion pedal before... delay pedals yes, but not distortion... don't know why... Don't think this pedal will break the trend...

haven't had to contact them yet.

If I had to pick two words to summarize this pedal it would be "musical" and "quality". Very few pedals are capable to retaining your amp and gitar's natural characteristics while giving it this much gain. It's well worth the price of admission.

As mentioned, it is a very versatile pedal... small changes in the settings produce a wide variety of sounds... perhaps that isn't such a good idea, after all, although it sounded like a great concept. After owning this pedal for 6 months, I haven't found a use for it, as it doesn't give me a tone that I really connect with. I am developing a taste for simpler pedals with stronger character. Instructions are adequate, describing a few basic settings to start you off.

Again, I agree with most other users in appreciating this pedal's versatility. However, it has an underlying, if slight, buzz that is difficult to dial out without becoming muddy. I have played this through 3 different strats ( 2 fat strats, one with Texas specials and a Strat Plus with Kinmans) as well as a dot 335, '73 LP Custom and a '52 Tele RI. I play through either a VHT ST-50 with 2x12 cab or an Allen Old Flame with a single 12" EV SRO... numerous pedals before and after. I'm sorry, it 's an okay pedal, but I'm putting it on eBay. It never sounded smooth without some major tweaking of both the pedal and the amps, leaving me with the challenge of re-setting my amps to bring out the best sound in my other pedals, all of which express their best sounds with pretty much the same universal setting on the clean channel of both amps. For tone references, I look mostly to Eric Johnson, Allan Holdsworth, Mike Landau and Scott Henderson. ( at least for what I wanted this pedal for.) Again, there just seems to be a high end buzz or rasp that I can't dial out and can't ignore. Probably sounds great to someone else, but not to me.

All of Fulltone's stuff has a good reputation. I am keeping my Octafuzz and am picking up the Fulltone Uni-vibe clone (product name?) although I did return the FullDrive II... same issue, but a less versatile and more mid-rangey pedal than the DP.

My brief experience has been a non-response to one email with a question about control settings. Doesn't seem to get good marks for bedside manner, but they probably get a lot of dumb requests. It's hard to get any work done, if you have to answer questions all day. I give them the benefit of the doubt and rate my one non-encounter a 6.

Not much more to say. Like most high end pedals, it must be someone's cup of tea. I'm selling mine and have a Banzai Fireball II on order. I also sent back a Barber pedal (can't recall which one, now, but a popular one) that seemed similar in it's drawbacks and tone, but not as nice as the Fulltones for construction.Right now, I'm using a combination of an old Marshall ShredMaster and an Analogman Silver Mod TS-9. Between the two of these and my amps, I get most of the tone I'm looking for. I have been playing for 33 years, play part-time right now in a funk/blues/fusion band. Love all kinds of jazz, blues, fusion, some classic rock and shred, some country. Not really into grunge, metal or alt rock, but try to appreciate it, anyway. I know that many people love everything made by Fulltone and Barber, and you really should live with a pedal for a week or two at least, to see where it fits in. This one just didn't quite do it for me and I realized lately that it's just taking up space on my pedal board. My ears tell me it's time for something else.

Several controls (volume, distortion, saturation, lows, mid, highs) which interact with each other to produce a wide range of usuable sounds, unlike other pedals I've used. Of course, it takes a little exploration to find the sounds that you need, but it's well worth the effort.

Wow. I've been trying to get my Telecaster/Fender Twin setup to give me a Les Paul/Marshall sound in addition to the trademark Fender clean sound. I've tried several distortion/overdrive pedals (Tube Screamers, Maxon SD-9, Boss Distortions, to name a few) and several compressors (Keely, Carl Martin, etc.) to go with my drive channel, but I hadn't found the sound. A few months ago I replaced the stock speakers in my Twin with Celestion G12H's, and that helped. But the Distortion Pro is the ticket. It gives a wide range of sounds, from near-fuzzy to thick-mid power-tube overdrive. There's very good string definition, and it reacts well with the different channels on the Twin to produce several distinct types of distortion. It's like my 3-channel amp has added three more channels. Cleans up well when you back off the volume or play more softly. Sounds better than I had imagined. By far the best distortion pedal I've ever played. I also like it better even than my Clyde Deluxe Wah (sounds very good) and my Choralflange (which may someday give me the sounds I'm looking for, but I haven't found them yet). I know it sounds stupid to say that my Tele and Twin sound like a Les Paul through an old Marshall, and I'm sure the purists would beg to differ, but the Distortion Pro gives me that sound - and many others that I didn't know I was looking for but am glad I found.

I've had it for only a few weeks, so I can only speculate, but it seems well made.

I have 3 Fulltone pedals, and have had no problems with any of them, so I have not had any dealings with the company other than the purchases.

I've bought lots of musical equipment over the past 27 years, and in most cases the satisfaction curve for each new item purchased drops off shortly after the first use. Not this pedal. I like it more each time I play it. I don't know how this pedal would work with other guitar/amp combinations, but for mine, it is perfect. Now I can get the sounds I want. Eureka.

Very awesome pedal, very tweakable, but you must take time with your guitar and amp to find what works with what you have. Well worth the effort. Minor adjustment are the key to good tone.

Very musical pedal. Actually and extention of the amp. Very little noise at high gain settings, cleans up real well with guitars volume knob. I use it with and SRV strat and a HW-1 strat with Van Zandt pickups. Sounds like I am playing through a marshall half stack. I bought this pedal after hearing a guy playing a les paul into an orange half stack. Thats all it took for me i was sold.

I have had this pedal for 2 years now. Absolutly no problems with the pedal. Not one. I would and do gig with out a back up. No need for one.

I have an older model and they have since upgraded the op-amp. So I e-mailed Mike Fuller about what it would cost to have it upgraded. He e-mailed me back within 24 hours and said just the cost of shipping. That's what I call service

I play in a conteporary praise and worship band and have to cover blues, rock, vintage rock and modern sounds. This pedal does it very well, though I am partial to the brown sound with small tweaks here and there. Buying this pedal kept me from having to by a marshall half stack. I just use my Fender blues deluxe and it rocks the house.

Well you have many options here. This pedal really is the swiss army knife of Distortion Boxes. There are two internal trimmers that affect the tone along with four EQ controls on the face. All of them are very active. If you just want to stomp and go - you probably want something else. If you want to tailor you Drive then by all means this is a great pedal.

I own just about everything Mike makes and this a keeper just like all the rest. With my Vibrolux reverb and Les Paul it just sounds beautiful - Smooth buttery tones. With my JTM 45 just as nice but different. Like I said above you really can get a huge range of tone with this thing. If I were to have one Drive box this or the FD2 would be topping the list.

Built like a Tiger Tank.

I sent my 2002 DP1 to Mike for an upgrade to the 03 spec. Got the pedal back in less than a week. (I am LA based as well.) Spoke with Mike on the phone regarding my 70's pedal problem. He set me up on both accounts. If you have legitimate business to contduct with Mike he will bend over backward to help. If you just want to shoot the shit - call a drinking buddy.
Fulltone across the board is top notch.

I am a professional Session Guitarist and Audio Engineer in LA. I really only buy the best my Ear can find. I don't buy the cheap stuff anymore. I want to get it a forget about it. If your Distortion / drive pedal is playing you instead of you playing it. Then this will slove your ills. A great Pedal!

I've owned this unit for about 3-1/2 months and I can tell you that the Distortion Pro is an intelligently designed pedal that I believe could be tweaked to achieve great to awesome results with virtually any guitar/amp/effects-chain combination. The price to be paid for this versatility, however, is that you need to play with the knobs for a while to get your tones down. (Or maybe I?m just slow?? Or very picky??)

I first heard this pedal at my local Guitar Center. I asked the gal at the counter what was the best distortion pedal in the house. She pointed at the little red pedal with the big sticker price and I though, "Yeah, that's your favorite." (You know, sales commission). I had to ask her at that point if she played guitar. No. She's a singer, but the guitar player in her band uses a DPro.

She set me up with an American Strat through the Distortion Pro through a Hot Rod Deluxe. I crank up the amp, switch on the bridge pickup and nearly freak out when I hear the sounds I'm getting with this thing!

I then asked to try Fulltone's Fulldrive 2. To make the story short, I walk out with both pedals. When I get home I play with a few of my guitars and amps and just have a wonderful time.

I am not a wealthy man, but when I heard these pedals, I knew I was very shortly going to put all my other distortion/overdrive pedals up on eBay.

Built strong to last long.

After I'd had my pedals for a short while (but before I started to take them out to play) I noticed a hairline crack in one of the knobs on my Fulldrive 2. I e-mailed Mr. Fuller, telling him that I didn't know whether the crack was there when I bought it or if my wife or somebody had stepped on the pedal. Withing a few days I had a replacement knob (and a spare!) delivered to my door (no charge). I thought that was cool.

Later, I noticed a noise in my DPro and I e-mailed Mr. Fuller. He wanted me to be VERY sure the problem was his pedal before I sent it back to him. My initial reaction was that he was rather short with me. On a second reading of his e-mail, however, I decided that he was damned sure of his product and had so few bona fide problems that he felt it his place to demand that I check out the problem thoroughly before sending the pedal back.

The problem turned out to be no big deal, and I fixed it myself by moving a couple of wires (had someone at Guitar Center opened this pedal up and played around in there??).

This pedal has its niche. It doesn't do everything, but what it does do, it does very, very well. It really does allow subtle playing nuances to come through at most settings. Just tonight I hooked it up to my Twin Reverb for the first time. I plugged my SG into my Carl Martin compressor --> Distortion Pro --> H2O echo. Sheesh! I couldn't believe the sounds coming from that old amp!!! Got some really nice Third Door down tones from that antique relic (who'd a thunk?). My son soon stole the guitar away from me and played for a good while, smiling all the time! I also tonight came to understand this so called ?woman tone? I?ve been hearing about. And I thought Twin Reverbs were for ?Clean? playing!

Very easy to use. Not difficult. Read the manual to understand the dials, and its like dialing a telephone number.

This is where I'll get more specific. When I bought the pedal, I originally was going to buy a Fulldrive 2 because I own several distortion pedals that I was just not satisfied with: Boss DS-1, Danelectro, Ibanez Tube Screamer, etc. All the pedals I just mentioned are OK, but something was missing (maybe some serious modifications). Getting back to were I was going earlier- I was in Nashville a fews weeks ago, and I noticed all the players had either Sparkle Drives or Fulldrive 2's in use. Awesone clarity and musicality in the sounds produced. Right up my ally. Keep in mind that I was wanting to find a more organic, smooth less metallic sound. More of a classic rock/blues sound. I took all of my guitars: stock Les Paul Standard, American Tele with a 59 in the bridge, and an American Texas special. I took every pedal (Maxon 808, Maxon OD -9, Fulldrive 2, and the Distortion Pro) in the music shop in a backroom and tweeked away. Also, I used the same model of amp that I play - Fender Hot Rod Deville. I was going to buy the Fulldrive (Awesome Pedal!), but the Distortion Pro was more geared to my style of playing Classic Rock to Modern Rock. Very versitile, very natural distortion. Not too over the top. Does the "brown sound" very well. Very quiet!! Also cleans up well to give a very good blues tone. What I liked the most about the pedal was how it interacts with the volume knob. Can have a highly distorted sound, but by turing the volume down, can produce very clear lightly distorted sounds. Must note that the pedal also sounds awesome through Mesa Nomad, and a Marshall JCM 2000. Expensive pedal, but if your in to natural sounding distortion, this pedal is a keeper.

No problems yet.

You should experiement with it before you buy it - always a good suggestion before an equipment purchase. You will not be disappointed. It will speak for itself.

I have the newer 2003 model which apparently sounds much better than the first Distortion Pros produced. Takes some time to get your sound coming out of it but it just takes patience and a good ear. With 6 knobs and 2 internal trimmer knobs that all seem to interact with each other, it takes some time to get what could be considered as your dream sound. But the important thing is...your dream sound IS in there!!!!!

I think the most important thing to do is look at this effect unit not as a pedal...but as a great sounding Marshall Plexi in a very small package. I don't know why the knobs aren't labled easier but hey...they sound fancy. Ressonance should be bass, voicing should be middle, highs should be treble. Volume and distortion knobs are self explanitory. The saturation knob is a mystery to me...it sounds crappy to me when set past 12 o'clock...I use mine on zero. The two internal trimmers are where the real magic happens with this pedal. Man what a differance when i changed them (i turbed the left trimmer full up and the other just an 1/8 of a turn from where it was from the factory). The pedal went from a mild overdrive to almost an exact replica of the tone i got with my Tube Driver, and for me it's perfect.

I use a Strat, Tele (and will soon get a Jaguar) through a Fulltone Clyde Standard >> re-issue three knob Tone Bender (a Fulltone Soul Bender is in my future) >> Fulltone Distorion Pro >> Fulltone Fat Boost >> EXH Small Stone phaser >> EXH Small Clone chorus (a Fulltone Choralflange is also down the road) >> Ernie Ball Volume Pro JR >> all George L's cables with unfinished ends >> Marshall JTM 45 re-issue with Tesla 6l6's and a solid state rectifier >> Doyle CE Stereo 4x12.

I bought this pedal to replace my old Chandler Tube Driver because it was getting to fragile and noisy. The Distortion Pro doesn't make a noise and makes some of the most natural distortion tones i've ever heard. It works well with my other pedals and is true-bypass. It takes a lot of tweaking, but i suggest you sit down in front of your amp and just spend a couple of hours (or even a day) in complete silence save for the sound you make with your guitar amp and pedal to fine tune and tweak this pedal.

My guitar idols are Jimi Hendrix, John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Eric Johnson. With this pedal I can nail any possible distortion tone i want. I realize for some, the ammount of distortion will not be enough for some players. This is not a metal box or a fuzz....it's is a great natural, tube sounding distortion. I'm 20 years old, I've been playing for nearly 10 years and I've tried it all. If you have it in your hands you can make this pedal sound as heavy as you want but don't get discouraged if you can't....just practice playing more!!!

Simply a fantastic sounding pedal...couldn't be happier!!!!!!!!!

Built like a tank in the Fulltone pedal building tradition. I don't see any reson to take a backup on the road. I haven't had any problem whatsoever. In my opinion, Mr. Fuller should have enginered the battery compartment better....in the car after i bought the pedal, as soon as i looked at the knurled knob that screws out I thought "well this is the first thing i will lose" and seconds later as I was screwing it out it fell out onto the floor of the car and had to be retrived with extreme patience. I think Mr. Fuller would just shake his head though :)

I have chosen incredibaly kind and helpful...here is why...
Mr. Fuller and his company make some of the best sounding pedals known to man. I would rather him be building and designing pedals than being on the phone with me gabbing about how I lost the knurled knob for the battery compartment which I know is why a lot of people call him: things they can figure out on their own!!!! If you have an honest question....make it simple and to the point and as short as possible. E-mails always come back very quickly....don't ask stupid questions and you wont get mean answers. We should all be so lucky to be able to talk directly to the man responsible for our godly tones. Props to Michael Fuller for doing everything he does as far as customer assitance goes!!!

This is the perfect distortion pedal for me period. I play in a Canadian band called See Spot Run and have been playing guitar for 9 years. I work in a restaurant and bakery for my day job and make very little money doing it. These pedals (all Fulltone) are incrediablly expensive for me but I want the best. There is no reason why money should come into question when considering what you are getting for it. This pedal is compact, versatile, responsive to attack, quiet, and reliable. I would definatly buy another if it got stolen. It inspires me to keep playing for hours on end. Thank you mr Fuller for making such an amazing sonic tool for me to create the most amazing form of expression with: music.

Well, it's got a lot of knobs, and I found that a lot of settings actually produced "bad" sounds, despite all the reviewers who scream, "Impossible to get a bad sound out of this magical red box!" etc. "Bad" meaning (to my ears) artificial, buzzy or harsh types of tones. Not smooth and rich like my Fulldrive II. I found the four small knobs sort of awkward to operate. I think there are some great settings on this pedal, but they're not that easy to dial in. The manual is a good place to start, although somewhat limited. Compared to other distortion pedals with two or three knobs, this thing is like rocket science, so I give it a 6.

I bought this pedal after reading heaps of praise and owning some great Fulltone products, and I just don't understand the hype. I found one really usable setting with which I could cop a super-saturated type of lead tone. Add some chorus with the Choralflange and it's pure Slash circa Use Yr Illusion. The thing is, I'm not really into that sound. In fact, I find it kind of ludicrous. I actually used this pedal live to play an ironic 80s guitar solo with a friend's band. And it nailed it! The crowd went nuts. But when trying to find "my" sound, the sound in my head, I came up empty-handed. I ran across tons of shitty settings on this thing, and I really had to tweak like a fiend to get the harshness out of this pedal. By contrast, I recently got a Foxrox ZIM. I thought it might be a bitch to tweak as well because of all the voicing settings, but to my surprise, it's the complete opposite of this pedal in that almost all of the settings, even the extreme ones, are totally musical sounding. It's like Dave Fox found this entire SPECTRUM of sweet spots and you can just precisely dial in your favorite flavor. Impressive. I sold my Distortion Pro on eBay shortly thereafter. To be fair, I never tried one of Mike's newer models, so maybe he's improved on the circuit. I don't know. I'm not out to bash Fulltone here, I just wanted to add a contrasting opinion to all the hype on this board. (For reference, I ran this pedal through a Dr. Z MAZ-18 combo. It sounded flat and artificial... definitely didn't make my amp sound like a Marshall, except for that one corny setting I mentioned above.)

Fulltone products are built to last. Very sturdy exterior, beautiful wiring inside. Although the little knobs on this pedal are definitely fragile, and two of them broke on me in the short time I had the pedal, so I gotta subtract points for that.

Some people really hate Mike, but I'm not sure why. He's always responded to my emails and been a professional. Being able to talk to the creator of the product you use is a rare and tremendous thing. Don't abuse the guy or waste his time and he'll treat you well.

I've been playing for about 13 years and own a lot of effects, all boutique. Currently, I'm trying to simplify my pedal board. Not only in terms of how many pedals are on there, but how easy each pedal is to use. The ZIM is a major improvement over the Distortion Pro, because I can dial in tons of usable settings on the fly, with the twist of ONE KNOB instead of the DP's FOUR. I use a Fulldrive II for overdrive sounds and again, simplicity is the key to that pedal's greatness. I have an early model, no toggle switch, just set your volume, your drive and go. I'm getting to a point where I would rather have a pedal do a few tones really well than be endlessly tweakable. I really think the best gear is the simplest. Look at the TS-808 and all the clones it has inspired. Or the Ross compressor everyone is remaking now. Or an even better example: my $50 vintage Small Stone outphases the Lovetone Doppelganger I paid $400 for! Am I alone here? Do more knobs make a pedal "better"? Unless it's a Fuzz Factory, my answer is a resounding NO. That being said, if anyone wants to trade an Analogman Clone Chorus for my Fulltone Choralflange, get in touch and help me achieve Effects Zen!

Very straightforward , if you don't mind having alot of flexability!

Absolutely tweakable, with none of the fake Boss Metal bullsh^&% sounds, just very ORGANIC Marshall-like tones here, and you can dial in the original "string" sound via the "Saturation" control and get a very articualte Dumble-like amp sound.

built like a Hummer

All questions answered quickly, Mike even steered me AWAY from buying another of his products because he felt it wouldn't work for me.
Now that's the nice thing about a successful company like Fulltone....they don't NEED the money like these other weekend booteek companies so they can and ARE objective and helpful.

Get one, try it, if you are a geek who uses the Mesa Triple rectifier or the Marshall "I got 4 channels up my butt" Metal Monster....stay clear, go away, get a Boss pedal. If you have EARS,and like Harmonics (no, not the pathetic homo-squeels that Zack Wilde does) we're talkin' Overtones, natural beautiful liquid sound) then the DistortionPro is the ONLY way to go!