Fulltone OCD Overdrive Pedal

  • Thread starter Thread starter Zaphod B
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Zaphod B

Zaphod B

Raccoons-Be-Gone, Inc.
I just scored one from a Craigslist posting. I've heard great things about Fulltone and couldn't pass up a cheap one.

The guy paid $160 for it at Guitar Center one year ago. He sold it to me for $80.

It looks in great shape but for all I know it could be filled with a lead slug. I'll check it out when I get home.
 
Zaphod B said:
I just scored one from a Craigslist posting. I've heard great things about Fulltone and couldn't pass up a cheap one.

The guy paid $160 for it at Guitar Center one year ago. He sold it to me for $80.

It looks in great shape but for all I know it could be filled with a lead slug. I'll check it out when I get home.
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Definitely curious to know what you think of it. I'll stay tuned...
 
I hear one every weekend on one of the guitar rigs in my band. This is the 'basic' pedal he uses as well as the Keeley modded Boss stuff he uses for that extra something...A variety of guitars played through it....Strat, 52 Tele RI, a couple of early 90's Pauls, very early PRS Bird, early 80's Flying V, Gretsch Billy-Bo, 80's Kramer bighair rock guitar, SG,..a bunch or stuff....through a Carr Hammerhead.

It is a delightful pedal. I get a couple of passes at it throughout a night as we do some switching and I love this pedal.
 
cavedog101 said:
I hear one every weekend on one of the guitar rigs in my band. This is the 'basic' pedal he uses as well as the Keeley modded Boss stuff he uses for that extra something...A variety of guitars played through it....Strat, 52 Tele RI, a couple of early 90's Pauls, very early PRS Bird, early 80's Flying V, Gretsch Billy-Bo, 80's Kramer bighair rock guitar, SG,..a bunch or stuff....through a Carr Hammerhead.

It is a delightful pedal. I get a couple of passes at it throughout a night as we do some switching and I love this pedal.
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Excellent! I don't normally buy this kind of thing without getting my hands one one for a demo, but everyone I've ever seen posting about these gives them rave reviews.

I'll follow up tonight or tomorrow.
 
This is simply the greatest overdrive pedal I've ever encountered. I play a G&L Invader through a Fulltone OCD into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille.

I put it straight into the clean channel and the result is gorgeous. I always keep the high pass on, volume at 12-2 o'clock tone at 3'oclock and drive between 12-3 o'clock. I fitted the volume knob with a rubber doodad so I can turn it easier with my toe on stage.

It stays on 100% of the time. I've had it in my board for over a year now, and I've never turned it off. Not in practice, shows... EVER. That little blue light is always on. Basically, I can get some really nice crunch off of it, but without any of that ratty fizzy shit you find elsewhere. When I want a nice clean tone, I just roll back the volume on the guitar about halfway. It's incredibly responsive.

You aren't going to regret it. If mine broke got stolen tomorrow I would get another one tomorrow. If someone stole it from me I would consider killing them.

It honestly sounds so fucking good that I scratched the paint off of mine so when the dweebs lean over your pedal board at shows they won't instantly recognize it. It is an absolute gem.

There are two (minor) drawbacks:

1) The location of the input for the power adapter is in an uncomfortable place. It's right next to the input, but on the *other* side of the input, meaning that the power cable needs to run underneath the patch cord, which results in the plug being awkwardly bent underneath the patch input. It's impossible to explain until you see it. I had a critical problem at one show where it looked plugged in and was getting lights but it wasn't all the way connected, resulting in a weird barely audible signal. Basically I shit my pants for about three minutes plugging and unplugging shit until I figured out what the problem was. I thought my baby died. But after that I just ran the power cable underneath the velcro and out the top, and put a little electrical tape over the input to keep it snug. voila.

2) The HP switch, although it has not given me any problems AT ALL, seems like it could be snapped off. When I'm wearing my cowboy boots, tight pants, drunk on a dimly lit stage with god knows what spilled all over the place and I'm adjusting the volume knob with my toe to get a milkier overdrive, I'm afraid of fucking it up. I'll probably modify it at some point and sink it into the pedal itself, since, like i said, I leave the high pass on permanently.

Any questions about it, I'm all ears. This thing is my baby. The love of my life. I would try to make it pregnant if only the 1/4" inputs were a bit wider.

Rock.
 
C'mon then, let us know!









Was it filled with lead or not? :D

Andrew
 
starbuck26 said:
This is simply the greatest overdrive pedal I've ever encountered. I play a G&L Invader through a Fulltone OCD into a Fender Hot Rod DeVille............
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Wow, that is one hell of a glowing review. :) I'm feeling better by the minute.

On my unit, the power input is on the left side of the pedal, side-by-side with the output jack. The power input is lined up directy with the on/off switch and the output jack is situated closer to the center of the unit. (So the power jack is closer to you, the performer, as you stand back from the pedal). The two jacks' centers are 3/4" apart.

So I think they may have changed the jack configuration since you got your unit? Anyway, it doesn't look like it should be a problem.
 
Zaphod B said:
On my unit, the power input is on the left side of the pedal, side-by-side with the output jack. The power input is lined up directy with the on/off switch and the output jack is situated closer to the center of the unit. (So the power jack is closer to you, the performer, as you stand back from the pedal). The two jacks' centers are 3/4" apart.

So I think they may have changed the jack configuration since you got your unit? Anyway, it doesn't look like it should be a problem.
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I thought about that after I posted, it may be that it's actually on the left and that my memory is hazy. Either way, it is on the 'performer side' of the jack, which for me was a bad place to put it. If it were on the other side, the power cord would be able to reach the power outputs of my pedal board without being wrapped around the output lead. I included some pictures to explain.

fulltoneocdjack.jpg


fulltoneocdproblem.jpg


See how that power output jack is uncomfortably bent underneath the output lead? For this dude it doesn't present much of a problem, because the bottom of his board is open and the cord can just go underneath. I use a Furman pedal board, which is just a carpeted slab with a power conditioner and all that at the top. When the pedal is velcroed down it doesn't leave much room for the thing to pass under without any uncomfortable bending.

But like I said, if I could I would have sex with this pedal.

And, for the record, yes, my peenie is large than 1/4" inch in diameter. But not so large I can't fuck an xlr input. I tried my mating dance on a shure beta 57, once, though, and I ended up with three holes at the end of my dick. Now I pee in the shower.
 
starbuck26 said:
Now I pee in the shower.
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Yeah, I see what you mean about that power jack. You either have to run it under the output cable or around the front side, I guess.

I've always peed in the shower. My wife thinks it's disgusting. :D
 
That ain't mine. I don't have a picture of mine. I found that through google.

But I did think it looked pretty good. Only thing I take umbrage with is the Line 6 Delay. I hate Line 6.
 
starbuck26 said:
Only thing I take umbrage with is the Line 6 Delay. I hate Line 6.
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I've got a Pod XTL which works OK as a nicely reconfigurable multi-FX box, if you disable all the amp modeling and associated stuff. Still, it's all DSP and there is no true bypass so it's a bit of a tone sucker. But it kicks ass for versatility.
 
Zaphod B said:
I've got a Pod XTL which works OK as a nicely reconfigurable multi-FX box, if you disable all the amp modeling and associated stuff. Still, it's all DSP and there is no true bypass so it's a bit of a tone sucker. But it kicks ass for versatility.
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They have their place. I used to use a Pod in my dorm room in college because there was basically no other way to play electric guitar in a concrete box full of people with weird sleep schedules. IMHO nothing beats an amp yanked to cabinet involvement. Now that I'm an adult with a (paltry) bank account I have a nice little practice room in a warehouse under the Tobin bridge that keeps the ninnies from whining.

But I remember back when I was in high school when the Line 6 Spider came out and all my friends were enthralled with all of the digital effects and amp modeling. Something about the whole business smelled fishy to me. Then I remember the Cyber Twin fiasco and at that point was playing in an apocalyptic punk band through a borrowed JCM800. Somewhere in there I decided that digital shit is for the birds.

I saw one of my old high school buddies a couple of months ago, and asked if he was still playing the Spider. He sold it and replaced it with a Crate 2x12. A step in the right direction, I guess. :rolleyes:
 
Yeah, I agree that a real amp in real airspace beats a modeled amp any day. That said, I have had some success in using the Pod XTL direct into a board. I've never used it as a modeler live. My "real" amp is a Vox AC30CC.

I saw Steve Winwood play recently - opening for Tom Petty. Winwood plays through a Fender CyberTwin or one of the other Fender DSP hybrid/modeling amps. His tone sucked ass, something I noticed before I trained my binoculars on his amp and realized why. Someone really needs to tell that guy how bad his rig sounds.

I do think that some effects can be modeled digitally pretty well, others not so well. On a unit like a Pod, the delays, reverb, and some of the LFO stuff is pretty good. But the boost pedal models aren't too good. And when you combine amp models and a full complement of FX models you will get some clearly audible artifacts so you have to pick and choose carefully.
 
Update - It's Alive!

OK, so it doesn't contain a lead slug. ;)

The seller didn't have a power supply but I have a couple of spare wall warts. The unit works fine.

I haven't had much time to spend with it but as an initial test I decided to go with my Telecaster plugged into the Vox's top boost channel, set clean and rich. The Tele has pretty low-output pickups that sound sweet and clean so I thought this would be a good test of the OCD's influence on the guitar's tone. I also wanted to see how it could push the Tele into the amp a little harder to obtain a bit of the natural push that more powerful pickups can obtain.

First the push. With the volume at a tad over unity gain and the drive surprisingly low (about 9 o'clock) I was rewarded with a very nice gritty overdrive with the character of the Tele coming through clearly on all three pickup settings. Increasing the drive up to 12 o'clock got things hairier and at 3 o'clock I was into full howl. The sweet spot for tone with the drive seems to be between, say, 8 o'clock and 12 o'clock, with plenty of drive available between those points. Anything beyond goes into increasing saturation with the resultant loss of tone distinction, but not fuzzy sounding at all. The LP setting gives a flatter, darker sound while the HP setting opens up the EQ on both ends noticeably. All good so far!

Next I wanted to see how the pedal would work as a clean boost. With the drive all the way down there is still tons of gain to be had from the volume knob, without imparting any overdrive. With the volume at unity I could not quite get the pedal to sound transparent. I had the tone knob all the way up (it's a high cut function, I think, and to preserve the Tele's highs I had to max the tone) and I toggled between LP and HP. LP seems to have an EQ flattening effect while HP has an EQ expansion effect at both ends. But I did find a good compromise and ran the volume up a bit and the result was good, pushing the amp nicely and sounding natural. Dialing in just a bit of overdrive at this point was pure crunch heaven.:D

Nice pedal, it's a keeper!
 
Great score! For $80 i'd have a real hard time passing up an OCD too. I played through one of them as well as a Full Drive some many moons ago and at the time didn't dig em much--especially for the coin. my tastes have changed these days and i wouldn't mind giving an OCD another go. I heart dirtboxes!

Thanks for the review--if you can get that sort of crunch out of a tele, I will definitely have to keep my eyes open for a good deal on one of these.

Speaking of teles, how's your's wired? Standard 3-way switch? What kind of pickups?


cheers,
wade
 
I own one, and I'm a big fan. My favorite thing is, it's so sensitive to what I do with my pick hand. I can control the amount of breakup just by how I play, I love that. It's got a zillion tones, all of them fantastic. I agree with the other guy though, the "hp" switch could be beefier, even if just so it was easier to operate in the dark and/or while drinking.
 
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