Fulltone OCD (V4)
Fulltone OCD (V4)By Adam Ironside
The Fulltone Obsessive Compulsive Drive (or OCD) is a modern classic. It is considered as one of those ‘must-try’ pedals and after just a few moments of playing with it, it is easy to see why.
Thanks to my mate Scotty for borrowing me this pedal for a review.
Note: the Fulltone OCD up for review is version 4 of the pedal.
Features
The OCD is a classic three-knobber, volume, drive and tone. The OCD does have a few unique features which we will discuss.
Volume – A Lot of volume is available, as you would expect from an overdrive pedal.
Drive – There is a considerable amount of drive on offer, anything from a smooth boost to a bluesy, harmonic-rich crunch.
Tone – The tone knob on the OCD is a lot more versatile than many other overdrives I have tried. (We get more into this in the ‘Sounds’ section of the review).
Switch – The switch is labelled HP and LP. The LP setting is my favourite, it has slightly less gain on tpa but sounded a lot smoother and more transparent to my ears. The HP setting is designed to give the ‘cranked Marshall stack tone’ and thus sounds considerably more British, but there was just too much treble presence for my tastes personally.
Another cool feature is that the pedal can be run at both 9 and 18 volts. The 18 volts offers more volume and gain headroom and the pedal doesn’t ‘crunch’ quite as easily. For the majority of the review I had the pedal running at 9 volts as it sounded much sweeter to my ears.
All of this is housed in a bullet-proof metal jacket, I’m sure I could throw this thing at a wall and it would receive only paintwork damage, I’m not going to though. It weighs more than the average overdrive but it certainly feels more sturdy and reliable.
Sounds
The first thing I can say is I found the OCD to be very versatile. In front of a clean amp it sounded great, it is smooth and seemed to have amazing sustain that some of my other pedals cannot touch, it is rich in harmonics and I was extremely surprised at how nice the tone knob is. Generally on overdrive pedal I cannot stand when the tone knob is at more than about 12 O’clock, the treble becomes very harsh, not with the OCD, in fact, my favourite setting had the tone knob at about 2 O’clock and at this setting the pick attack was apparent, but not in a harsh way like some other pedals I have tried.
In front of a clean channel it also works well as a booster, rolling off all the gain and pushing the volume to max, it pushes your preamp section into a small overdrive but nothing to write home about. However, when I used the OCD on my rythym channel as a booster it worked exceptionally, perhaps even better than an 808 at tightening the low end and providing some ‘chunk.’ This is also where the versatility of the tone knob came to light.
Rolling off the tone yielded a darker, deeper sound which never became muddy, and rolling the tone almost on full gave the classic seventies to early eighties NWOBHM sound, that ‘friendly treble’ that is often hard to find. My favourite setting was at about 1 O’Clock where the OCD really provided some fantastic pick attack and crunch, even at high gain setting on my amp.
Using the OCD to boost an already overdrive amp was also a treat. The OCD is just so smooth and creamy at lower gain settings that I did not want to turn it off. The tone knob even worked well here, and despite the fact I don’t like much treble in my lead tone I found myself daring to push the tone knob higher every few minuets, and being pleasantly surprised when I did.
The OCD is fantastic at low to mid gain settings, even on higher settings it works very well, but I find pushing the gain past about 3 O’clock and it started to lose its smoothness slightly, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it isn’t for me.
Throughout the whole review I much favoured the LP setting over the HP. The HP to me gave a little TOO much top-end and the tone started to fall apart and become unbalanced, it also added in some extra gain that is not what I desired, however, this is not to say this setting is bad, I just like the more transparent, even sound I achieved using the LP setting.
Overall
The Fulltone OCD is a versatile and great sounding pedal, I would be happy to have two or three of these on my board for different sounds and switch between them accordingly. It also cleaned up extremely well when rolling back the guitar’s volume and I simply couldn’t believe the natural, incredible sustain when pushing a clean channel. I really don’t want to give this pedal back, I will undoubtedly be adding one to my collection sometime in the near future, definitely a recommended pedal for those seeking a smooth, sustaining tone, it also comes pretty close to the ‘violin tone.’
Rating
9.1 – As I have said before it would be hard to give a pedal a full 10 rating, but the OCD is definitely a strong contender. I was very surprised at the pedal’s versatility and incredible sustain. The OCD does carry a relatively high price tag at over £150.00 but I honestly believe you get what you pay for here, this thing will give you years of pleasure.
05 Mar 2012, 5:47 pm
Like you, I also prefer the LP setting although I am a distortion fanatic. Does sound creamier and warmer to me. Thanks for the review!