Fulltone Full-Drive 2 Mosfet

Easy to use...I mean is a drive pedal. I gave it a 9 because it does take awhile to dial in perfect settings. But all settings sound good. Seriously. The manual explains everything in detail, which was useful as I had no idea what the comp-cut, FM, vintage, mosfet and standard switches actually did, but its not needed to find good tone. You can hear right? If you answered "yes" You don't need a manual.

Only deaf people will need the manual.

Best pedal I've ever used. Period. I was using ibanez ts9, and it sounded like crap. I splurged on this and now my tone is perfect. I use an epiphone casino or les paul and a VOX ac50 amp. The tone is so musical and focused. Its near impossible to get bad sounds from it. Even the settings I don't use sound great. The tone I was going for was kinda like Bayliss and Cinninger's tones (from Umphrey's McGee) and it nails it. I mean with my gear its slightly different, but I don't want to copycat tones. Amazingly good.

Haven't Had it for too long, but it seems built like a rock. I accidentally slammed it into a wall when I was walking around showing people bragging about it and it sounds great still! So I guess its reliable.

No idea. Company seems nice enough tho. The manual is written from first person and seems like the dudes talking to you. I like it.

I play whatever I feel like playing, prog, rock, techno, reggae, jazz, metal, whatever. This will do it all. What do I love about it? Everything. No od pedal I've played comes close, and none of them sound nearly as musical. This things extremely verstile and if i had to go back to my ts9 I'd kill myself.

If I lost it or it got stolen I would cry because I'm a poor college kid. Then I wouldn't eat for 2 weeks so I could save $$$ and buy a new one.

My favorite feature Is that my tone went from meh to jesus in one day. I mean my tone was terrible until I got my ac50cp2, but even then it was missing something. This pedal completes me.

Oh yeah and the boost function. Thats money fool. Just because its like 2 pedals in one.

Expensive at 172 with tax but it evens out because it sounds like the voice of god.

Hey there folks! I'm going to get down to it. This pedal is a great pedal. I didn't originally have the same opinion I do now, however. At one time I thought it sucked and wondered what everyone was so excited about. As far as ease of use is concerned, this pedal is pretty straight foreward. It could be misconceived by some that the Mosfet function only applies to the boost, however, and this is not the case. It applies to both gain stages. Mine is the new edition of the pedal (the one with the "blanket taken off the sound" according to Mike Fuller). The pedal has two programable sounds so editing patches is not that big of a deal. It is better if the gain is not turned up much past 2:00 if you want a distinct difference between the boosted signal and the un-boosted one.

This is the updated edition. Knobs: Volume, tone, compcut/fm/vintage mode toggle, overdrive, mosfet on/off toggle, boost volume.

What setup are you using this with?
I am using it mostly with teles and strats but also a Gretsch 6120 about 15% of the time. My signal chain runs as follows: Guitar, Fulltone Clyde Standard, Fulldrive 2 Mosfet, Fulltone GT500, Xotic BB + Plus, Keeley Compressor, TC Electronic Nova Modulator, MXR 74 Vintage Phase 90, Arion Chorus EWS mod, TC Electronic Nova Delay, Boss TU2, Amp. The amp is usually one of 3: A Vox AC 30 CC1 loaded with Celestion Alnico Gold Speaker, Fender 59 Bassman reissue, Traynor Guitar mate from 1972 (22 watt el84 based amp).

This pedal can be slightly noisy if the boost function is maxed and the overdrive is up, but no more than any other pedal. I would say less.
I must say that I originally found the pedal to be weak. I thought there wasn't enough gain to it. What I ended up realizing was that it depends on how you set your amp and what kind of amp you have.

I also realized that this pedal is more transparent than most overdrives in this category(e.g. The TS family). It is much less compressed which may initially appear too clean.

I have tried a variety of other pedals in this category. I have tried stock Tubescreamers including 808, 9, and 9dx. I have also tried the maxon ones. I have tried the keeley mods and own bothe the 808 with 1982 chip and 9 DX Flexi. I have also tried the Xotic family of effects and out of all of these, at least for a transparent lighter overdrive, I found it to be the best. This pedal has allowed me to get the Stevie Ray tone I have been looking for all of these years and really serves well at enhancing my amp.
I am able to get very convincing blues, country and lighter rock sounds from this pedal. If you want something more gainy or more compressed, check out some of the other pedals I mentioned. They too are good, but for different applications.

This thing is built like a tank and the LEDs are nice and bright. I would definitely use it without a backup.

I dealt with the company a couple of times with some of their other pedals and found them to be reasonably prompt and helpful. Never spoke with Mike Fuller. I know a lot of people don't like him, but they might be part of their own problem.

I play a lot of different styles of music including, Rock of varied kinds from soft to heavy, blues, country, Jazz, latin, and blue grass. This pedal is a good match for most of the lighter kinds to medium amounts of gain.

I have been playing for 13 year and am turning 25. Most of my frequently used gear is listed above, but there is more. I would prefer not to list it as it would take too long.

If this pedal were lost or stolen, I would definitely buy it again. I like the transparency of it and the way it enhances my amps' best qualities. I also like the boost function and the toggle switches, which allow for some interesting tonal variation. I mostly keep it on vintage mode, however. What I don't like is the way the overdrive knob is not as interactive as many other pedals I have tried. The level of saturation doesn't have a wide enough variance.

I compared this product to the keeley tubescreamers, the xotic ac plus, the Diamond J-drive TR and MK3, and Fulltone OCD. I own or have owned all of those pedals except the ac plus. With some pedals you have to take them home and play around with them for some time in order to decide what you think. I sold both J-drives and removed the other pedals listed from my pedalboard.

If I could have something else for this pedal it would be either an 18 volt converter inside and a switch that allows the pedal to change from between 9 and 18 volt operation. I would also like a clean boost to go after the pedal for a simple volume boost for soloing instead of only a gain boost from the boost channel. I would like to see a 3 stage version.

This pedal does help me to make music. Off the cuff, I have been coming up with exciting new music that my band and our audiences seem to love.

On top of all the things mentioned above, this pedal is a real looker. It is very attractive looking. I've always been reminded of some sort of air plain console when looking at it. Nice blue paint and now available again in cream knobs which look sweet.

You can't get a bad sound out of it but it's not easy to get the sound you want. The suggested settings are very helpful.

I'm using this with and Ibanez Prestige and Fender amp. This baby sounds so sweet and really, you can't get a bad sound out of it. All the knobs are very interactive and offers you a wide range of sound and combination. Love the boost function. It gives more growl to the overdrive. And is responds extremely well to picking dynamics and guitar volume.

I have this and a Diamond Pedals J-Drive MK3. Both are good and offers different kind of sound. I admit I do like the sound of the J-Drive more. So do try out both if you only want one.

Built like a tank. Bring it to war and it still can come back and work perfectly for you.

Never dealt

Excellent pedal. One of the should have pedals for a great tone. If stolen I would definitely get another one. It just makes my solid state amp sound like a tube amp. Warm and sweet. Love this pedal so much.

Okay now .... i'm not going into all the relative basic detail that others have already written about ... so as to not take up any more page space of rehashed mentions.

At first , i had a hard time lking this pedal's OD section 'cause it is way too bright for me (however perfect for any dark sounding amp).
i did right out da gate dig its Boost section when setting it for clean gain.

Now the the mojo .... for myself i have found the best way to use this pedal. utilize both stages (OD + Boost). you're thinking many here have already detailed that and then some. yeah , they have - but here's a bit more to the equation - the secret ingredient if you will. Get yourself a VL Pedal Power 2+ and use the SAG control feeding the FullDrive 2. that's right - lower the voltage going to it to taste. it's like doing the variac thing to an amp. you'll also need a separate loop switch unless you wanna do the Mexican hat dance at stomping several switches on / off with each engagement.

I'm telling all of you there's a wonderful refinement when using this pedal this way.

If you can't get a good or great tone out of your setup with this pedal then there's no hope for you. The pedal is very versatile.

You really don't need a manual with this unit.

This is the best overdrive that I have ever used and has a boost switch that really makes your leads sound excellent. I used a Fender Stratotcaster with HS-3 and YJM pickups, a Marshall AVT275 amp, and used it in conjunction with a Boss GT-8 multi-effects unit. I have been playing for 30 + years and have played professionally so I have some idea of the differences between 'good' and 'GREAT' tone. I've tried 100s of overdrive and distortion pedals and currently have several including ProCo Rat, EH Metal Muff w/Top Boost, Boss Metal Zone, and Boss Metal Core, several Tubescreamers, EH Big Muff (old school). Listing all the different types of overdrives and distortions I've used in my time could take years...;)

In summary, the Fulltone overdrive is very warm and smooth and works very well with other distortion pedals. I used an Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff Nano with it and got killer tone. The difference in this overdrive pedal is that you have excellent clarity and sustain and the sound does not get muddled as with other overdrive pedals.

No problems. Built very well and looks good too.

Have never had to use customer support

I play rock (alternative and classic), country, blues, gospel, and jazz occasionally. This pedal works very well with all of the types of music mentioned but may not be suitable for metal. I first bought a Fulltone GT-500 which all the salespeople said was great (and cost more) but found the distortion too fuzzy and muddled for my taste. If you like good clarity and sustain this is the pedal for you.

As I said before, I've been playing for over 30 years.

If it were lost or stolen I'd buy another one in a second.

I love the tone. Nothing I've tried sounds this good. I decided on this unit after researching over 75 - 100 different overdrive and distortion pedals. After doing quite a bit of research about the type sound I was after, I decided that what I really needed was a good overdrive with a boost that would work good with other distortion pedals that I have. I've found that using subtle overdrives to color your sound with a good distortion pedal is the best way to get great tone.

Iv'e had the pedal only a short time, but in relation to my Keeley Modded Sparkle Drive, Keeley Modded Blues Driver, and Mesa Boogie V-Twin, I will say that it is on par with the rest of my overdrive pedals in the way of that luscious smooth tone. As a previous reviewer stated, I don't necessarily know if it presents my best clean/crunch rhythm tone BUT with the proper tweaking I believe it can be. The Keeley Modded Sparkle Drive is great for a smooth rhythm/lead tone within a clean gain envelope. For whatever reason I prefer my Sparkle Drive with humbucker equipped guitars, and the Keeley Modded Blues Driver with single coil guitars, and the Fulltone Full Drive 2 Mosfet with both pickup types.

For this review I used a 66' Fender Blackface Super Reverb with Tone Tubby 10"s. It's a rough looking condition amp, so I decided to make a sleeper of it. The SR has 2 x 10" Alnico Hempcones and 2 x 10" ceramic hempcones in a "X" pattern with a ceramic and alnico 10" above and below. The amp has a new set of GT 6L6's, a Sylvania NOS GZ34, and NOS preamp tubes, a 70's Fender Silverface Super Reverb reverb pan, and has been recapped. Other than the tolex looking rough, this amp absolutely KILLS tonewise, it's the ultimate Fender tone with no limitations to the speaker frequency range whatsoever, unlike other paper cone speaker counterparts. These Tone Tubby speakers haven't even been broken in yet but still sound PHENOMENAL. The guitar is a custom made lefty Surf Green strat with 38 year old righty staggered Seymour Duncan Alnico Pro strat pickups which also provides a PHENOMENAL sounding tone (for pics of guitar see:)

http://www.warmoth.com/gallery/images/strat/thumbs/gregg_nickens_sml.jpg

Hopefully I won't ever have to call on Mike Fuller for any pedal issues, as I've heard he's a real bear to deal with.

Same comment as the "Reliability" column.

I'm from the 70's generation, so I like to play classic rock and blues. I do enjoy good jazz although it's not my forte as a musician, that being said I still wouldn't use this pedal for anything but blues and/or classic rock.

Takes a while - that's not a bad thing - and like all pedals you don't really find your tones until your in a big room with sound bouncing all over, etc - what I hear in a smaller practice space never holds up in a bar. The manual does help - just enough info.
markers on knobs easily visible in low lite - small toggles - but once you know them it's not difficult to change settings on the fly.

My review is only about stratocaster into pedal into amp - cover dance band. I don't know anything about humbucker tones, or recording tones. ( sometimes think there should be separate reviews for recorded sound ) If you play a les paul or care about recorded tone you should ignore my review.
vintage style strat >>> full-drive ( 18 volts ) >>>>> Keeley mod blues driver >>>> Ibanez anolog delay >>>>> British AC15.

I'm really not a fan of any particular pedal maker - in fact I did not like my distortion pro at all. But I know this company is about strat tone and I play a strat....

what this pedal is NOT good at - rhythm crunch, growl,aggressive - for all my bridge PU rock, old school rhythm tones the modded blues driver is absolutely my favorite ( after 40 years and probably a hundred pedals). It is also NOT the 'holy grail single pedal outstanding rhythm tone then step on the other button for leads' pedal.

what's really good about it: the sweet, stinging strat tone - both FM and vintage are great. This is as good a TS clone as I have ever heard and for a good price.


WHAT THIS PEDAL IS AWESOME ABOUT: The mosfet boost tone in combo with the overdrive ( both lights shining at you ) is absolutely wonderful !! great squeels with pinch harmonics - blooms into controlled feedback nicely ( this is a challenge with a strat - easy with a humbucker but doesn't compete with the complex harmonics of single coils so I don't care ) This is my bridge PU lead tone for a long time now. BUT - I switch off the Keeley and stomp on the fulltone in one clever foot move. - I'm not willing to give up the Blues driver rhythm tone - previously I kicked in a carl martin hot drive for leads ( I used that for at least 5 years ) - the mosfet has replaced it. It has a nice 9 volt sweet tone also - 18 volts squeels better. It is noisy but so what?

I'm not worried about it - solid.

Have played 40 years - now in cover dance band playing all the goofy stuff people like to dance to I HAVE OWNED WAY TOO MUCH STUFF and don't see any end in site.

I am really thrilled with the lead tones from this pedal with my strat and AC15 - like everybody says though - you need a basic good tone before you add pedals ( strat + this vox has made me happy )

very fair price

question: what if somebody manufactured a small single pedal stand alone mosfet boost pedal? just wondering...

No problems getting a great sound, but needed to spend time and experiment a bit to get the best from it, but it has very useful controls which give lots of flexibility. I wanted a top quality overdrive with a boost function, rather than buy an extra pedal in the chain. This is just the right pedal.

The manaual is two pages and pretty straightforward

Fender Strat with Texas Special pickups, Gretsch 6120 with Dynasonic single coils. Typical noisy single coil pickups and some noise from the pedal, but I will try a regulated power supply as recommended in the manual. The Full Drive 2 mosfet is a great sounding unit, can be very bright if needed, but my amp accentuates this and obviously a lot of work has been put into retaining the tone of the guitar through the pedal. I use a Fender Deluxe reverb reissue amp which has a bright sound anyway

The fulldrive pedal appears very sturdy and high quality

No experience here

For over 30 years I've played rock, country, blues and rockabilly, not thrash or metal..this is not a pedal for thrash metal players, it is a versatile overdrive to fatten, boost and break up your tone. I can't fault it, but with my Gretsch, I had to dial the tone right back. I feel it is really the perfect Strat overdrive pedal. I have an MI Audio Blues Pro overdrive too and I think the Fulltone and the MI Audio are the two best overdrives going around, but the Fulltone has more functionality and flexibility.

This pedal for me is the 'Holy Grail'of O'drives! Very user friendly.
I didn't even look at the manual. Just put it in the chain and start
twisting and toggling!

I use mostly vintage strats/L.P.historic reissues,54'59'L.P.jr's,69'
maple neck tele and various newer PRS single cut trems and strats.
I use a furman spb-8 pedalboard with the chain starting: guitar/
Fulltone Clyde Delux wah/E'ball V'pedal/Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive/
Fulldrive2 Mosfet/Boss DD-5 Delay/Boss CE-5 Chorus/Keeley Katana
clean boost/Boss TU-2 tuner into vintage Fender Deluxe Reverbs,
Bluespearl Texas Tornado and Bluesmaster amps.I can dial up any
sound/tone I need. All cables are GeorgeL's from axe to amp.

So far,so good with this 'Pedal of All'. No backup needed(I've got
the sparkler in the chain).

Haven't needed to call on cust. support(knock on wood!)Friends
tell me that F'tone is a pleasure to deal with if need be.

I've been playing blues/blues rock for for 25+ years and if this
pedal was stolen or died I would get another 'POST HASTE'. The
bottom line for me is: Great tone=Great playing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

8 just because its a good idea to read the manual to get the most out of it.

Overall really easy to use with the knobs. What you do want to do is read the manual first to see what the different toggle switches do, otherwise you'll be missing out on a few different effects that this pedal can perform.

This isn't a one trick pony like a a TS, the drive control sounds awesome all up and down the sweep.

Tone control as other reviews have stated can get very bright, but again it's more of a presence control rather than a treble bleed off, so it can get quite piercing if not controlled.

Volume and boost are very usable, the sweep of the knob gives you different usable levels all they way up. not just a low, unity, and loud volume like some pedals have.

As far as the different toggles go, I find myself using all three for different sounds. Vintage is great for bluesy stuff with some crunch and a little less fidelity- but in the good way.

FM with low drive is a really good rhythm sound if you want very light breakup. turn the drive up and kick in the boost and its heaven and pushing towards a light distortion pedals with some good harmonics coming into the mix.

CompCut is interesting, didn't use it for about a month but now i find myself using it on the softer stuff just to add a touch of sparkle to my sound.

As for the MOSFET and Normal switch the difference between the two is amazing. I Tend to use Normal with the Vintage position and MOSFET for the FM. Mosfet adds more volume and pushes your sound through the mix a lot more than the Normal setting, as well as adding a little more harmonics to your sound.

Sound Quality is superb.

Some have called this a TS remake....like every other overdrive seems to be nowadays. It's more of an actual overdrive that can mimic the TS sound...and make it better. You have more options at your feet.

Works very well with my H2O chorus. Had my Small Stone going before this for a while, but recently switched it to afterwards. My previous overdrive had to be set after the Small Stone because otherwise all of the growl was lost in the Stone, but with the Fulldrive i opted to switch it back and the growl stayed in the mix without getting muddled.

If you spend a little bit of time you really can get any sound you want out of this thing other than down right distortion or fuzz, but every kind of blues and rock drive is possible with this guy.

this thing is a beast.

steel box.

knobs can take a beating ( i use my feet to adjust things on stage and there's no worries about messing up a pot)

definitely using without a backup, not really worried about it unless i were to take a gun to it, and that would be silly.

haven't had to deal with them at all so no comment.

I play a MIM Tele with Seymour duncan vintage stack tele pups. A Epiphone Dot into a Fender Blues JR Tweed.

Effect consist mainly of Fulldrive 2>Small Stone>Pigtronix EP-1>H20>EHX LB-1>Amp

this pedal is great and cannot be compared to the TS of any caliber, i've owned the 808 and the newer model. This is much more versatile of a pedal!