Fulltone Full-Drive 2

This unit is the best thing I've ever purchased for my setup. I like simple things and this couldn't be any easier to get a great tone out of. I replaced a my V-Twin with it and with all due respect to the boys at Mesa..this thing kicks their butt.

I use it with my Tom Anderson Cobra and Flextone 60W combo and even though it's a modeling amp the Fulldrive does it's magic with it as well. I'm going to try it with a tube amp as well. The others explained the controls in detail I can only say that with the push/pull volume adds a whole new dimension to this unit. It really brigtens up your sound. I've been after Ian Moore's tone for a long time and this has it.

I had it for a day, seems pretty sturdy. I would probably get a backup in case something happens to Mike (Let's hope not)

Haven't dealt with them but if they are anything like their web site then I got nothing to worry about.

I play mostly modern blues, a little progressive stuff. I've been playing for 18 years and this is the best tone I had in a long time. I usually have one amp at a time, I don't like to jump back and forth between amps ( that's why I got the Flextone which is the best thing for me) I mostly play for pleasure. The Fulldrive has a very musical feel to it and it really adds a new dimension to my playing. Having that long and controllable sustain and drive at my disposal really makes me want to play more. I could hardly put it down, just played for hours. Lastly I'd like to thank Tommy at Guitarville in Seattle. He was very helpful on the phone and shipped it to me to Atlanta overnight for a very reasonable price. Take my word for it: This is the best $200.00 you will ever spend if you like TONE. (STAY CLEAR METALHEADS!!!)

Very easy. I feel that this pedal has been so documented in this area I can not add any thing of great value exept to say that mine is one of the newer #FM pedals and has the Fulltone 3PDT swiches. I find none of the bugs concerning the volume and tone that were said to haunt the previouse versions. I find the one very useful as it does not coulor the sound but just highlights it (or not).

Every thing has been said. This pedal is all about control. You get the sustain and all the control you ever wanted at your finger tips (literaly, all you have to deal with is the guitar its like telepathy). I used to use a boss blues driver(oh my I dont know what I was thinking!)I wish some one had told me about htis long ago. I have been playing like crazy kcant put the guitar down, this pedal finaly gave me the sound I was looking for (THAT TONE and the SUSTAINnnnnn...)It also realy improved the sound of all the other effects I had before it in the effects chain (wah and Fulltone Octafuzz) especialy the octafuzz it realy screams but smooth now like the hendrixy kind of guitar in pain scream.The wah also became more vocal and smooth and I can get all the tone I need now at muchlower volume (I dont have to wait intil the neighbors are all on vacation).

Fulltone need we say more?

Mike Fuller! Onece again, need we say more?

I have never given a full out 10 on everythin to any piece of equipment , until now. This is an incredible pedal I have told my dearest and closest freiends about it, and feel like I'm protecting some kind of great tone hord(dont ever tell the competition about this one!). I would never recomend buying any piece of equipment without hearing it first, but this pedal is hard to get a hold of, much less try out before buying. Almost every one buys it over the phone or net(thiey sell like hot kakes and are always out of stock most places have waiting list).I can truly say BUY IT you wont be dissapointed. If I could only have one pedal this would be it.

Plug up and dial in! If you're even remotley familiar with getting good tones from a TubeScreamer, then you will be able to set the knobs in roughly the same positions here, and get similiar but MUCH BETTER sounds! Minus one point for the pull-botton feature on the volume, which turns off the compression and allows for a cleaner gain-boost. Since I will rarely ever use this feature (maybe some chicken-pickin'), it doesn't bother me, but if you wanted to go back-and-forth between this feature, it would be very difficult to match volumes.

As far as I'm concerned, this is the finest overdrive / smooth distortion pedal in history! It does everything the TS-808-advocates claim the TS will do, but far better. The overdrive is more organic, and the boost channel gets a higher-gain, yet natural classic-sounding distortion. For my use, the overdrive is perfect for twangy, blues tones, and the boost provides an excellent lead and/or rhythm sound for anything besides high gain distortion (as in Van Halen or King's X). Another obvious advantage to this pedal over the TubeScreamers is its True Bypass. My old TS was the first or second pedal in my chain, so my signal was significantly weakened by the time it hit my amp. Now, I'm one step closer to having my entire chain true bypassed(need to rig my Crybaby still). If you're a fan of the "idea" of the classic TS, but you've always wanted a little bit more, this rather pricey pedal is well worth your immediate purchase!

Mine's brand new, but I will say that it's made very durably and Fulltone already has a reputation for reliability.

My only direct contact with Fulltone was when I found a diagram for converting old wah pedals to true bypass. I had begun following the directions, when I noticed my model wasn't exactly like the one in the diagram. I called the number on the web page, and Mike (the owner) answered it himself. He was very helpful, and I was quite impressed that he took the call. This company is small enough and has enough integrity to be what I wished every company could be - HELPFUL!

I play a Fender Strat with Lace Sensors into a '63 Bassman amp. I play large doses of Texas-style blues and classic rock, as well as some heavier rock (NOT GRUNGE!), and I also play guitar for my church (more of a chorused clean sound most of the time). This pedal is a perfect fit! It allows the tone of my Fender equipment to stay true, with the accent of smooth, warm overdrive and distortion. If you like Grunge, or you're into the Metal Zone sound, then please stay away from this pedal. But if you've always wanted your guitar to sing with warm sustain, belt out the blues with attitude, and crunch without being thin, THIS IS YOUR THANG!!

This is an overdrive pedal about the size of two Boss pedals side by side. It has four knobs - from left to right: Volume (this can be pulled for a non compression mode), tone, drive and boost, and it has two foot switches. The left has a green led and turns the pedal on, the right has a red led and the pedal is in boost mode with the led lit or normal mode with it off. A nice feature of the pedal is that the boost led stays lit when the pedal is by-passed so you know what you're getting when you switch it on. It came with a manual which had some suggested settings and explains everything for the ones who can't figure it out for themselves. This is an easy pedal to use and ALL settings are usable.

This is a nice pedal. It is an overdrive pedal and generally won't give you metal crunch and gain, but if you're wanting nice sustain and full singing lead tones, this is the pedal for you. I'm playing a Japanese Fender Tele through a Boss CS3 sustain into the Fulldrive into a Fender Blues deVille. In the loop I'm running a Boss DD3.
I basically use this setup in two ways. I either run my amp clean and use the Fulldrive and the sustain for my distortion, or I use the overdrive channel on the amp, turn the Fulldrive volume all the way up and pulled out, which is the non compression mode and gives a lot more gain. The first of these set ups is quite versatile - I've got clean with everything off; slightly dirty with the Fulldrive on; more dirty, more sustain and more volume with the sustain and the Fulldrive; even more dirt, more sustain and more volume with just the boost mode on the Fulldrive; and then kick in the sustain with the Fulldrive in boost mode and there's even more of everything, nice singing lead tones. The second of these set ups is not so versatile and I really just use it to put my amp into maximum overdrive, lots of crunch and gain - pretty ugly really.
No matter how I use the pedal, it is very quiet. There is a little bit of hum but my guitar is fitted with all single coils and most of the hum is just a slight amplification of that.
It would be nice if it had seperate tone and volume controls but it would end up being pretty cramped for space. As it is at the moment, the knobs are nice and big, and easy to turn with a foot.

This thing is built nice and solid. I would have more faith in it than my Boss pedals as far as construction goes. I have only had it for a couple of weeks, but I don't see there being any problems with it. I would and do gig with out a backup.

My only contact with Mike Fuller has been via email prior to getting the pedal. He was always helpful and his replies would come back over night.

Overall this is a great pedal. I actually like playing Pink Floyd stuff and some originals. This isn't so good for the Pink Floyd stuff as David Gilmour's sound is much more distorted. But, I really like it for solo's in my own songs and I think it will be very useful when I get a higher gain distortion pedal, for adding some smooth, rich, cream to my sound.
Yes I would buy it again if this one went missing.

This is a followup to my previous review primarily intended to pass on some subjective impressions of the newer "Flat Mids" Full Drive 2 (identifiable by the "FM" serial number) with the older model.
I received a newer (1 month old) Flat Mids FD2 in a trade and decided to do a head-to-head shootout with my older FD2. Note that my older pedal was bought in 2/98 and does not use the latest FET nor does it have the re-designed PCB (aka, Flat Mids mod).
Executive Summary: I like the older version better.
Test Info: G&L ASAT-3 into my pedal board into Top Hat Club Royale set at "recording/bedroom practice" level.
Initial Pedal Settings: Volume=11:00, Tone=12:00, OD=11:00, Boost=12:00
Pros:
1) FM pedal did have more transparent qualities. I liked the compressed/non-boosted setting better on the FM pedal. Definitely more tube-like (but not much more, the older pedal sounded very good as well).
2) FM pedal Tone control did seem to be more musical as the filter res freq was clearly changed to a higher freq. It behaves much more like a TS-808 Tone control - very musical until about 85% of range where it gets very bright and (IMHO) a tad thin. Older FD2 had (IMHO) much less usable range - could get kind of boinky. I was able to set the FM Tone control to about 2:00, whereas I tended to leave the older Tone control set at 12:00.
3) FM pedal seemed to have less gain overall in all settings. In compressed/boost mode, I had to dime the newer pedal Boost control to get approx the same gain as the old pedal set at 12:00 (mid point).
4) Fast run note articulation was noticably better with the FM pedal. I had to do somewhat more damping and muting and with the older pedal to keep runs from muddying up. However, fast shred stuff is a miniscule part of my overall style ('cause I basically suck at it). My fast stuff tends to be more "country oriented" with less distortion (clean or semi-clean). My distortion work tends to be the more "singing" Mike Campbell-esque stuff.
Cons:
1) The compressed/boost setting is much better on the older pedal. I am seriously into musical singing feedback. I could get the older pedal to sustain indefinitely on notes from open E to G (5th fret/4th string). The FM pedal seemed to run out of gas on any notes above E (2nd fret/4th string).
Midrange content is a well known ingredient of this singing feedback type of sound (Zappa was known to mod his guitars to provide more midrange for this exact reason).
For me, I feel that the older FD2 is a better mix of tones. Sure, the compressed/non-boosted tone has a tad more midrange, but that's not always a bad thing in a mix. I've found that I always need a tad more midrange in a band mix than I think I do. That nice scooped Hi-Fi sound in my practice environment sounds thin with a whole band.
I don't find the enhanced midrange of the older FD2 to be "unmusical" at all. Although, I can definitely see why the majority of players might prefer the newer version.
Bottom line, I think this just underscores the difficulty of making one pedal that will please all players. I still think that either of these pedals is fantastic. Personally, I just wouldn't rush to have this mod done if, like myself, you feel that the older pedal was perfect just the way it was, especially if musical feedback is a substantial part of your sound. The amount of change is perhaps 10% - 15% of the overall sound, but (IMHO) it can be an important 10% - 15%.

I still that either of these pedals is the best overdrive pedal I've personally ever played. I now have one of each and don't plan to sell either one - ever (that's sayng something for me).

This is extremely easy to use. You have to be braindead if you can't figure this out

I have to tell you that I have been trying to find MY sound for years. Now, I have MY sound. I was also very sceptical about "another overdrive" This is the ultimate, I've owned many, (Tube Drivers, Tubesters, Daddy O's, numerous Boss, etc.) The only complaint I had, was there wasn't quite enough distortion, but I give this a 10 anyway, because it sounds great no matter how much distortion you use, and is extremely versatile. Definately not for metalheads. I'm running with numerous strats (mostly Lonestars, or Am. Stand. with Tex. Spec.) through numerous Fender amps. All I can say is UNBELIEVABLE!!!!! I love it so much, I'm getting another for more tonal possibilities.

I would (and have) gigged without a backup. It seems extremely sturdy, and Mike Fuller stands by all his products proudly.

I've dealt with Mr. Fuller on a few occassions. He is prompt in returning emails, and is extremely helpful with any questions.

I play rock/blues similar to Ian Moore on his first cd. Ian is a big time user of Fulltone products, I've seen his setup, and he's showed me himself. This is the sweetest sounding overdrive for this kind of music. Possibilities are endless. I have used numerous overdrives before, and still do on occassion, but must say that the Fulldrive2 is the key to my sound. I was hesitant to buy anoter overdrive, but if you are sketchy, or thinking about buying this pedal, do yourself a favor and get it. If you have any questions about this pedal, email me and I will help you as best as I can. This rules!!!!!

This pedal is idiot proof, if you can't figure it out in five minutes, don't quit your day job! There are two channels; A for moderate overdrive, B (boost) for more saturated, compressed overdrive. Controls are: volume, tone (presence), overdrive, and boost. It's simple to set up two useable sounds and then switch between them. With your amp set clean you get three sounds at the flick of a switch, clean chimey from the amp, light break up from the first channel on the Fulldrive (think blackface Fender) then, more saturated with the boost from the Fulldrive's second channel(think early Boogie, Marshall). I've used it now for two months on weekend gigs, people come up to me on breaks asking how I'm getting THAT tone. I previously used a Rat, Real Tube, SansAmp GT2, Boss Dual Overdrive, TS9, TS808 etc. They're all retired at this time, I wish I'd bought the Fulldrive a long time ago and saved my money. This pedal lets your notes "breathe", uncluttering the soungd of your guitar. When you bend notes, the Fulldrive holds it letting you control the sustain of the note. With this pedal you hear the original note; it's lightly cicled by the Fulldrive's musical overdrive. A good way to try dist./overdrive pedals is to set your amp up so you're facing the center of the speaker, listen for shrillness, odd-ordered harmonics. When I did this with the Fulldrive2 all I heard were sweet tones, that fattened up the sound. Save your bucks and buy this pedal, especially if your into Larry Carlton, Robben Ford, Eric Johnson, early Clapton, SRV, or Jimmy Vaughan. This a tone miester's pedal.

I use this pedal with a Fender Big Apple Strat and a G&L Asat Special through a Mesa Boogie Maverick 112 combo amp. Noise is practically non-existent with this pedal. I find the quality of both channels inthis pedal to be excellent alon with the option of usin the "de-comp" feature built in to the volume knob (via a pull pot) you can use the Fulldrive as a volume boost with the compression taken out. This is great for slamming the input of your amp for "power amp" type distortion/overdrive.

No problems thus far, seems to be built very sturdy. I use it without a backup

Mike Fuller has been outstanding when it comes to ccustomer support, he answered my emails within 5 to 10 minutes. I have not needed service on this pedal at this time

I play in an all purpose band and this pedal allows me to go from Blues to Rock N'Roll to Jazz with ease. I'v ebeen playing for 34 years in bands and as a soloist (classical guitar, steel string instrumentalist) and use a variety of equipment for these purposes. The Fulldrive2 is in my pedalbord which goes as follows: Boss CS3 (compressor), Fulltone Deja Vibe, Fulltone Fulldrive2, Danelectro Echo, Boss CE5 Chorus, Boss DD5 digital delay.

I traded this even-up for a TS-9 that I modded to 808 specs.
I'm sure u are all familiar with it by now. If not, 2-button - bypass and boost, 4 adjustments - volume, tone, drive, boost, 2 indicators - bypass, boost.
As far as easy to use....well... i haven't quite figured out the first switch and it's associated LED yet. The Bypass LED is on when it's NOT bypassed, and off when it IS bypassed!!!! I thought an indicator was used to denote when something is on??? This Boost is that way!
If u changed the words printed on the case to "Distortion" instead of "Bypass" it would all make sense.
Tone control... Flat response (no boost / no cut) is at the 4:00 position when it should be at 12:00. Very little room and very little boost for treble. Basically no boost at all for bass...just treb cut, and small treb boost.
Volume control... Unity gain is at 8-9 o'clock position when it should be at 12:00. Wayyyy too much gain here. If this is used with some solid-state amps, or used as a direct into recording gear, without input protection diodes, this may be too much input voltage and may smoke the inputs...especially if non-compressed - boost mode is selected.
Drive control - Pretty good range. This is not intended for metal/thrash/hi-distortion stuff. Ranges from slight edge to say "5" on a 5150 or a marshall stack... maybe not even that much. For my tastes, it is a perfect amount.
Boost control - allows u to go from drive setting, to an even higher level of distortion....although if u dime the drive, the boost doesn't really do anything for u. BEWARE... in the non-compressed mode... this can be EXTREMELY (and dangerously) loud. There needs to be some sort of protection against this high of a voltage output!

I can't say enough about the tone of this pedal. I've used and modded them all, over the years. This has the best tone of any distortion/overdrive i've used.
Try Vol @ 9:00, Tone @ 5:00, Drive @ 10:00, and Boost off, with a hum in the neck position thru the clean channel of a Twin or a class A amp....EXCEPTIONAL! I've found myself getting lost for hours with this tone...VERY nice tone!
Singles out of phase with drive @ 8:00 makes an excellent country/blues even chicken-pickin kind of tone with great sustain.
Hums with Drive dimed are totally Carlos.
I found that the pedal was very very quiet. Very impressive.

Having designed pedals and things for 20 years myself, I looked into Mikes work. Very well done. The powder painted chassis looked good and was very solid. Construction techniques were excellent.
I can't comment on the quality of components used, as the entire circuit board was coated with epoxy to protect Mikes circuit design from being copied. (Mike, that's what patents are for!)
From what i could see, the pots were dual-arm bifurcated wipers which will ensure noise-free adjustments for a very long time. The switches feel cheesy and weak, but I checked them out and they are solidly constructed. You should remove the black buttons on the tops of the switches as they won't last very long anyway.
The LEDS are hot-melt glued to the chassis which i thought was kind of cheesy. If u step on them with hard soled shoes...they could be pushed right thru the chassis. I replaced them with metal housing versions that shroud the LED in a metal bezel. Works good - last long time!
It's lucky that you can simply turn the rubber feet to unscrew the screws that hold the chassis together, when u need to change the battery. If I had to dig for an an allen wrench to open that thing on stage....I'd have sent it back! As it goes, it is fairly easy to open it up. Batterly life seems to be very good too! (TS-9's I've modded to 808, don't seem to last more than 2 nights of work on one new battery!)
I have gigged with this quite a few times since i bought it, and i'm not worried about taking a spare.

I e-mailed Fulltone and asked about the Tone problem and the volume problem. They e-mailed me back right away saying that i had an early version and that there was an "upgrade" that solved that problem....
Oh,.. and it would only cost me $50 to get it!!!
Does this sound like software you've regrettably bought in the past!!! The cost to buy it was cheap....and the upgrades kill you! Ahhhhh marketting people....don't ya love em! (I put them right up there with lawyers and chiropractors)
Anyway, I found them to be very prompt at getting back to me and helpful (albeit trying to sell me something more!) I asked if I could do the upgrade myself, and they flatly said no... (unlike Peavey, or Crate, or Marshall even helping u thru an upgrade.)

I've been playing since 1964 and have been in bands since 1970. I play mostly blues, R+B, and R+R. I'm also a BSEE and BSME and have designed analog/linear electronics for 20 years.
Mike did an excellent job on this box.... period. Mikes background is in music, not Engineering, whichs makes for a great sounding product, not a high-tech wonder machine. And for what i'm looking for...it is a superb fx unit.
The sound isn't sterile, as many are. It is reminiscent to a NE570 compression circuit, with a J-FET or Bi-FET front-end, and very good filtering without coloring. From a tube standpoint, it's quite like an old VOX AC or a Fender Deluxe on 10, with a master volume on 2. Very smooth and believable!
I generally use the Fulldrive in front of either a Carvin MTS 3212, a Crate VC Class A or a '67 Twin SF for bigger clubs, and a Peavey Classic 30 or Deluxe for smaller places. I've used the Fulldrive thru all of them and thru a Roland Blues Cube 60, a JC55 and even an old Ampeg B-15N....
On the clean channel of each amp....it sounds excellent!!!
If they would have offered me a free upgrade or even allowed me to upgrade it myself, i would have given 10's to every category in this review. As it sits, it looks like the little guy with a great idea, got sucked up in the world of big bucks and greed....and that's not a slam.... happens all the time.
I'd buy this pedal (with the upgrade...lol) again in a second. I know a good thing when i hear one....this IS one!

This pedal is pretty easy to use. It takes a couple minutes to figure out all the options, but it is easy otherwise.

This is the best sounding overdrive pedal I have ever played. It doesn't have any noise and it doesn't load your signal down when not used(true bypass). I have a Strat through a '68 Twin Reverb and it sounds awesome. I tried it next to a Tube Screamer and it is 10x better sounding.

I'm sure I can depend on it but I am still very careful with it. The knobs are sturdy and the casing is even sturdier. I would use it at a gig without a backup, in fact I have.

I have e-mailed Fulltone and I received a prompt response. Very helpful people.

I play blues/rock and some jazz. It sounds great. There are so many different types of overdrive you can get with the normal compressed channel, the uncompressed channel, and the boost channel in both compressed and uncompressed modes. I love this pedal.

No problems here. Real easy to make you smile.

Great overdrive can take you as far as you want to go without ruining your tone. I used a strat with a 2X12 Fender DeVille Amp and I can dial up a multitude of overdrive. I like the dirty clean sound the best. Makes your guitar sound crystaline when you back off on the volume.

Great pedal ready for battle. Heavy gauge box. Very durable and rugged.

Mike Fuller is great. I've never spoken to him by phone but he replies to my emails everytime. He is a true artisan of guitar effects and an extremly kind person who takes the time to respond to your email. Awesome customer service.

I love this pedal. A little pricey but this isn't a mass produced product hunk of plastic made overseas. Each one of these pedals are made with care, checked, and signed personally. Great job there is no overdrive in comparison to this. I would rather fight than sell this pedal and I am a peaceful man. I play blues/rock/other and it is perfect for my sound. I would define this purchase a great success and wouldn't bat an eyelid at getting another Fulltone effect.