Fulltone Fat-Boost

Very easy to use a no brainer

Very few things in life is exactly as what you expected and this is one of those very rare brilliantly made peice of gear that makes your setup beautiful.You must use a nice tube amp( 60's fender deluxe) and a pro quality guitar to really get the bang out of this beauty. It makes my strat sound amazing and I can even make it sound like a vintage les paul by fattening the sound with drive knob.I give it the highest praise to mr fuller,thankyou.And for those fucking idiots who are more into klon or what ever the fuck else... why don't you all just go take a guitar lesson and learn something about equipment before you have your momi or daddy buy you your equipment for you!! You idiots have no idea what a good tone is to begin with so how in the world would you know about a good tone you fucks!!!!!!!! Go suck o your clon and keep pretending that you are decent guitar player with your bullshit 7 string ibanez.

built to last a life time looks like.

It's a bit costly but hey you get what you pay for and this one is worth every penny and I'm sure mr. fuller had put in a lot of late nights trying to perfect this to what it is.

Super easy to use. The middle trim knob is a little small and hard to use but its also hard to hit accidentaly with your foot.

The main problem with this pedal is that I bought it to use as a lead volume boost but it sounds so darn good I never want to turn it off!

Build like a sherman tank! No problems or complaints here. totally reliable in my book!

Nener needed it!

I play blues/rock/jam. Using 2 Fender Hot rod Devilles with a Fulltone Fulldrive II, an old blue Fuzz Face, a TS9, a TC Electronic Stereo Chorus, and a Bad Horsie Wah. The fat Boost is all the claim and more in my book. I cannot live without it. You can hear samples of my playing this gear on my website at http://www.markarbogast.com

The only pedal I've found that's easier to use is an MXR Phase90. That says it all.

This is the best widely available pedal for Marshall amps. Period. I use it to simulate a cranked up sound at lower volumes, and I feel that it works better than a Powerbrake or THD Hotplate for this purpose, although the Hotplate offers a line out, which is nice. For my purposes, I cannot justify the added expense and complication of the Hotplate, though. I use the Fat Boost with a Flying V with Duncan JB/Jazz pickups, and a coupla Marshall DSL50 heads and 1960 cabs with G12H speakers. This is the closest thing to a perfect rig I've ever had.

Seriously, Fulltone pedals are built like a bank vault. I've spilled beer into this pedal on a number of occasions, and it never even hiccuped. I have been using this pedal without backup for over 200 gigs, without difficulty of any sort.

I called Mike Fuller awhile back about the new Tape Echo pedal, and he handled my call personally in a pleasant, brisk, businesslike manner. He's undoubtedly a busy person, but was very helpful to me. I think I helped him by having my questions organized on paper before I called, so as to take up as little of his time as possible. He's doing a GREAT job, and I hope he keeps it up.

Cool, fun, badass pedal. Does exactly what Mike Fuller says it will, just like everything else he makes. Do some research, and put your money into the BEST gear your can afford for YOU, and you won't be sorry. Buy what you really want the first time, and avoid G.A.S., which will waste your time and money.

Very easy and straight forward. I like how the newer version (2003- ) gives you the gain knob up top next to the volume. Set your preferences, step on it, and you're in business. It's easily tweakable once the pedal is on too, so that's even more points in this pedal's favor!

Well, here I have to go stand in the corner with the DUNCE cap on. I bought an MXR Micro Amp several months ago and tried to justify the lower price of the MXR pedal over the Fatboost. The Micro Amp was okay, but once I got it home and had it a while, I did notice when the boost was engaged, there was this subtle thinness to my sound, and trying to raise the volume brought that nasty, scratchy gain that's built in after 3'O clock. Needless to say I sold it only after about a month. Since that time I had been playing humbuckers, P-90s and G&L MFD pickups that have plenty of punch. I recently picked up an Ernie Ball Albert Lee Strat and loved the way the guitar sounded but hated having to adjust the settings on my amp to compensate the volume drop off when I was playing the Lee. I went out and picked up a Fulldrive2 (which I am crazy about and this is my 3rd one!) and while I liked having the cleaner non-compressed overdrive boost, I still wanted to get a clean, fat boost without too much compression. My Maxon compressor gave me a nice boost, but then again, it was a compressed boost. The Fatboost won't compress unless you have the gain turned up quite a bit. After A/Bing the Fatboost with the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, the HAO RustBooster and the Micro Amp, I bit the bullet and went home with the Fulltone. Even though gain past 1'O clock will start to sound scratchy, it increasingly fattens your sound rather than some other pedals that seem to thin your signal out. This really is great for bringing out the best in an alnico II strat pickup without coloring its tone. Combined with a slight bit of compression from my Maxon, the sound on a clean amp is absolutely amazing. I thought the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster sounded good, but I didn't like the coloration the three-way switch gave me, and I've read that pedal has some quality control issues that I'm not interested in fooling with. As far as the HAO RustBooster, well, that was okay, but it imposed too much gain when turned up and didn't seem to have as much headroom as the Fatboost. The Micro-Amp is fine, but to correct what I said months ago about the Micro Amp being as good as the Fatboost....I apologize to Mike Fuller and the Fulltone faithful. The MXR is okay and will work, but the Fatboost makes me want to stay in my room and play all the freaking time.....That's the best way I can describe the difference between the Fatboost and the Micro Amp.

Shoot...Are you kidding me...Go try one out in person and you will know what I"m talking about......I think I could even shoot it with my Casulll and it would still work.

Never had to deal with them and I feel sorry for Mr. Fuller. Every guitar picker thinks they are hot stuff when they call and talk to a famous guy, when all they are doing is waising his time with garble about gear and common sense you can figure out on your own accord. I think I'll leave him alone and rely on customer support if I need it. I don't think I will as I've had several Fulltone pedals. Plus, Guitar Heaven in Nashville is Tops in customer service and just all around good people working there (Corner Music is righteous too!) so I will take any problems I may encouter up with them first, and then the manufacturer if there ever happens to be such a delima.

What else can I say that I haven't already. Look at the overwhelming positive reviews and rejoice. The plusses of this pedal are in the majority and if you look at most of the Fulltone products, they seem to have more reviews in the 9 or over rating than any other manufacturer of guitar pedals I've seen. Especially when you see so many people rating these pedals. Expensive? Well, not really when you compair to other boutique lines. For true bypass, great tone and reliability, this pedal (along with most other Fulltone pedals) are hard to beat. Go try one for yourself and enjoy the experience!

I have the 2003 model with the detented control. This pedal couldn't be any easier to use.

Sound quality is such a subjective thing. Obviously, and thankfully, we all don't like or want the same things. Therefore rather than try and convince everyone that this is the answer of their prayers I'd like to tell you why I like it. When I first plugged in this pedal and cranked it to the point where I was getting an overdriven tone it reminded me of something that at first I couldn't quite put my finger on. The tone was great, but very different from what I was used to with my standard set up of a Super Reverb and various overdrive pedals. Then it came to me. I have a 1963 Brown Fender Princeton that I keep tucked in the closet. The Fat Boost sounds identical to this Princeton when it is cranked up! I don't play the Princeton a lot because it really doesn't have enough power to gig with so I just drag it out once in a while. I always loved its tone however and now I can get the same tone out of just about any amp at any volume. So, will you like it? I don't know. But if you think you like the sound of a vintage low wattage Fender tube amp cranked up then you will love this pedal. I give it a 9 because the tone is nearly perfect for me but realize that probably nothing is 100% perfect.

So far so good. Seems really well built but only time will answer this question.

I am pretty much a strict blues player, both traditional and modern. The website claim is correct, I never want to turn this off. I fnd I can still get nice clean tones when I back off the volume and pick attack however I get my Princeton grind when I dig in. If anyone is interested I use a Tele, a Les Paul Classic and a Heritage H535 (335 style) guitar. This pedal works great for me!

Have the newer model Fat-Boost with tone as small knob.
Takes a bit of experimenting to find sweet spot for all three controls. Bought in Japan (still here on tour for 2 months), Japanese manual, but Fulltone emailed English manual immediately.

On this tour using Marshall DSL 2000 50W + 4x12, Bassman, Vox AC30. (Usually plus Vibroverb other tours), Various Strats with maple finger boards, various Kinman p\u?s, one with Humbucker bridge, Firebird, Les Paul, Tele (Keith Richards 5 string tuning), various pedals. The Fat-Boost is used only with the Marshall, the only other pedal with the Marshall is a very basic boss DD5 delay, with tap tempo, in the FX loop. Not the purest echo system, but simple for live. Marshall is used on the boosted lead channel only. Fat-Boost in front of pre-amp stage. The basic tone is coming form the amp already. Try to simulate my old plexis flat out, which are too loud for me live, although I may try the Fat-Boost next opportunity live with an old 50 wt Superlead or Bluesbreaker combo.
The Fat-Boost, so far, is good for pushing an already nicely driven sound.
Two settings I like so far ;-
1st Vol 1 oclock, gain 12 oclock, tone 12 oclock. Nicely bursting out amp for solos on strat neck p/u. Edgy top and deep bottom. May sound hi- fi on it?s own, but can be a bit spikey in top end of sound spectrum, when buried in band mix of dense instrumentation, because lows get hidden. Top end slightly separate from main body of sound, but good for certain songs. This top end can also add pleasant smack with certain p/u?s and less dense instrumentation.
2nd Vol 4 oclock, gain 8/9 oclock, some songs gain 9/10 oclock, tone full up. Again on strat neck p/u, this is more middley, more throat, because the vol is pushing the amp more than the gain. Also I get to keep the tone full up, since I?m not compensating, rolling off treble, for the added treble, as I would otherwise get, by increasing the gain, This, I suspect, allows me to retain more of the natural gtr sound. Alternatively too much vol, as opposed to gain, will clog up the sound on my set up. I think prefer this setting, and it still bursts out of speakers nicely with good top and bottom to sound. The sound mixed with the band on full tilt rock songs seems more solid.
Sound on neck p/u heading towards a ?Marshall equivalent? of my original 62 strat (rosewood board) with 62 vibroverb (1x15), + tube screamer on neck p/u (Stevie Ray Vaughn set up)(This gig more rock than blues, hence no Vibroverb). Humbucker sounds good also with above settings, like early British blues (60?s John Mayall guitar players). These are the two lead sounds I mainly like. Also slide sound is a bit Sonny Landreth.
Both don?t add too much distortion, which I like, but retain good, wide, dynamic attack at front of note transient envelope, simulating natural compression of cranked old amps with tube rectifiers. Still stays quite transparent. I?m using wireless systems on all gtrs so unfortunately I?m loosing some top and adding slight compression anyway.
There is some noise but there ALWAYS is, if you crank amps to push out this kind of sound. That?s why I use the Kinmans (noiseless) live, especially with lighting rigs which add buzz. Studio is a whole other area (less compromises).
Every gig on this tour is recorded on minidisk from front of house desk, (mainly stadiums but no ambience mikes which is brutally honest) so I can hear exactly what is going on when I make small changes to the Fat-Boost, (and I?m still tweaking).

Early days but seems solid enough. I may get another as reserve if I continue to like it.

So far emails replied to promptly. No need for repairs

Good for what I do. I am a mainly blues influenced lead player but have to accommodate many diverse styles for accompanying different artists.
As well as touring with Eric Clapton (Pilgrim tour), Van Morrison, Robert Palmer, and Asia, I have performed and/or recorded with Paul McCartney, Sting, Elton John, Queen, Bonnie Raitt, Rod Stewart, Mark Knopfler, Paul Young, Jon Anderson (Yes) and Burt Bacharach. Currently on tour in Japan with Japanese artist.
I own over 50 gtrs and over 30 amps, mainly vintage, + protools recording studio.
I use many various effects (Usually not more than a couple at a time, if any) but when it comes to overdrive I prefer (and am lucky enough to afford) to choose the right amp for the sound ;- hence multi-amp live set up. Sometimes use Tube Screamers or Rat with Fenders, when I need to overdive the amp, which is set up on the edge of distorting but still clean.
Only used the Fat-Boost so far with the already, nicely driven Marshall, as a booster. I don?t know how it would be with a clean Fender. Not had time to try that yet. As with all pedals, type of amp, settings, type of mike and positioning, are important to me. Also gtr, p/u?s, maple, rosewood or ebony fingerboards, make differences to how I would EQ the pedal and amp.
Heard about Fulltone over the years, bought Fat-Boost here in Japan after trying one out in rehearsals here. Also bought a Fulldrive 2 here but haven?t had a chance to really get to know it yet, although I use it for one Peter Green (early Fleetwood Mac) type overdrive with the Bassman on this gig.
I hope this is of interest, and helpful, especially to any younger player who may find all of the infinite possibilities of gear these days confusing, (maybe this has added to the confusion). I found your other reviewer?s contributions interesting reading, while holed up in a hotel in Nagoya for a night.

Very simple and the manual makes it a no brainer.

It sounds great running it as a clean boost to my victoria, but I wasn't blown away by the overdrive. It is pretty cool that you can achieve it though. I don't think it as good as the klon, and I am going to compare it to a super hard on that I am going to get.

It looks and feels really dependable. You could probably use is as a hammer and it would continue working just fine.

I am not satisfied with the customer service. I have owned 4 pedals and I had a bad experience with one. I have tried emailing and calling and it took about a week to get a response. It would be unfair to rate this pedal poorly based on bad experiences, but that is why I am going to try z. vex-he is easy to get a hold of and very helpful.

I own a couple great tube amps and I try to limit my pedals to 2 or 3 when I play live. I want to have a clean boost, but I don't think it will be this one. I think this is way too expensive for what it does.
It is nice and maybe I will gravitate back to it, but I would rather have a mxr micro amp (great value), or a super hard on (great service).

Very easy to get a great clean boost out it,and a very easy to use pedal.

2003 model,the clean boost is great...I really did'nt care for the overdriven sounds that it produces,I was hoping to use in place of my fulldrive, but no way... you simply cannot replace the fulldrive II in the overdrive dept.I do however use this to boost my signal for chicken pickin' solos...I run it through a Rivera clean channel and it sounds awesome!!Turning the drive all the way down and volume all the way up (tone control varies) gives me a great sound.I also own a MXR micro amp and side by side,I prefer the fat boost.

I honestly don't think you can break one of these.I would use this without a backup anyday.

I've e-mailed them and I did'nt get a response.I've heard that Mike Fuller can be pretty selective about returning e-mails...who knows.Now that I think about it,it was an obvious question anyway!!

A little pricey,but I would replace it.I would'nt use it for metal(maybe just to boost your leads).Its a wonderful clean boost and is as solid as they come.I've been a fulltone devotee for four years now and I simply cannot find better sounding pedals...this guy just gets it.

Very easy and intuitive. One very minor complaint. The little plastic tone pot is too small. A larger knob would be much easier to use.

This pedal does what it claims to. It does add more even order harmonics to your signal and "recover" some of your signal after long cable runs. I have owned many Fulltone pedals over the years and most of them seem better suited to the single coils of strats and teles. This comes as no suprise with Fuller being such a strato-phile. However, I play a Les Paul 80% of the time, and think it would have been better to make the tone control a little more versitile. ie: Low-end boost in the CCW direction and treble boost in the CW direction. With a detented center position taking the tone control out of the circuit. This would make it more useful to us Gibson players. IMHO anyway. I would like to A/B this unit with the Diaz booster or the Analogman "Beano boost," which I believe feature such a tone control.

I'm a little apprehensive about Fulltone switches. One failed on me a few years ago. It worked for about week then died. I sent it back and they promply repaired it. I had my pedal back in no time. I've noticed that Fulltone has changed switches a few times over the years. Maybe this is no longer an issue. Otherwise the knobs and housing are a "case" study in overengineering. Very rugged.

The speed of service is impressive. The fact that you might actually get to talk with the President of the Co. is proof of Mike's dedication. As for phone courtsey, let's just say, Fuller's a busy man. If you've ever worked with a physicians or Phd.s, you'll know what I mean Have your "guns loaded" before you call. If you're quick and to the point; He's very nice. He can smell if you're a pro or just a "bedroom wanna-be" right through the phone line!

I play rock, Jazz and blues. I've been playing about 25 years. I have experience in music engineering and production both in the studio and in the field. ...If my Fat boost got "boosted?" I might replace it with a more versitile unit. I love the build quality though. Second to none.

Very easy to use, I like the fact that it has a volume, so you can add gain without also also increasing the volume.

I have tried a bunch of stuff trying to get a tone I like, without much luck, until I tried the Fat Boost, WOW! (Now That's The Tone I've Been After) I've got a reissue 72 Tele Thinline and Reissue Deluxe Rev. It's the first pedal I've heard that makes it sound like the amp is cranked at any volume, without changing your basic tone at all. Everything else seems to change your tone to much, or sound to compressed, or to buzzy etc. I set it to one notch shy of full up and leave it on all the time. It souns Awesome!

I havent had it that long yet, but it seems to be very well built.

Haven't dealt with them

I play mostly blues and rock, I've been playing about 6yrs. On my pedalboard is the Fat Boost, Barber Direct Drive, and Teese RMC3. The Fat Boost is always on and I use the Direct Drive when I want to rock out, and the RMC3 when I want to get funky. It's by far the best boost/od pedal I've heard, and if it were stolen or lost I couldn't get another one fast enough.