Fulltone OCD

Original Version 1 here. Pretty easy. You have to be smarter than a chimp to use it, but not much. Volume, Tone, Drive. The Little switch LP and HP is pretty easy to figure out. LP is for lower gain, boosty stuff. HP is for more aggressive Marshally stuff. Nice variety.

This is for the 1st version (original). You know, I usually don't write a lot of gear reviews. This is the first one in a year. But upon finding this gem on Ebay, I had to say something. DANG! I am a tone seeker. I have modded pedals myself (still have some), bought modded pedals (Keeley, Analogman, etc.), and have owned about half of the "Boutique" pedals out there. I had always bypassed the OCD. Finally, on a whim I got this because it was a low serial # Version 1.

Am I a fool. This pedal will cooperate with any pedal you put before it or after it and adds no noise, I mean NO Noise to the signal. It is very open, transparent, edgie, ballsy, yet subtle and warm when you want it to be. All with a turn of your guitar's volume knob. It loves tube amps.

I run it 90% of the time now in HP mode at about 12 o'clock on the drive. I can go from just break up if I pick lightly or turn the guitar volume down a bit, to open sounding sweet edgie overdrive with enough guts to nail any classic rock song. Turn the guitar down a bit, Sweet Home Alabama & SRV, put guitar volume on 10, AC/DC & Aerosmith and beyond.

I stack it into an MI Audio Blues Pro or Crunch Box for more aggression and attitude. Talk about sustain. SHHHEESHH.

Anyone who bags on this pedal doesn't know tone, or just has very crappy gear. You can play a Jap Strat into a cheap Peavey and get good tone from this thing.

Built like a tank, very good workmanship.

Never had to deal with them.

I waisted a lot of time and money on all different kinds of low to mid gain pedals that don't hold a candle to this thing. I played 2 weeks ago for the first time live with it and the sound engineer said "Dude, What's going on, your tone always rocks but somethin's different. What ever you did, don't change it". And that is saying alot.

If it were lost/stolen, I would immediately fall down and cry like a little girl. Then after I wiped the tears from my eyes I would plot my revenge and hunt down the poor @#$^& with relentless pursuit, shoot him in the nuts and mail them to his mother. Its my security blanket, woobie, pacifier, etc. You see I have become OCD!!!

Version 3. 3 knobs. 1 Switch? Could it get any easier?

Using a Fender Japan Telecaster and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. No long pedal chain. Just play guitar, and don't want effects to play for me. Excellent timbre and sensitivity coming out of this pedal. Bought unheard upon recommendation. No regrets whatsoever. Use this pedal as a cleanish boost or for blues/rock soloing. Don't want to sound mean, but if you can't get a great sound out of this pedal, either your guitar-amp setup stinks before you plugged the pedal in, or you are a moron. My tele has stock Japanese pickups that are not really that good (awaiting some replacements in the mail) and this little white box still sounds amazing! Do yourselves a favour people. Just buy it. You wont' be disappointed! There's always ebay if you can't figure it out...

Well built........
Who can afford a backup for everything?

Playing 25 years. Oned, bought, sold a lot of stuff like everyone else has. Will keep this pedal

Super simple knobs...booklet included will explain the layout if needed!

I only want to go in depth in this section as I am SICK of reading some of the bad reviews for this pedal's tone. First off, i absolutely love this pedal...but, just recently since i bought my new amp. I throw this pedal in front of a BadCat Cub IIr now and it sounds steller. I bought this pedal after trying it with a 65amps Soho at a guitar shop around my house about a year ago- when i got home to try it with my Fender Hot Rod deluxe, I was disappointed, but held onto it. with that being said, this pedal is NOTHING special when paired with a mediocre amp like a Hot Rod Deluxe...However, throw this thing before a class a amp, and your head will spin..i mean it is nasty, sounds sooooo good! I can go from SRV tone using this amp as a clean boost, to Jimmy Page/plexi type sounds just by playing with the gain and volume knobs. I will admit this pedal does not sound good with a production amp or a solid state amp....BUT! with a class A amp, It is hard to beat the tone and versatility of this guy! In conclusion, buy this amp if you have a class a unit, but be careful if you have a "normy" amp.....

P.S, I also recently owned an original 1965 twin reverb-- and again, this pedal didnt sound THAT great---it needed the class A circuitry to kick it into gear. (For all you trying this pedal with a Fender amp)

Solid metal! I want to also address the individual who said the wiring inside the OCD looked cheap like something on a cheap boss pedal- have you ever seen the inside of a mass produced pedal?. This claim is crap- the inside of an OCD is all hand wired with true bypass circuitry and quality parts- i mean, the inside is signed by the guy that hand built it along with the born on date...come on!!!

No idea, I get the idea from Fulltone's website that the owner is quite fond of himself (does not have a self-esteem problem) seeing how he shows off all is "toys", so I can only imagine it would not be fun contacting them for a faulty product, but again, I am just speculating.....

Class A amp= GO FOR IT!!

Production amps (Fender etc....)= noooope!

Pretty Straight forward. There is a "charachter" switch that gives a bit of a boost and different color to the tone.

This pedal sounds really good with just about any type of guitar. If does what it says but it's not a miracle pedal. Yes, it has great overtones, great drive quality and is better than your average overdrive pedal but it's not that flexible. This is a high gain pedal, not many low gain od sounds out of this one. The tone knob is functional in dialing in/out treble but does not offer a way to alter the ever important mids on the fly. I give it a 9 because it sounds way better at what it does than any of my other consumer grade/non-boutique pedals but is not as flexible as the name suggests.

It's a tank

Fulltone takes their work pretty seriously.

Flexibility is important in a pedal that claims to cater to people obsessed with overdrive. It's also a bit pricey to be a great value.

Simple. Volume/Tone/Gain. HP/LP switch slightly revoices the pedal. It has a wide range of gain available. This review is for the V3 OCD.

First off, I mainly use a US G&L Legacy (Strat) into a lightly modded Fender DRRI. I also have a Peavey Classic 20, and have run this pedal into my friend's Bassman LTD several times.

This pedal is very hyped and very popular. I certainly see why some of the hype is there. The best things about this pedal are how dynamic and responsive it is. It really feels like you are playing out of an amp, which is what it was designed to do. All the frequencies are there and it's pretty balanced (no huge mid hump, plenty of bass and treble). It is very amplike. HP has more chime to the highs, and more volume. LP is darker. I like HP more.

The downside is that I'm not a huge fan of the timbre or character of the gain. It's hard to describe, but in a certain way it has hints of a fuzz - expect this is an OD/Distortion, so that's not a good thing. This is exacerbated with humbucker guitars. It's not particularly smooth and it can be a bit harsh and buzzy.

What I like to use this as is sort of a light overdrive/boost. I feel kind of silly wasting all the gain that's on tap, but used with the level up and the drive low (like below 9:00) the transparency and touch responsiveness of this pedal really provide a FANTASTIC low gain sound. It preserves the sonic character of your guitar and amp very well in this manner, just adding a hint of gain.

This pedal is a bit of a paradox for me - the touch responsiveness and feel of it are addictive, the quality of the gain is meh. But it has found a home for me as a low gain boost/OD. It's not perfect, but most pedals are not strong all across the gain and tone range.

Looks very very solid. Nice switches and knobs, heavy metal box, neatly done inside.

Never dealt with Fulltone.

I like a wide variety of music - blues, jazz, classic rock, some hard rock. This pedal sounds good. It's not the holy grail. It's certainly made very well and will last. I also have a Barber Direct Drive which covers a similar amount of gain but is much smoother and more compressed - I use this for higher gain and the OCD for lower gain. Both are infinitely better than Boss or Digitech pedals and compared to an Ibanez TS9 much more versatile in the ground they can cover.

Bottom line, I like the response and EQ of the pedal but am not enthralled with the characteristics of the gain itself, particularly at higher gain settings. I sort of bought it on a whim which I normally don't do. If lost or stolen I might reconsider but would probably look for something dedicated a bit more to low gain sounds as the Barber has this beat for full-on Marshall crunch, at least through my rig.

This pedal has delivered on every expectation I had! Easy to dial in the tones you are looking for. I use a Strat and a Les Paul with this pedal through two different tube amps; a Marshall DSL 40 watt combo and a Fender Blues Deluxe 40 watt combo. I bypass the internal speaker on on both the amps and run them into a Marshall 2 X 12 cab. The sound and tone are AWESOME! I have the (V4) version four OCD.

No noise to speak of from this pedal and it is true bypass also so it doesn't change the color of your guitar's/amp's original tone. Very dynamic range! If you want a clean tone, set the drive near zero and the level "to tatste". This will render a punchy and strong, clean tone. When you turn up the drive, you will be rewarded with a beautiful sounding, creamy ovrdriven tone. Unlike effects pedals that are labeled, "distortion" pedals, this is (in my opinion) an OVERDRIVE pedal. Simply the most satisfying pedal (of any kind) I have ever used. This pedal also produces a very sweet sounding, natural feedback - totally ******'! I am happy to the point of eternal bliss. It is the preverbial "sound I have always searched for"! Thank you Mike Fuller!

Full tone products are top of the heap! Built like tanks. Go to their site and see how many big time musicians use their products. No worries here.

I haven't dealt with the company simply because I have had no problems. One of the main reasons I looked into a Fulltone product was because of their reputation for building reliable, quality products.

I play mainly classic rock and occassionaly blues. I have played guitar for 25 years and was never truly satisfied with my tone - until now! I didn't compare it to other products because I was completely satisfied with the results. If this pedal was stolen or misplaced I would order another one IMMEADIATELY!!! I know this sounds cliche, but I truly couldn't live without it!

If you are looking for a classic rock sound with a creamy overdriven quality, don't even waste your time checking out other pedals. This pedal is THE REAL DEAL!

Very easy to use and get going with some great tones.

I think this is V3 but it could be 4.

Im using this on my marshall plexi 50w to boost the gain or as a lead boost and also with the Peavey JSX clean tone and Elmwood modena90 clean tone for mild dirty blues. It sounds great for both these purposes.

The effects are not weak at all...very strong but also quite transparent at the same time.

Its built really well. My unit is completely solid, heavy and chunky.

Never dealth with them.

Been playing 20 years. I haven't owned a lot of overdrives as I tend to use amp distortion and the marshall I use often is great for dirty blues tones without an overdrive. I wanted a pedal that would help push the marshall in particular at lower volumes when it has les gain (even though its a modded marshall with PPI MV) or to boost thing up with effects in the loop - and also to use with some other amps when they're on clean and I want some mild blues tones. I've found this unit to very transparent and good at doing anything from overdrive to outright distortion even. A couple of songs in my band I set the marshall back to clean and need to switch between a totally or almost clean tone to a gain tone and the OCD can do this, whereas some other overdrives are too mild, or even too much gain. This is spot on. The LP/HP switch is also great in allowing a fuller fatter tone or a more transparent tone. Its a good feature. Compared to a boss overdrive Ive used for centuries its high quality sound...its smoother than a cheap DOD308 I have but not as smooth as Trex Dr Swamp I also own. The problem with the DR Swamp I have is it becomes almost too smooth or too fuzzy, whereas the OCD sort of goes along with what your amps doing.

I dont use OD a lot, preferring high gain amps like a marshall with the volume rolled back, but for the purposes I need this fits the bill perfectly (for the time being ;))

Dead simple to use. 3 knobs - Volume, gain and tone. Input and output jacks, 9V power input. What could be difficult about that !

As for version number, not sure. It's only about a month old so presume a 3 or a 4.

I use this pedal with 2 guitars. First is a very rare Japanese market only Tokai 1959 replica (not an LS guitar!) and a Fender standard strat). Amp wise, I run this into a Marshall JTM 60 head with either a JTM 2x12 open back cab or Marshall AHW 4x12 depending on venue size. Music wise, I play in a female fronted rock covers band playing stuff like GNR, Led Zep, Green Day, Skunk Ananise etc and this pedal is perfect for the hard rock genre.

I have to say this pedal absolutely rocks. I tried several differrent high end pedals when I came to buy an OD pedal and took my Toka iand Marshall head to the store with me. The store found me a nice quiet booth for me to try a load of pedals out. I also tried a Fulltone Fulldrive and GT-500 and pretty much every Keeley tubescreamer, Keeley Bluesdriver, Keeley DS-1, Boss OD-20 and all the T Rex OD pedals. I also tried a TS-808 for good measure !

I went with the other guitarist in my band so I could both play and listen/tweak the pedal. We were both in complete agreement that the OCD was the best by a long way (the most expensive Keeley tubescreamer was closeish but the OCD was still the clear winner). We probably spent about 2 hours just playig drive pedals of which the OCD probably had about 40 minutes worth of play we liked it so much!

The OCD is very warm and tubelike in sound and although when driven hard, it is very distorted, the clarity and definition of the notes is incredible and everything rings through. I tend to run this on the LF switch (which is quite a bit quieter then the HF so the volume sits around 3 o'clock to match the clean signal volume) which gives more of an 'American' amp type sound as the HF sound is very close to my Marshall so it gives me the option of both distortions for gigging. This pedal works particularly well with a Seymour Duncan pickup booster in the serial loop to jump on for solos.

Time will tell, although it seems to be very, very well built so I hope it will be on my pedalboard for many years without issue.

Not contacted fulltone so couldn't say.

This pedal is perfect for the hrd rock style that I play and if it got lost or was stolen, I would go straight out and buy another one without question or without trying anything else.

Been playing for around 15 years and have owned lots of drive pedals over the years including various Boss, Carl Martin, MXR, Ibanezetc but this one is definately the best of all - like a tubescreamer just warmer and tons more gain on offer which also gives a clearer tone as well. As abive, when I bought this pedal, I tried it against at least 10 other OD pedals and would highly recommend it.

I have the OCD version 3. Plug n Play

I just wanted to put in my 2 cents here. I play blues and classic rock. I love Jerrry Garcia cause he was very musical IE: played over changes and did it melodically. He didn't play blues cliches. He was understated, which shows musicianship to me and less ego. I sound nothing like him though. I've learned not to haul off and write a review before testing a product for months because, as you all know, little things start to add up over time and your opinion may change. Anyway, I've had my OCD for about a year and used it on numerous gigs. I loved this thing from the start and it hasn't let me down. I use it playing a deluxe american strat refited with van zandt blues pups into my fender hot rod deville 212. I ususally set the drive channel on the deville at 9 to 11 o'clock and eq to taste, depending on room, how I feel etc. For leads I rarely use my more drive channel anymore. What I like to do is use the OCD combined with the drive channel instead. What happens is the nice warm rhythm crunch from the tube amp overdrive is enhanced into a fantastic creamy lead sound. I usually leave the tone at 12 o'clock and the drive somewhere between 10 and 1 oclock. I've never needed more drive than that so I don't know how it would sound toppped out. Other reveiws have stated that it performs better at low drive setings. I've found the medium drive works well too. I also really like the low drive settings around 9 o'clock in combination with my clean amp channel as a rhythm setting, but when I play live I usually use it as a lead channel for simplicity. For me combining it with low to moderate tube amp grind is where its at. Seriously, there's always a better "sound" cause the search never ends. As musicians most of us are driven to find "that sound". You know the Hendrix, SRV, Clapton, Knoppfler, etc. Even those guys sound evolved over time. This sound isn't any of those. Its my sound and really works great. Long story short: the OCD would make a great addition to most anyone's (especially HRD owners) tonal arsenal.

I'm not rough on my equipmnet. I don't jump around and stuff, but this box is really sturdy. If I suddenly was 17 again I don't think I could break it without some real effort.

Emailed Fulltone to thank them for the product and I'm not sure but I think it was Mike who emailed back promptly to say thanks back.

For low to medium gain stuff I think we have a winner. I've been playing for around 30 years. My rig is the strat, HRD, OCD, a cheap pedal (beringer) tuner, a boss blues driver used for a clean boost, and a danelectro PB n J delay. I would definately buy the OCD again and have considered buying one for my band mate. I like that it helps me sound like myself, the good me I hear in my head.

Getting a "sound" out of the OCD is fairly easy. The only problem is...it's a bad sound. With all the knobs at 12:00 the OCD is an okay sounding overdrive pedal, past that in any direction and it is just plain bad sounding.

My god, the Fulltone hype machine strikes again. The setup I used to try out the OCD is/was very simple and excellent sounding. I used my 63 Gibson SG Jr, an insanely great sounding guitar through a 65 Fender Twin Reverb, the best amp for trying out any pedal. No matter what I did the OCD sucked. It just plain old sucked. I can't fathom what all these other "toneheads" are hearing when they rave about the OCD, I just do not get it. Yes, the output is massive and that is nice...but... the tone control does absolutely nothing...nothing. It goes from muddy to mud to mud with some annoying treble. Which I guess isn't nothing but it certainly is not something either. The gain is where this pedal just falls apart. It's okay at low to medium levels and I mean okay. Anything past noon is just a muddy, toneless mess. No definition, no clarity, no cleaning up when you reduce the guitar volume...just mud. I truly don't get the love thrown at this pedal. Maybe people just have to love it after the money they threw at it but all that does is make it the pedal equivalent of the emperor's new clothes. Everyone says it's a Plexi when it is actually an early 80's Peavey Classic VT series amp.

Everyone says Fulltone pedals are well made but the components I saw when I cracked it open were nothing you wouldn't find in a Boss pedal. Hype again and nothing more.

I wanted to love this pedal after all I had read about it but I was sorely let down by the reality of it. It only took a few minutes for me to know that this was going straight back to Sweetwater. They were cool about me returning it and gave me a full refund. Thank god for that. This is the second time I was taken in by Mike Fuller's BS and the last. I purchased a Carl Martin AC-Tone pedal at the same time as the OCD and it was everything the OCD said it was and wasn't. It sounded like an AC30, was dynamic and amazing. Do not waste your money on an OCD, DO NOT! After 28 years of playing guitar in the Washington DC Punk/Indie scene, I know what a good guitar sound is and the OCD does not deliver it.