Fulltone Supa-Trem Tremelo

Super flexible, awesome trem. how hard could it be to use? again, had big knobs up front, so you could adjust it with your feet while playing to get that perfect speed. A++

Again, was a great pedal. I AB/d this with several top quality trems (Empress, Goatkeeper, MM4 and the TR2) and the Supa sounded as good if not better than all. The actual trem was incredible, it must have an internal buffer or something going on, cause it not only had a sweet trem, but added a ton of clarity to my signal. just like a SHO but internally in a trem.

Yes, super durable. Only thing is you can't tell what speed or wave form you left it on, so playing live you have to have a good memory (or check the light when you're not playing to make sure its in tempo). Sometimes messed with me live, but amazing pedal.

I'm not a fan of fulltone CS, but thats because of other experiences. never had a prob with this pedal so no opinion.

i play fusion rock, this pedal rules. I actually left it on as a booster and just set the depth at 0, gave a sparkle to my tone. loved it! when i wasn't using trem anymore i sold it, but should i ever need a nice generic all round trem again, this is where i'd turn.

Some great options for foot switching including a depth switch called Hard/Soft, and a rate switch for half speed. Internal adjustments allow fine tuning. Definately over and above the average tremolo unit.

Quiet, subtle, rich and natural sounding. Certainly as good as a fender amp tremolo. That is when the amp trem works correctly.

I have found Fulltone to be first class in supporting me as a working professional.

I use this effect to create a similar swirling sound to a leslie. I think it's more tastefull than a vibe unit. My personal opinion... I'm some what of a purist blues/jazz guitarist.
Playing 35+years
If I'm not using my 65 Super Reverb, I'm using a Dr Z Maz 18 and the Supa-trem. I have not found a better tremolo pedal for my needs. I would buy it again.
I would recomend Mike Fullers creations to any guitarist seeking high quality effect pedals. No question of the quality. Your opinion sonically may vary.

This trem is very easy to get a great sound out of. The key thing is that the rate knob also has 2 fast/ soft options which give a great range of speeds from which to choose. This coupled with the fact that the knobs are quite large help you to quickly dial in the correct tempo for the song you are playing..this is the major thing with trem in my opinion especially in a live situation. Personally I don't like things at my feet so this sits on top of my amp so I can quickly reach round and adjust if I need too. I play a half stack so it is about the right height. Also key to this is the mix knob...I often find that if you are playing a fast rhythm e.g. Bo Diddley at 140bpm! Too much trem at the wrong speed will just make it a mush...the mix lets you put as much in as you need before the effect takes over the music...and none of us want that! I'm not a huge effect fan but if you want vintage trem sound there's no other way unless your amp has it built in. I have no real use for the hard/soft button which basically turns your sound into a Bell Huey Helicopter but I can imagine that plenty of musicians will use this (probably pretty sparingly)

Not noisy in any way shape or form..true bypass...I play this into ..here we go...Gibson Les Paul Classic Antique (Classic 57 pups) into a Marshall DSL 100..sometimes with a Boss(Tone Jam Mod) GE7 and a Line 6 Rotomachine for those Leslie sounds (great great pedal by the way!) and have no issues whatsoever. If you want to get trem like on the old fender amps then this is pretty similar folks...Bo Diddley/Creedence it's all here. I have previously used a Boss TR2 with the c4 mod which was...OK...but this is way better, mainly because of the range of speeds it offers and the fact that you have a real ability to mix in how much you want. The BOSS was noisy too but cheap. I can't honestly say that the difference in price is reflected in the sound (it costs twice as much) but if you want the best you pay the money....I'll certainly not part with this , it is a keeper and in the UK these are not easy to find. I have not played it alongside many other effects, only have 3 pedals but it did sound very good going direct into my Boss Micro BR Recorder when recording home demos which should give you an idea of the quality of the materials it is made with.

Well it is built like a tank..I'm pretty sure it'll hold out. I'd gig without a backup...in fact I have never had backup pedals...amps maybe..but if you can't stand up there and just plug in and play to play your music to people you need to have a bit of a rethink on what you are doing...it is just there to embellish the song...

I bought this secondhand off ebay so have had no dealings with them

I play blues/ rnb/ soul with my band The Stumble www the stumble dot com and we play the blues/ festival circuit all over the UK and Ireland. Been playing 20 years. For the vintage trem vibe this is the one (unless you've got some old brown deluxes knocking about...hasn't Keef bought them all? I'd buy another if stolen straight away...way better than the Boss TR2...I love the fact that it is so simple to get the sound you want at the tempo and mix you want..that's the key thing in my opinion in a live situation. This helps me make music, if it was a barrier I'd get rid straight away. Highly recommended..if you want the old trem sound and if you have the cash bite the bullet and get it.

Very, very easy to use, and its sound is fundamentally good. Rate, as you might imagine, controls the rate of the tremolo effect. Mix functions as an effect level control (not that with Mix at 0, there is still audible tremolo).

The hard/soft button toggles between two tremolo modes. In the hard mode, the pedal, the mix control is deactivated, and the pedal functions something like a square wave LFO modulating volume and set 100%. I don't find that effect terribly useful, especiallu since this old school, handcrafted analog pedal offers no tempo sync...

Soft mode is a much smoother slop, and this is where you will find your sweet spot. Even set in to smooth, the tremolo curve can sometimes still sound pretty steep, even with mix set very low.

And voila, that's there the internal adjustable pot comes in--it allows you to tweak the slope of the tremolo. By default, mine was set roughly before mid, which was good news. It gave me plenty of room to flatten the slope to make even more subtle. In fact, turned all the way down, it was TOO subtle for my tastes.

The other internal pot sets output level.

Then Speed button (doubles (or halves) the current rate. Really neat. I almost wish it had more subdvisisions!

It is a rich, immediately useful effect. It is tweakable enough that you can really view as more than a occasional "vibey" thing. Set low (and I mean the internal smooth pot as well as the rate) it is almost an effect you can use like typicaly utilitarian ambience and texture--leave it on all night!

It sounds...creamy and rich.

I'm in the early stages of a fx expansion phase. My current setup is strat plus/frankenTele-->Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive--Supa Trem-->Boss RV 5-->either Mesa/Boogie Studio. 22+ or a bassman head through a Booige 1 12" cab

Seems very solidly built. Heavy, handcrafted feel. Innards look good too, though I'm no expert

I play somehwat intricate original quirky pop rock, in the lineage of Beatles through the spectrum of Kinks, XTC, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits Randy Newman, Elliot Smith, etc. I am the "tricky bits" guitarist in my current band, but I've never used many effects, playing for many years with only a Rat, and for many years with not even that. Now I want to expand my textural pallette.

I suffered from almost immediate buyer's remorse after purchasing the Supa Trem. NEVER because the pedal sounded bad--just that, given your limited budget for sonic pallette expansion, are you sure it was a good move to drop 200 on tremolo? Well, as I suggested above, I believe this pedal is so essentially good and flexible that it can be used not just as an occasional "vintage reference" effect but as integral part of a core sound. But I've only had it two+ weeks and haven't gigged with it yet, so I could be wrong.

I now judge an instrument/effect not by the number of features and knobs, but on whether it has a "smile" knob--the knob that makes you smile when you turn it. This pedal has a big smile button right in the center. It is wholesome and good. Usefullness and value TBD.

Two big black knobs for rate (speed) and mix (depth) control.
Three switches, on/off , waveform (chop or vintage), and half/full speed control.

Notice : there are 2 trim pot inside the pedal to boost the volume of the unit (very useful if you don't want your tremolo to sound tiny) and a "more intense" feel on the soft setting.

pretty cool !

You can set this thing as you want or need to !

from vintage tremolo very sweet and soft to an amazing chopping sound and everything in between...

It's the perfect tremolo for every style of playing !

inside the pedal : beautiful work
outside the pedal : beautiful work too !
metal housing. Built for years of use.

Mike fuller is a busy man.
I emailed him one day and he answered the same day.

ultimate versatile tremolo.
I LOVE IT!

super easy to get a sound. just like an old fender amp. the way it was. the way it should be. the way it is if you fucking use one of these. but you know what? this box is not so easy for other fuckers to use because I took the labels off. it's just a silver box now. but I know, so fuck off.

it sounds ok. though not as nice as an old fender amp. so get an old fender amp. but if you don't have one.. if you have a nice old marshall instead, like me, and you have to play with vibrato live for some reason, or for a special recording application, well then by gum, then yes it's good enough. all optical with that bulb shape of the envelope, though maybe a little hissy. but then again, mine is the first production model or maybe even a prototype. In any case, it is serial number 0001. Seriously. I'm not kidding. I got it years and years ago from a music store back East, maybe in Boston. it was brand new. It had decals for functional labels which I tore off, not the silk screened production labels like now. anyway, it's gotta be collectible but so what. It's a nice little device and it's mine.

it never did anything but exactly what it was supposed to do. I've only use it a few times though.

no idea, but I have the feeling they would do something rather extraordinary to my genitalia if they knew I had this.

sometimes I play a thing that needs this. this thing does it right, except compared with a real amplifier with a "vibrato" circuit.

I've been playing for 30 years, own a 69 marshall super lead and some reissue jazzmasters. some modified delays.

it's not replaceable, except I guess I would use my fender amp if someone stole it.

I love that it's the first one and that I don't really care and that it's clearly handmade and cool

never thought about other products - got it on a whim

I wish that women cared about it, but they don't. so it's a goddamned 9

I rarely ever use it. last time I used it was on an acoustic guitar signal. acoustic guitar with trem.. it was rad.

I've been through many trems - boss, voodoo lab, george dennis, wiggler, and I even had a supa-trem many years ago that I foolishly sold. Well, I re-bought this and couldn't be happier. It's very easy to get a great sound out of it. Although when I got it from a deal on ebay - the internal trimmer wasn't set to may liking - not smooth enough. So I opened up the box and turned the knob a bit and was in trem heaven. Since then this pedal is just great. Love it. better than any of the other pedals out there

Running it with a strat into a fender amp with some tasty reverb, this thing is butter. Not noisy at all, true bypass, doesn't suck tone when off. It's one of my staple sounds. Regarding some of the negative reviews on this site, I would say that they probably didn't open up the case and adjust it for their own taste.

Compared with the boss tr2 - which has a terrible drop in volume and even with the C4 mod, it sounds totally lifeless compared with the supa trem.

Compared with the Wiggler - which is a great pedal btw, the supa-trem is much much less noisy and doesn't take up a whole chunk of pedalboard real estate. The supa-trem doesn't have all the extra sounds the wiggler does though

Compared with the voodoo labs trem. Man, I wanted to like the voodoo labs pedal. I bought it and it just seems a bit 'cheap' to me, and the sound was not as smooth - the slope knob didn't seem to do anything to make it smoother. I could've recieved a bunk one to be fair. When you pick up the supa-trem you know this is a quality pedal that will last years

Haven't tried the demeter, swamp thang, or the diaz - I hear those are good too

Fulltone pedals are very reliable. I have had great luck with them.

Always had good responses from the fulltone folks. I try to make my questions brief and to the point and not ask stupid questions

Love this pedal, the best trem I've ever played through. It's a keeper for me. I play surfy-cramps style stuff all the way to indie rock. I need pedals that are versatile and well-built. I don't mind paying more for a pedal that I will own a long time. I've been through a lot of pedals that promised the world and didn't deliver. For me, this pedal delivers big time.

The controls are simple, but the three footswitches on such a small pedal is rediculous. I can't imagine using the side footswitches in a live situation unless you wear a size 4 shoe. Poor ergonomics.

I've tried just about every stompbox tremolo on the market, and this is one of the worst. It doesn't really sound bad, but it sounds lifeless and sterile. The Voodoo Lab is a better choice and much cheaper. The Demeter is the best sounding I've heard at about the same price. The Fulltone Supa Trem sounds like a Boss pedal, no personality.

Built like a tank!

Fulltone has the worst customer service If you are Eric Johnson, they'll kiss your ass. If you're not a pro, they will treat you as if you are an idiot.

Fulltone has a few good products, and many mediocre sounding ones. The Soul Bender is a great fuzz pedal, but many of their pedals have a generic, Boss sound, such as this uninspiring pedal.

Simple! Effective!(pardon the pun) This is the kind of tremelo that almost induces the gag or vmoit reflex to everyone in the room when it is on and chiming through a loud amp.

I use Les Pauls and Strats with this Pulsating wonder.
Very quiet; like all of the Fulltone effects.
Great sound!
I have been using the same amp for about 3 years, a Line 6 DuoVerb
Trower, Johnson and Hendrix sounds at the fingertips.
Sounds great with a clean as a whistle guitar sound. High, forget about it!

Very reliable!
I would hate to have to buy 2 of these El Expensivo trems and use one for a back up only.

Everyone seems to be kissing Mike Fuller's ass in this review area. The guy is a egomanic, and bithcy. He does make a great product. Other than that, I would rather not know him personally. He has been a complete jackass to several of my friends and the "e-mail of the day" on his website just proves his obvious level of immaturity. I think anyone with a brain can see through that facade. Bottomline, great products. The man behind the product is a ____.

Great product! The End!

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

That's pretty subjective. It IS easy to tweak, it is
just a matter of tastes how good the sound it.

The manual is short, but there is more than enough info to
be able to help you tweak it to taste. In the newer models there
is a pot inside that lets you adjust if the volume increases, decreases, or is at unity when the pedal is on. The pedal I am reviewing (I bought it used) did not have that addition.

It may be that I too picky with trems. I have gone through a few, didn't like the Demeter at all. I used to own a Gibson Starfire with a built in trem (tube) and I loved it...but it's been years since I last played through it.

That said, as I mentioned, my Supra trem didn't have the adjustable pot for volume when on. I didn't mind though, as I think it is just right that a pedal like a trem "seems" to lose volume even at unity..because you are hearing notes fade in and out.

I liked the pedal, but in the end it wasn't for me. This is subjective, but I had no use for the "chop" sound, which I know a lot of folks actually want...can be a great effect it was just too choppy for my kind of music (I play mostly blues and was looking for the "swamp blues" kinda sound) but the other mode was good. You have a lot of control among other things the mix helped a lot...I tended to mix it down so it was less obvious.

Still, for me this pedal wasn't what I "it". On the other hand, it was easy to sell, and though the guy I sold it to was a little hesitant when I told him it didn't have the volume adjust pot, he decided to take a chance, here in Norway when you sell something, the buyer (even private sales) has two weeks to return it no questions asked. I sent it to him, he got back to me and LOVED it, it was exactly what he was looking for, and he kept it. He said it turned out he thought it sounded just right with that little volume boost when on. Keep in mind, this is now (for some time I think) adjustable on the supra-trem.

It was a handy little box. Size was good, ruggedly built.

It just wasn't for me.

It is really hard to judge these things until you've owned it for years. It seems rugged, sturdy. If I still owned it I wouldn't feel like I HAD to have a backup.

Have only had one exchange of email with the maker about a different pedal (that I really enjoy and still use) and enough has been said in others posts I think, except I think tempramental folk can get a really bad rap. I had one email that seemed kinda rude, but as soon as we got past that, I got suggestions and help. This was only a "best use" issue, not any problem with the pedal itself.

Not all pedal makers are even available for email, so that is another thing to keep in mind. Personal opinion, I think Mike could save himself a lot of grief if he got someone to write up his manuals with more hints, useful tips, etc. Maybe too much overhead though, or maybe there too many folks that pride themselves on not reading manuals...so that might not help either.

It wasn't what I was looking for, but I am not knocking the pedal. I especially liked the normal/double speed switch. That was a good idea...I know a lot of times you get it where you want it but it is missing something, often the solution was to hit that and either halve the current setting or double it....I noticed that really could do the trick sometimes.

It's as good or better than most of the other pedals I tried. I still kept my Nobels TR-X, which so far is the one I can tweak best to what I want, but the Nobels feels LOTS flimsier, and it adds more noise than the Supra-trem did. Also I don't think I could get enough for it, whereas the Supra-Trem seems to hold its' resale value. I sold it for a few hundred kroner less than I paid for it, and may have broken even if I had waited for other buyers.

It beats the Demeter trem pedal for my taste. The guy I sold it to thinks it is great!