Fulltone OCD
A legendary pedal without the boutique price.
Note: Fulltone are back and now manufactured by Jackson Audio. Despite a price increase, the OCD v2 still offers incredible value for money.
If you are looking for a “wall of sound” tone without cranking your tube amp into oblivion, the Fulltone OCD is what you want! It was the first pedal to use MOSFETs (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors), leading to a high gain pedal that is incredibly responsive to your guitar volume and playing dynamics. It tends to have much less compression than other distortion pedals, especially when the pedal is run at 18 volts. This is particularly useful if you have a tube amp without a master volume control, or if you want to get that warm saturated valve tone from your solid-state amp. The OCD has the typical Volume, Tone, and Gain controls, as well as a switch between High and Low Peak modes.
The LP (low peak) mode is great if you don’t want to color your amp tone. Works great, if you want to add a bit (or a lot) of drive, without adding too much volume to your amp. In this setting the pedal will respond very well to your playing dynamics and you can use the tone knob to roll off some of the higher frequencies. You will get a very warm and full tone in this setting. It will do wonders to a Strat or Tele bridge pickup, without losing the articulation - perfect for lead tones!
The HP (high peak) setting will further increase the gain of the pedal, add a little bit of compression, as well as bump up the mid frequencies. This will quickly take you into rock and metal territory. Works especially well with humbucking pickups. Here you can use the tone knob to control how much you want to cut through the mix of other instruments. Turn it up for solos or set it closer to 9 o’clock for a nice and fat rhythm tone. Think of it as a Tube Screamer on steroids!
The pedal is designed to run at 9-18 volts. If you want the most headroom and most transparent tone, you will want to run through an 18-volt power supply. But it sounds great at 9 volts as well. In fact, if you want more compression for a tighter sound, 9 volts will be what you want to go for.
Bottom Line
The OCD has gone through multiple iterations since its first appearance in 2004. The latest version (v2) brought a new buffered bypass system that helps keep your tone consistent, no matter where the pedal is placed in the chain.
To this day, the company is still run by Michael Fuller, and all pedals are designed by him. All of their pedals are made in the U.S.A. to a very high-quality standard. Furthermore, unlike other highly coveted pedals, there is no waiting list for the OCD, and it is available at a very reasonable price.