Fulltone OCD

This overdrive was recommended by several Fulltone dealers. It is very easy to use, no instructions are needed.

I am using the OCD with a MIM & MIJ Strats and an American Tele and a Deluxe Reverb RI. The only other effect being used is a Boss CS-3 compressor. The OCD adds very colorful harmonics along with the OD. Combined with the compressor and sustain, I can get feedback on just about any note and then shake it into a new harmonic! This effect is addicting. I had a JTM 45 RI and this sounds better without going deaf. I also have a new Fulldrive 2 Mosfet which is very good but it is so clean and transparent it isn't as much fun as the OCD even though it is more versitile and nicer looking. I'll give it an 8 because it colors the sound, I'll give it a 10 because it colors it well.

Nicely hand made in America

N/A I feel very confident in the quality.

I'm not crazy about the color. I would definitely replace it if lost.
PS: Pot the pickups in those Mexican Strats. What a difference.

The OCD is actually pretty easy to use: Just three pedals and a High Peak/Low Peak (HP/LP) switch. But it doesn't get a 10 in this category because it takes a bit of time to get dialed in. I require different kinds of distortion depending upon the song, so I had to spend a bit of time actually documenting knob and switch positions for different songs. That's not a bad thing though because I spent a few hours sitting in front of my amp fiddling around with the different sounds it can produce depending upon the knob and switch positions.

First off, for gear, I play out of single, modded Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. For guitars I use a Strat with TexMex pickups, and an ES-335. I only have a couple other boxes: Ibanez TS-808, Boss CE-3 chorus, and a BBE Sonic Stomp. While I love my Tube Screamer, it's mostly a big midrange booster. It's a great sound, no doubt, and it will always have a place in my signal chain, but I needed something "different," and OCD fulfilled that want in spades.

The OCD should be called the "schizo," but in a good way. It can scream with pleasant, creamy distortion in one setting, but a flick of a switch, and a turn of the knobs, and you can get crunchy, preamp tube breakup; another turn and it'll give you a FAT compressed tone. This is what I love about this pedal: It can produce a plethora of distortion effects, though I have to admit that you have to take the time to mess with it, but that's half the fun.

As another reviewer mentioned, this pedal works best driving a single channel amp, or in my case, driving the clean channel of a two-stage amp. I tried it with the drive stage of my Hot Rod, and the break-up was plain ugly. But in the clean channel, WOW is the only word I can say.

The touch and input sensitivity of the OCD is nothing short of incredible! Lighten up your attack and you get a clean, sweet, but edgy tone on the edge of breakup. Lay into your strings and the OCD will resound with rich overtones and harmonics. Similarly, back off your volume, and you change the character of the distortion; crank it, and the sustain and scream you get out of the pedal will put a smile on your face!

Finally, the OCD does all this without muddying your tone and losing dynamic range! I was flabbergasted when I took it for a test run at my local gear shop. Some distortion pedals I've tried in the past seemed to add a lot of compression and make my tone sound flat, but the OCD acts more like a tone enhancer. This pedal rocks!

I haven't brought it to a gig yet because I've only had it for short period of time, but from what I can tell, reliability should be no problem. The build quality of the OCD is very high. It has a solid, metal casing, and the switch is pretty heavy-duty.

Haven't had to use 'em yet.

Now that I've got the OCD, it won't be leaving my chain unless someone steals it. At that point, I'll definitely buy another. I know I was rather long-winded in the sound quality section of this review, but to sum up what I like about it, I just dig its versatility in producing a variety of distortion sounds. Twiddling with the knobs and HP/LP switch might seem a bit tedious to some, but to me, exploring what sounds this pedal can produce has been an absolute joy!

I'm not giving it a 10 because of how much I had to tweak it and document the settings, for the different songs I'll be using with, but consider my 9 more like a 9.75.

It took five minutes to go from good on first try to great on third try. Three knobs K.I.S.S. beauty in action. My expierence in pedals and amps is fewer knobs better tone. This has both .

For me this is the holy grail baby. I have 30 years of vintage gear strats,marshalls,fender,vox plus vintage pedals like the TS9 and crybaby etc. I love my TS9 but always wished I had a second option with more sustain and bottom end. Man this puppy has it and great tone to boot. I instanly put my Radial Classic on EBay. If you like to play the amp with touch dynamics this does what others like tonebone and boss fender65 claim to do! and there is no comparison in tone the OCD is the bomb.

If it isike my past Fulltone pedals it wil last.

Good price , simple , small, cool looking, great dynamic tone umm lets see here is my dream lineup . BosssCE2 chorus(tried em all still my fav), BUDDAh Wah, OCD, TS9, Goodie Delay, tonebone/switchbone.

I am blues soul rocker plug into any non master vox/fender/marshall and turn it up. Smile....

Very simple...3 knobs, high pass/lo pass switch. Easy to use for sure.

This pedal is the best solo boost I have tried! My old one was a Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster, and I hated it. Too flabby....no cut. Well, this thing cuts like a knife! My setup is pretty crazy, but the rundown is: guitar>Peterson Strobostomp>MXR Blue Box>GCX switcher input. All my pedals go in it's loops, in this order: BYOC Overdrive>OCD>Boss Heavy Metal>BYOC Chorus>MXR EVH Phase 90>ISP Decimator. I control the pedals, my Marshall JCM800 2210 amp and an Alesis Quadraverb with a DMC Ground Control pedal. My guitars are a white Gibson Explorer and an Ibanez RG520QS. This is used in the chain to get more distortion for leads, and man does it smoke! Reminds me of the old George Lynch sound or Van Halen. Crazy pick attack, harmonics and sustain, but VERY clear. I set it to "low peak" with both level and tone set full, and drive on about 3 or so. It's a very inspiring sound.

It seems very reliable, but it's in my rack so I'm not worried about the thing at all really.

No experience with them.

I play death/thrash metal in one band and "old-school" swedish death metal in the other. If it got stolen somebody is gonna PAY with their life, I can tell you that. I would buy another, even though I traded stuff for this one. I love the tone it gives when used as a clean boost. It's distortion alone.....not so good. But I'm not a blues or old rock dude, I play metal, and do care about tone a lot. That's why I use an old Marshall and some good pedals. These Fulltone pedals are a ripoff though.....most can be built for about $30 if you source the parts and wire it yourself. The overdrive and chorus I built rival anything out there, including Fulltone. But this pedal has a special circuit that is a bit harder to clone, so I just use it. Overall, it's my fave pedal from these guys.

Pretty damn easy to dial in a tone...three knobs and a gain switch...by the way I am reviewing the V2.....

First of all I'll explain my current set-up...I play an American
Fender chambered-ash Tele with stock p-ups (usually run in mid. pos.)and a reissue Strat w/ a dimarzio humbucker in the bridge (cant rememeber the model)I run it through a Hot_Rod Deville biased pretty hot w/JJ Tesla tubes (the best on the market for the price imho)
My Pedalboard goes as follows for the moment..
Toadworks Mr Squishy Comp>Fulldrive 2 Custom Shop MOSFET(usually run it on Comp-Cut mode all the time and use boost for clean leads)>OCD (Dirty Rhythm some lead) >Radial Tonebone Classic(For distorted leads)>Guyatone Micro Delay 3>Fulltone Supa-Trem>AMP
This thing IS very responsive and has some harmonic richness.......I have a love/hate relationship with this thing...This thing sounds great for dirty rhythm..my Tele seems to love this thing more than my strat...but for leads I find it a bit thin and harsh on the high end.. while I have run it at 18 Volts via a Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus(which I highly recommend to fellow pedal junkies)and special cable..It seems more harsh, but may be better suited for a Marshall or Mesa when used at that voltage, I find it sounds warmer when I run it at 9V and use the SAG feature on the Voodoo Unit...

This thing, like all Fulltone stuff is made very well, very dependable...anything electronic runs the risk of malfunctioning at some point....but this thing is solid

IM NOT EVEN GOING THERE....NEVER HAD TO DEAL WITH THEM...

To be honest...NOTHING could live up to the hype this thing had surrounding it...at first I thought it was gonna be the end all of stomp boxes...and while a bit let-down after shelling out 2 bills, it still sounded pretty good ...a year later im still using it...and it has a rightful place on my pedal board....I think this is more of a staple pedal among drive pedal enthusiasts...it holds up to other pedals in its class....you really cant go wrong with this,it may work better or worse in your set up and to your ears, depending on how you wanna use it.....but dont let the hype con you into thinking its the supreme pedal........

Perhaps a bit more complicated than the standard drive boxes - just getting used to the sweep of the knobs - but you'll be rockin' in no time. Has a High Cut/Low Cut switch designed to emulate more Marshally/Voxy tones vs. Fender type tones. Manual is helpful, actually. I dialed in my favorite tones before reading it, though.

This is a nice pedal. This pedal bursts with harmonics! At higher levels I found it a bit too much, to my ear. For me worked best with the drive below 11 o'clock. Beyond that became less usable - just too much. Nice tube type grind. Not thrilling, but nice. Has a nice balanced output. Not too midrangey, but not scooped either. They did a good job with keeping this "natural" sounding. Cleans up nicely with a rolloff of volume - just like a regular amp. Drive boxes come in lots of flavors. This one just isn't mine. But judging from their sales, and other reviews here, it is a lot of peoples'! Just personal taste. Certainly nothing deficient about this.

I tested this with my PRS hollowbody and a '74 tele w/ Seymour Duncan Alnico II Pros. Amps were a Victoria champ and a Carr Slant 6V. OCD Seemed to like the Carr best on the "blackface" side. Seemed a little less clear with the tweed. It didn't seem to prefer singles over humbuckers. Did thicken up the singles, and it didn't oversaturate the hummers.

Lots of people drone on about things being "built like tanks." In my experience, only the Rat is truly built like a tank. This is close though. Very nice build quality.

Haven't dealt with him. Heard varying stories. Company is growing so he's probably pretty busy. Can't blame him for that.

Mostly a blues/jazz/rock guy. Played for about 15 years. Generally, I like a guitar straight into an amp. Use drive pedals for alternate sounds and drive at lower volumes. I am getting to the point that all the good drive pedals are similar enough that most will work. (Good is fairly subjective - I don't consider stock Boss good.) I don't think you could go wrong with this one. I'm lightening up my load on drives. Selling my Boss/Analogman DS-1Pro. Selling my Analogman TS9. Selling my Rat. Selling my OCD. Keeping my AC booster, and my RC booster. Now, the RC booster is an unbelievably great pedal!

Pretty easy pedal to use. Gets a bright really quick, and has such a wide range of great sounding tones.

manual is short and sweet, and gives you some good starting tips on how to use the beast.

This pedal is a monster waiting to be awakend! I bought one of these a LONG time ago (last summer) and I decided it was junk because of my highly complicated rig, and sold it. Then I got my hands on a V2 OCD for $80 and it has never left my new and improved simpler rig.

before:
Gibson 335/LP -> Sennhieser G2 wireless -> Radial Dragster -> Ernie Vol Jr. -> Vox V847UJ Wah -> BBE Exciter -> 2 GCX's Switcher setup for two amps.
Amp side A (dry) -> MXR 10 band EQ -> Marshall JCM900 50w 2x12
Amp side B (wet) -> MXR 10 band EQ -> OCD -> Hotcake -> Hotcake Bluseberry -> Sparkle Drive -> Emma Reezafratzit -> Phase 90 -> MXR Flanger reissue -> Voodoolab Tremolo -> Dr Scientist Woofer Wailer -> Dr. Scientist Tremolessence -> Maxon AD999 -> TC Electronics VDP Delay -> 1973 AC30

now:
Gibson 335/LP -> Vol Jr. -> Vox V847UJ Wah -> Fulltone 10th Anniversary Fulldrive 2 -> Xotic RC Booster -> Hotcake bluesberry -> OC -> Phase 90 -> Tremolessence -> AD999 -> Vox AC30


This HUGE change in setup has fixed my problems with the OCD tone, and my tone overall... (it sounded good before, but was way too bass heavy!)

Now I get searing high gain tones without the saturation of other high-gain pedals that delivers smooth distortion for chord work, but cutting tone for leads.

Keep in mind the pedal gets brite very fast in either HP or LP modes... I'm running it in HP mode with the tone around 10:00, volume around 1:00 and gain around 11:00...and I have now found my 'signature' tone. I mix this with my Xotic AC booster to fatten up my tone and it's just beautiful!

does give me a lot more feedback than any of my previous distortion pedals though...

no problems, no issues, well built. no rating

no rating

for rock, blues, and metal this pedal can really dish it out. It's very responsive to pick dynamics and your volume control, and it can provide such a wide range of tones you can't even begin to get them all after a few months!

The OCD will always be on my board, and would be repalced in seconds for any reason. hell I might buy a backup for each guitar case just in case...

Extremely easy to get a good sound out of the Fulltone OCD. Just plug in, play, and just keep turning on the 3 knobs.

Indeed, there is a manual for it, it just tells you what everything does and all, but yeah, I have the version 3 model of the OCD,...and i couldn't be any happier!

A beautiful pedal visually, and even more tonally.

I can get MANY tones out of this pedal. I play through a Esp/Ltd Ec-1000 w/ BKP Mules and It goes straight through into an Orange Rocker 30. Sounds amazing in both HP and LP channels. Also, I can play it through the clean and get a very classic/rockish tone, and keep in mind, this pedal can be used as a VERY heavy booster. I mostly play it through the dirty channel to get those hard, thick, smooth distortion tone I always crave, and this thing definitley delivers!

It goes as smooth as Slash's/Brian May's tone, and can get as brutal as Mustaine's tone as well. I was sort of surprised on how top notch the quality was for this pedal! Definitley was worth it...and for only what? 150 USD!?


Steal.'

Also, one more thing, this is great for a lot of bluesy/classic rockish tones (as I've stated before), such as cream, Trower (who actually uses the pedal), and a lot more.

It does get quite noisy though, but it's most likely because I play at home where all my cords get tangled up...and everything buzzes in my house!

I would definitley depend on this baby. Looks very sturdy...just don't smash it when you go to turn it on or off.

Never had to dealt with them, but I emailed fuller once. Very nice guy! :)

Fantastic Value, I must say. For only 150 bucks, it's definitley something you should have in your pedalboard if you're tone crazy!

I play everything from blues to classic/hard rock to classic metal. And of course, this is a great match, really saturates the tubes and makes my amp sound like it's on ten on volume 1!

I've been playing for nearly 4 years, but have been playing seriously for only 1.

If I were to lose this pedal (and I really hope I don't) I would of course purchase another one! Maybe try some other pedals out (just for the heck of it) But this pedal is defintley at the number 1 spot in OD's.

I just love the look and tone it brings out! Really makes my tone a huge amount better! Sounds like someone's taking a blanket off of your amp, it's huge sounding!

There's nothing more I really want from this pedal... and it really motivates me to play more.

If you're here reading this (as I was a while ago), just try it out, it's worth it if you have a great amp and you know what you want.

Cheers. :)

It's very easy to use and dial in...IF you realize that it goes best in front of a single-channel amp to bang the front end.(Translation: classic Fender, Marshall,etc.)

Just as an observation, I've seen inexperienced kids...of all ages...put these in front of a modern amp with a cascading gain pre-amp,channel switching, and wonder what in the world the problem is.
That's not what this box is designed for.

If you choose & apply your tools properly, you shouldn't have a problem. The instruction sheet spells the basics out in plain language.

I'd heard Robin Trower was using the OCD is very happy with it.In fact, he talks about his good experiences with the OCD on his website...

Now for my own experience with it:

Matching up with a Strat,Les Paul,JEM777 & a Fender Blues Jr. for a test,it delivers some very tasty & toneful overdrive/distortion with a good amount of boost.And for once the hype is right; there are some nice harmonic overtones that you only hear when you crank up a really good tube amp.

No RF hum or noise.

It cleans up well by using the volume knob too.

The HP/LP switch is a nice touch too if you want to clean things up a bit.

You may have to "adjust for taste" a bit depending on the Guitar you use; single-coils may react differently than humbuckers.
...But that's no different than having to adjust amp settings when switching guitars during a gig.

Moral: Don't blame the effect. Fulltone doesn't make them idiot-proof!

I popped the back off to take a peek. Very nice & neat job! Sturdy box; BRIGHT blue light. (Did I mention the blue light is BRIGHT?)
No problem seeing this baby on stage!

I always have a box of back-up stuff; but this is one of the better made effects boxes I've seen.

That being said, Stomp box problems (of ANY brand) are frequently due to bad runs of Carling switches...that is,the little pushbutton your foot stomps on.But I think Fuller is hip to this by now and took appropiate measures.

Just a few thought here:
Ever call up BOSS or Ibanez to complain about one of their stomp boxes? Ha! Didn't think so.
"If" you can find a support number, you won't get much sympathy.
...Or you can always try taking it back to the Music Store for support.(Sound of weeping violins and more laughter from audience.)

That being said, many professional & working musicians (Trower, Billy Gibbons, Satriani) buy Fuller's products,and rave about them.

It baffles me how whining weasels out there feel that buying a pedal gives them a license to pester a small designer who's making good products for working musicians.Grow up!

If this box broke, I *might* call Fulltone. But ya'know what? I plan on purchasing several more of these soon,and probably wouldn't bother. Anything broke goes in a "to be fixed" box anyway.

I've been playing for almost 40 years...(Yikes!)Besides gigging for years, I've played on a CD or two that ingloriously made it to the bargin bin.

Over the years, I've had to be able to cop a lot of different styles:
Jazz, Blues, Hard Rock, Country, Metal, and recently backed up a Hip-Hop artist.(Disclaimer: I will NEVER play Disco.)

I have quite a few guitars: Fenders,Gibsons,Ovations, rare ones like the Dan Armstorng Plexi,and even some of the 80-90's Ibanez & Kramer shredder Axes. As for Amps: Marshall, Mesa, Fender. Plus several boxes of effects.

This pedal RULES! I had a similar revelation that a few others have had;I eliminated several other dirt boxes in favor of the OCD. It does everthing they do and more.
I rarely rave about a stomp box, but this one is truly an exception.

Like I said above, I plan on buying several more.

I have OCD Version 1. The paperwork is helpful for getting a basic understanding of the knobs and their functions. Like most Fulltone pedals I own, the slightest turn of a knob results in more than just slight changes. Takes a little time to find the hot spots, but you will.

My first thought after plugging in my OCD (V1) and Strat into my '78 Fender Princeton Reverb was...where's the midrange? That was until I plugged it into my 100w Marshall Plexi and played my '78 Gibson SG Custom. THEN I was floored at the slinky funky nasty tones that were dripping from my guitar and amp. Fat lows, sparkling highs and a wicked midrange growl. I couldn't stop smiling.

It is cool on the LP setting with a Strat, SG or Les Paul for clean to slightly dirty tones. But the HP setting gives you the incredible sustain and "open sound". I've read up on the differences between V1, V2 & V3. But I'm happy with V1.

I gave the FDII very high marks for what it does. Kicks your amp gain up w/o changing your tone, very full sounding. And I do love it, but the OCD is a different lady. OCD tone = sexy.

It seems very solid, but I wouldn't want someone to step on it and break the toggle, etc. Would prefer it to be a little bigger and the input/output/power-out to be on the front, like my other Fulltone pedals. I would get another OCD if something happened to this one, but I use my FDII & '70 Pedal as a back up on gigs.

Haven't had to contact them.

Very cool pedal. Get one and plug into a Marshall Plexi. You'll love it. Plus, the blue light is hella cool...heheh. ; )

Cheers.