Fulltone OCD

Easy to use, simple intuitive layout, effective controls. instructions minimal but are just enough to understand how it works.

I used this with a vintage strat and tele, both through a vintage Deluxe Reverb and a recent Crate V series 3112 with Tone tubby. Really it's own type of sound. Better used to drive an amp than as stand alone overdrive. Clean settings really effective. Overdrive leans more toward a fuzz than, say, a Tubescreamer. Higher drive levels become very creamy with alot of low end, but tone control adds highs that are on the harsh side. I foung it difficult to get much past a slightly broken up sound before loosing the best balance of highs, lows and mids. Very responsive to volume changes, attack and remains very clear until pushed into higher drive. It pretty much looses it there. Low pass-high pass switch is effective.

Seems very well made. Very quiet and solid. No issues with functional performance. Would feel confident that it is reliable.

Fulltone apparently has a reputation for making good products and having poor customer service. They offer various upgrades for some items, but never answered my emails. I eventually gave up on my inquiry, but would not have accepted that if I had a real problem.

I bought this from a dealer expecting a current model known as the Version 3. When I received the earlier V2, I gave it a really good try but didn't love it and ended up not keeping it. According to Fulltone's descrption of the changes to the newer version, I might be tempted to try another one as it seems to address what I felt were shortcomings. Would be nice to hear from them before I do it, though.

I have no problem getting very good rock sounds from the OCD. I own the original version. I think it is important to identify which version you are revewing because the Fulltone site explains the differences in components and sounds. Volume - Tone - Drive & a LP/HP mini toggle.

My fav artsist are Trower, Blackmore, Santana, Page, Townsend. I own Keeley modded Boss BD-1, DS-1 (Ultra Mod), VooDoo Lab Sparkle Drive Keeley modded TS-9 and others. The OCD is in a league of it's own in terms of transparency and tube amp like tone and versatility. I have many pedals because there is no such thing as the holy grail. All pedals offer unique characteristics and I appreciate all the pedals I own. I intend to buy the new Fulltone GT500 and perhaps the Fulldrive 2 Mosfet. The OCD has such an open sound. I find it to be very versatile. None of these other pedals mentioned above come close to it's transparency and tube amp like tones. With the drive at 100% on LP setting it gets a great natural amp like overdrive/distortion. Hit the HP setting and it simply increases the distortion level. Pull back on the drive and you get crunch or whatever OD setting you need. I doin't know if metalheads would be satisfied becuae it is not a supoer saturated distortion pedal but if you l like AC/DC, Zep or Deep Purple OD and distortion you will enjoy this pedal immensely. I like that the OCD distortion is not fizzy (with my rig). It has a amp like OD - sharp and biting. I mostly use it in the LP mode. It can be used as a clean boost by keeping the drive down and nudging the volume aboove unity gain to your liking and then setting the tone. BTW- the tone control offers a wide range of tones to compensate for your PUPs and amp. I run it through a Straub Cantus 50 El34 amp. What amazes me about the OCD is it sounds awesome whether the amp is set to clean or with the amp set to overdrive. I am always blown away by that. It cleans up nice when the guitar volume is turned down. It is hte most amp like natural overdrive distortion I have ever played through. If you have a good tube amp and you want to add flexibility as if you are adding additional channels to your amp, the OCD will definitley do the job.

So far so good - had it about a year but I don't play out so I can't really say. It seems like it is built to last.

Not usre about this. I emailed to ask the differences between the original version (mine) and the latest version and got no response. I eventually found the answer on his web site which is probably why he didn't repond. But a simple reply to say "check the FAQs in the OCD scetion of the site" , shouodn't be too much of an inconvenience. Oh well.

I play variety - beatles, purple, santana, sting and basically classic rock. Playing for 38 years. Have too much gear. My main rig is 1971 LP Custom / 90s Strat Plus w/Lace Sensor PUPs ---> Tonecore compressor ---> Keeley modded DS1 or BD-1 or TS-0 ----> OCD ----> Fulltone Choral Flange ---> Straub Cabtus50 (incredible amp). I would definitley buy it of it were lost. IMPORTANT to underdstand that there are three versions out there. Go to the Fulltone web sitre for the details. I am very curious to to hear the latest version. according to Mike Fuller it has "Stronger Mids - More Sustain - Better Tone Control". Sounds real juicy to me - DAMN!!Guess I'll have to get one eventually. If you review an OCD PLEASE indicate which version you have. Go to the Fulltone site to ID your version.

Easy to use, easy to get a good sound out of.

As others have said: 1. Great, really great clean boost. I don't think I really knew what that was before I used an OCD. 2. Excellent light and medium overdrive. 3. If you want distortion, this pedal doesn't really deliver anything GREAT. It works, sounds relatively good, but not GREAT. Different guitar/amp combos do different things, but for my rig - (strat/tele/DuoJet into a 63 Vibroverb) - no one was ever going to complement my tone using this particular pedal.

I already have a modded SD-1 and DS-1, so I've got a good range of overdrive, light and medium gain. What I was looking for was something to give me a new tone in the medium and high gain range. If I hadn't already invested time and money into the other two pedals, the OCD would have been a much simpler (and maybe preferable) setup. However, if you already have modded od and dist boxes, the OCD doesn't bring anything to the table.

Can't say on this one, but it seems more solid than a boss-type pedal

don't know

This pedal is ideal for someone who wants just one pedal to cover light and medium gain sounds. Can be substituted for a Tube screamer or a light distortion box like a DS-1. Works pretty well with tube screamers, but modded DS-1s compliment TS pedals better, imo. If you're looking for something to go along with your tubescreamer, look elsewhere, you can do better. If you need just one pedal to cover alot of territory, this might be the one.

Bottom line, I returned mine. It doesn't offer much more than what you can already get with a good tubescreamer-type pedal.

Very easy to get the tone I require. With my strat, I turn the drive up 100% due to the single coil pick-up to get the distortion, with my Les Paul, with has 57 classics, I back off on the drive to about 3/4 or less do the pick-up strength. Very basic controls ( Volume, Drive, and tone. Also has a HP (seems to give an extra boost to the signal) and a LP switch (leaves the volume very level or normal).

As far as sound quality, as many have stated already, it is very transparent. I am running through a Marshall 1987X 50 watt Plexi, so the OCD works great in front as a sort of preamp. The Plexi is very loud at lower volumes in a tight room/space and the OCD does the trick.

I bought a Fulltone Fulldrive II at first, but it didn't have the distortion I needed to drive my Plexi. The Fulldrive II had a very smooth distortion/drive but was limited for my use. To be frank about it, I thought my trusty cheap Boss DS-1 kicked its ass as far as distortion and attack. I sent the Fulldrive II back and exchanged it for the OCD.

Just bought it and no problems so far, Built very well.

Haven't had the need to deal with the seller or Mr. Fulltone, hope I don't have to.

I play Blues Rock and this pedal gives me the late sixites sound that I hear in my head. Although, playing in larger halls, my Plexi by itself doesn't need any help to get the tone I want.

Tweaked for half an hour. Tried through a couple of amps with various amounts of amp/pedal gain and tone. All sounds were good but it finally dialed in real nice.

I'm running an American Strat > Keeley Fuzzhead > Jetter Gainstage > Fulltone OCD > Line6 XLT (effects only, no amp modeling) > Fargen Bordeaux.
I'm using the OCD with the neck pup running thru the Blackbird (think Fender Deluxe) side of the Bordeaux. This is the most natural, smooth, bluesy overdrive I've ever played. It very much depends on you having good equipment cause it won't hide a bad amp behind lots of distortion. What this does is brings an already good sound into a beautiful, wide open, big sound. You can dial in quite a bit of distortion if you like, but the best tones are just pushing the amp a bit. I use it for that Clapton tone and it is just right for me.

Fulltone stuff is the best out there. I can't imagine this ever failing.

Never dealt with.

I've played for 37 years and I play mostly in church these days. I've owned lots of pedals, amps, guitars. I'm playing the three pedals I like the most. Each is on the pedal board for a specific sound. The OCD is for that smooth Clapton sound. It complements the other pedals I own.
If my pedal board were lost or stolen the OCD would be the first pedal I would reacquire.
I don't give out 10s but this may be as close to a 10 as I've run across.

A lot of ways to get sound from this pedal is both it's greatest strenght, and it's greatest weakness.

I personally feel the pedal has too wide a range, making it so that if you nick a knob and it turns slightly your tone can change a little too much.

Overall an easy to use pedal... do yourself a favour and run it in 18w mode though.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to run a pedal for a while before you decide how 'sweet' it really is. After the initial hype wears off, you'll realize what the sound quality really is.

My rig consists of a Vox AC30 from the 70's and a Gibson ES-335 with a pairing of Burstbucker Pro's installed in it.

I find the pedal can be quite transparent in lower gain, or clean boost settings. Being used as a clean boost, or something to hit the front end of your amp harder so that it goes into a natural tube overdrive is what this pedal definatley excells at.

When you start getting up into higher gain territory the pedal starts loosing a lot of top end, in fact I have the tone knob set to 3:00 and the drive set to 10:00 and I'm getting a huge low end rumble from the pedal. Diminished chords seem to get lost, and the response becomes very 'solid state' feeling... Especially in the LP mode.

Switching to HP and upping the tone to 4:00, backing off the gain a bit, gave me a really nice heavy high gain tone that still had some top end sparkle. Very balanced, but not transparent in the least bit.

Compared to my Crowther Audio Hot Cake (a very simliar sounding and responding pedal) the OCD is in a distant second. The Hot cake is just simply more expressive, more transparent, and just overall a nicer sounding box.

Don't get me wrong, the OCD is a great box. I hate most distortion boxes, and have been relying on my Hot Cake for years, but now I finally have another box that I can use with my Hot Cake for more versatility.

seems well built

never delt with the guy

I play a lot of rock music, but my influences are from punk, metal, blues, and classic rock; and my writing reflects all of those, so I need something versatile.

I wish the OCD was more versatile... more like my Hotcake (in fact I ordered another hot cake to replace the OCD the other day...I'll still keep it in the board though...)

The ability to run it on various voltages, and the huge sweaps is both a nice feature, but also frustrating... its a good pedal, and I'd miss it if it were gone. But overall I think for the money there are better boxes to get... the Crowther Hot Cake for $20 less is a good place to start...

Real, real easy to get a great sound out of it immediately.
I couldn't wait to get this in the mail.
When it finally came, I plugged it in and just LOVED it right away.
(Just the opposite of when I plugged into a Danelectro Daddy-O, what a complete total piece of absolute crap).
There's no manual, just a two sided printout about the pedal in general. You do not need a manual. Just play it and twist knobs. It sounds great. The knobs have a nice feel to them BTW. Nice firm tapered feel while turning them and a little tweak makes a difference too.. Very nice. I'm going to be giving a lot of 10's in this review. If that bugs you oh well.......

The OCD does not sound like a pedal. I recently bought a Reissue Bassman LTD. and needed something for low volume situations when you can't crank the amp for overdrive. I tend to HATE pedals. They all sound like absolute crap to me. I hate Tubescreamers, Rats, Expandoras..all that junk. THIS sounds GOOD! Not 'pedal-like', sounds like my Bassman turned up lound if you set the knobs right (Drive fairly low sounds killer to me but if you want more, it's in there and it sounds good too). Now if you 'shred' or want to sound like Slipknot or some crap like that you may not like this pedal but if you like REAL music and musicians like SRV or Clapton or Walter Trout or Robben Ford or Chris Cain or Tommy Castro or Johnny Winter or Buddy Guy or even Gary Moore's bluesy stuff you might just like it a lot. I do. As I said, so far I like to set the Drive low (about 9:00) the Volume about 10:00
and the Tone about 1:00 and then turn the guitar volume knob down a bit for cleaner tones.....or crank it up to wail on some blues riffs.
Sounds an awfull lot like the Bassman screaming on about 6-10. Very organic sounding. Very responsive to your touch. Very amp-like.
It's not noisy. It's got a COOL blue light that gets seriously bright and throws all these little rays out (real trippy). It sounds great with it set on LP or HP equally. I kinda like the less in your face tone of the LP..........or do I? It's just a blast to play if those are the kind of tones you seek and don't want to sound like you're playing through a crappy pedal. It seriously sounds very much like the Bassman turned up real loud and distorting even with the drive set pretty low...amazing.

Feels and looks VERY solid. Nice heft. Very quality feel and sound.
And did I mention the blue light? Real unique and hard to describe. It's not a regular ol LED type thing. Very, very cool.
I can't afford two of them so yeah, I guess I'll use it without a backup. I can't really imagine anything going wrong with it, it seems real solid.

Wanna try the higher power adapters they say you can use.
It can take 9-18 volts! They say it gets even better sounding
on higher voltage.
They even include a battery in it out of the box. How many effect
manufacturers do that? Yep, comes WITH a battery.

I play Bluesy styles primarily as well as R&B and Soul and
Gospel type stuff etc. You know styles that are all about cranked
Fender for the most part or Marshalls and such. Edgy breakup to full
out power tube wailing. This is a great match for those styles. Think Clapton on his "From The Cradle" album.....it does that style of overdrive and more.
I've played for like 40 years I guess? OK electrically maybe 30? Long enough to develop strong opinions aye?
The only thing I wish it had is another footswitch button to select between LP and HP modes instead of the little toggle. That would be cool. I tend to put the pedal ON the amp anyway though instead of on the floor so I don't have to bend over to knob twiddle so maybe it's ok. I can just reach over and tweak it. It is a little small though and kind of between the two top knobs. That's my only complaint really.
What I love about it really, as I already said, is that it doesn't sound "pedally". It doesn't sound transistory or thin or buzzy or any of that junk you get with so many overdrives/distortions. If you're more into Freddie King than some goth-metal shred dude you'll probably like it. I can now gig with the Bassman at low volumes and still have convincing power tube crunch and overdrive when I can't turn the amp way up like I would at loud blues gig or an outdoor stage gig. I'm stoked.

I've owned this pedal for two weeks and waited until now to write a review.

The only reason I'm giving it a 9 is that 18 volt adapters are not the most common and I don't own one yet. I am ordering a Dunlop DC Brick for my pedalboard to do so. According to fulltone the unit sounds better with one. "You'll be amazed at the sonic differences. The higher the voltage, the cleaner, louder, and more dynamic the sound, kind of like the difference between a 50 and 100 watt marshall."

I plugged this in originally using the suplied 9volt battery my chain was as follows:

Ibanez artcore 75 (335) with dunanc HB102's> Monster Cable 'rock'> OCD> Monster Cable 'Rock'> Laney LC50 (6L6 power amp)w/ Eminence 'the wizard' (clean channel with volume at 3)

I started out on the LP setting with all knobs at 12:00 and....................................................:

Pure Bliss!!!! Great cranked amp tone, very dynamic.

I then turned the unit off and switched over to the amp's dirty channel and tried to recreate the sound with marginal success. I couldn't get the same complexity and detail with sustain, it was close but not as good as the pedal.

I then tinkered with the gain and level eventually getting to where the gain was dimed and the level was about 10:00. This gave me only a slight boost in volume when turned on.

At this setting the amp sounded like a cranked vintage marshall/ hiwatt but I think it was even more articulate than the actual amps. My subsequent attempt to recreate this tone on the amps dirty side w/ out the pedal was a complete let down. I even inserted a weber load dump and cranked the amp but could not get a smooth and articulate sound like the pedal produced.

I then flipped to the HP setting and found exactly what I was looking for, Soldano type saturated smooth overdrive with every note ringing true.

With the gain cranked on HP and the level around 9:00 (give or take :30) Tone still at 12:00 I got ripping overdrive/ distortion that was not super high gain but was plenty for my taste. I would say it's on the level or slightly higher gain than Warren Haynes when he plays with gov't mule. Keep in mind this is with fairly high-output humbuckers. You certainly have enough gain to play almost any rock including GNR and Tool. If you think you need more gain then you probably aren't good enough (no offense) to cover those bands anyway.

I a/b'd the OCD a week later with my Tonebone Classic through the same amp with the same cables but brought out a few more guitars:

MIM tele deluxe w/ fralin blues specials
2004 Les Paul Studio with 490/ 498 stock pups
2006 Fender Deluxe Players Strat with Vintage Noisless (stock)

On all four guitars the OCD sounded much more natural and open making the tonebone sound slightly compressed and solid-state-ish. The OCD was slightly more dynamic and articulate, although the Tonebone had more gain for sure. The extra gain proved to be of use with the single coil guitars as you can dial in some great raunchy classic rock/ shred tones that are not available on the OCD with single coils but the humbuckers get muddy at the same gain levels IMO.

So to sum it up I think the gain on the OCD is more of a mix of the sound of preamp and some poweramp distortion while the tonebone is pure preamp especially at the high gain setting.

I also prefer the sound of a wah (535Q) into the OCD better than the tonebone which tended to get a little 'quaky' for me.

I didn't have noise problems with either pedal.

It hasn't left my house and it's still workign great so I can't comment. Although the pedal seems fairly simple so it is probably more reliable than my old tonebone.

I play a bastardized version of rock/ funk/ blues/ jazz.

Some guitarist whose tone I admire:

Steve Kimock
Michael Houser
Mark Knopfler
Warren Haynes
Jerry Garcia
Derek Trucks
Jimmy Herring
Marc Ford
Charlie Hunter
Jeff Beck
David Gilmour
Eric Krasnos
Adam Jones
Nils Cline
Etc.....

For now this is exactly what I was looking for in a overdrive/ distortion pedal:

1) touch sensitive/ dynamic
2) Smooth or chunky depending on guitar and settings
3) small
4) uses 9 or 18 volt adapter (tonebone needed wallwart 15v)
5) Sounds like an amp and not a 'metal zone' etc...

Dead-easy to elicit great sounds: all controls work on a very wide range of possible settings.

I just got one it does just what I want it to: faux AC-30 sounds from a Fender Blues de Luxe. Even with a Roland micro cube and a Tele I was able to get that Syd Barret sound.
This is the most touch sensitive pedal I have ever played with; from a light crunch to a nice bite just using your attack.
Sounds great with any guitar ( P 90 sounds fat yet open, a Tele can really sparkle without sounding harsh).
The higher gain settings are good but this pedal excells in the Goldielocks-zone of crunch.

Built like a tank. You could probably use it as a hammer and only damage the paint. Use it with care and I don't think you'll need a backup.

Sorry, no experience with customer support.

I've been playing for over 30 years now and at the moment I'm in a Blues band. We do some R&R, Country and Pop songs and that's where the OCD comes in very handy. It works very well with other effects like chorus, delay and reverb and with this one your sound won't clutter even if you decide to use'em all at the same time for that dramatic solo.
I did contemplate the purchase of an AC-Tone by Carl Martin but I came across this one first (Sorry Soren).

Easy to use

Here's where I depart from the crowd. The OCD is quite useful as a transparent clean boost, but you would literally have to be on crack to say it sounds like a plexi Marshall. I found the overdrive sterile, fizzy and actually "solid state" sounding. I prefer my Boss BD2 with a Monte Allums mod, which is like a Keely or Analogman mod, but $20 instead of $70. Bottom line, $160 is simply too steep for a clean boost. Again, if you expect a solid state device to sound like an overdriven tube amp, maybe it's time to give the pipe a rest.

Seems solid.

Never had to contact them.

I'll give it an 8 for solid construction and quality components, which clearly contribute to the "clean-ness" when it's used as a clean boost, but as I said, the overdrive is just so-so.