Fulltone Fulldrive 1 & JRockett/JRAD Pedals - opinions?

Kebabkid

Hi all,

I had a brief go of the Fulldrive 1 today and I was very impressed with it both as a standalone OD and when stacked (I had my pedalboard with me) and it has a completely different, but equally pleasing sound and feel to my OCD.

It's quite a new-ish pedal (smaller and no boost on this one) but I just wondered if anyone was using one yet and what your thoughts were on it? There's a considerable volume drop or volume knob adjustment required as you switch through the 3 modes.

Also, apart from the Archer, I can't seem to find any shops that have a decent selection of the JRockett/JRAD pedals for trial and there's quite a choice when it comes to their overdrives (The Dude, The Animal, GTO, Blue Note, .45 Calibre etc). Anyone have any experience of these and thoughts on whether they stack well or are fussy with other pedals or certain amps and if they sound close to any other brand/model pedal i.e. I know the GTO was based on a Nobel ODR-1 and improved upon. The Shawn Tubbs' videos are quite good but I'm just interested to hear from users from this community.

Cheers

exocet

The Fulldrive is a very good pedal....used by plenty of pro's. The levels do change when you flick the switches because the switch changes the clipping characteristics which in turn will "limit" the signal in certain modes. "Comp Cut" mode drops out the clipping diodes leaving only one of the OpAmp stages to clip when it's input is driven too hard.

crunchman

If this had been available a few years ago, I wouldn't have bothered building myself a pedal that isn't a million miles away from it.

I liked the FD2 but I never used the boost side.  I wanted something in a single pedal size that had a little bit more low end than a Tubescreamer.  I ended up building something that's a bit of a hybrid between the FD and TS, but if this had been available at the time, I would probably have just bought it.

Kebabkid

Hi Ali, that's a shame.

I don't remember the Fulldrive sounding as good as this but all modes were pleasing and didn't have as much of that TS mid-hump,  which renders my Keeley TS-808 poor at spongy, edgy funk or Stonesy, Tom Petty rhythm, and it's only great at SRV/Mayer leads but its main use is as 'stacker' on my OCD for some sustain and sizzle; the Fulldrive succeeded in the latter as well as pleasing low gain, rhythm and lead pedal. It's at a good price, too.

crunchman

I did the sums when I built my pedal.  The stock TS starts rolling off the low end at somewhere around 700Hz.  The FD circuit is around 330 or 340Hz if I remember correctly, so there is some mid hump, but not as pronounced, and there is less roll off of the bottom end.

I don't know if Keeley modifies that frequency at all.  It's a matter of changing the values of a capacitor and resistor.  It may affect the gain slightly, but you can change one other component to tweak the available gain.

On my build, I picked the values to start rolling off somewhere around 500 Hz, which is somewhere between the stock TS and FD.  I think mine has slightly more gain available than a stock TS from memory.

We seem to have a similar set up.  I run mine into an OCD clone that I built.

Chester

Had a Fulldrive 2 which was excellent with a Mesa Stiletto when I ran that rig. I've since been using a Fulldrive 3 with independent boost channel, which is excellent. Slight mid hump, and sits very will with clean or already overdriven tones. The independent boost finction is brilliant, and has a dynamics control which controls "feel" if that makes sense

My Hamstead Odyssey has now made it pretty much redundant though, so I'll be putting it up for sale here soon. But both Fulltones have been awsome, and I would recomend either, depending on your needs

Corvus

I have a Blue Note, first model with the toggle. Great for stacking or on it's own for really nice light drive sounds, sometimes boost it just slightly. Or stack it into a MIAB for the tight hard mids push thing. When I first got it and wired it in, I didn't realise it was already on - in the flat mode it can go very transparent. The EQs very good on it.

bingefeller

I've had a few JRAD pedals - the Chicken Soup and the Allan Holdsworth Overdrive, which I sold to someone on here.  

The Chicken Soup was also a clone of the Nobels pedal.  I found it good for tightening up an already distorted signal and that's all I used it for.  Having said that I still prefer the simple Tubescreamer for this duty.  The build quality of the JRAD pedals is second to none.

The Holdsworth pedal was very versatile and had a load of switching options.  Again I used it as a boost pedal and it worked well and was very quiet in my experiences.  It's named as an overdrive, but I would call it more of a boost.

Babones

Kebabkid said:

Also, apart from the Archer, I can't seem to find any shops that have a decent selection of the JRockett/JRAD pedals for trial and there's quite a choice when it comes to their overdrives (The Dude, The Animal, GTO, Blue Note, .45 Calibre etc)

Regent Sounds always has lots of J Rockett pedals in stock, if you can get there.

Kebabkid

Thanks @Babones and i didn't know that. I work in Central London and can get there easily

johnhe

The J Rockett stuff is fantastic in my opinion. Really high quality drive pedals. Great tones and great clean up from the guitars volume which is very important to me. All of mine have a lovely, woody character.the Dude is really adaptable, and the highest gain. The Animal is probably my fav - I tend to use mine at very low gain levels.  Although the .45 Cal also sounds great for lower gain to mid gain tones.

Kebabkid

Thanks @johnhe - that's good to know and if there's one that can sound great on low gain and also on high gain, that would be great. All 3 of the ones you've mentioned were on my list

kossofffan

The .45 Calibre is seriously the most authentic Marshall flavoured amp like pedal ever!

johnhe

The Dude is very mid rich. The .45 Cal also has lots of mids, but less than the Dude, while my older style Animal has the lowest mids of the 3. The .45 Cal and the Animal sound equally good at low gain to my ears.

Kebabkid

Thanks once again @johnhe.

I'll try whichever JRADs I can get my hands on, including The Dude, but mids I don't need as I have a Keeley TS-808 that does that very well or can be stacked to give that.

The .45 Calibre and Animal sound attractive and are you familiar with the OCD? If so, would you say The Animal sounds similar to that, as I have one of those, too?

There's a UK session guy who recently did a YT piece on Dann Huff, breaking down his parts and sounds and he used The Animal and I liked it a lot.

Teetonetal

I've had the Jrad GT, Animal and Tim Pierce.

The animal was a good but 1 dimensional Marshall in a box. I liked it, but moved it on when I got a Gurus DD, which is the daddy of all MIABs. It's a distortion, not an OD.

The GT is based on the nobels OD-1 as you say, though I've never used the original. I liked it and for a while it was my main boost. I still have it somewhere. I used it to push a dirty amp into typical solo territory. Less of a hump than a tube screamer, but does add some colour. Stacks really well, works with all my amps and helix, but like all the Jrad pedals, weighs a ton - you don't want many on 1 board.

johnhe

I also have an OCD. The OCD was my main “always on” pedal for 10 years. I’d say that the Animal sounds similar, but a little warmer. Honestly, the Animal sounds a little like an OCD with just a tiny bit of tubescreamer warmth blended in to my ears.

The Animal does great cleanup, and great clean tones. But so does the .45 Cal, but with a little more mids and perhaps less compression.

Kebabkid

thanks @johnhe for the descriptions

jpfamps

We went through most of the overdrives at Regent Sounds one evening and in our opinion the GTO was the best one.

This included the FD2 (which I like), various Klon clones, the Lenny, and the OCD.

Not sure how it would work with other pedals as we didn't try it with other pedals.

Kebabkid

Nice one @jpfamps and that's interesting.

I tend to take my board, and sometimes my guitar into shops when trying pedals and ask to be put through a Deluxe Reverb or Princeton for reference as I know that will work for me and it's a safe representation of my Divided. I think that's what I'll have to do at Regents and/or Andertons as they seem to be the only shops close to me that do them and even then, not all the range are in stock.

Cheers

jpfamps

Kebabkid said:

Nice one @jpfamps and that's interesting.

I tend to take my board, and sometimes my guitar into shops when trying pedals and ask to be put through a Deluxe Reverb or Princeton for reference as I know that will work for me and it's a safe representation of my Divided. I think that's what I'll have to do at Regents and/or Andertons as they seem to be the only shops close to me that do them and even then, not all the range are in stock.

Cheers

It's often quite hard to keep a full range in stock with smaller manufacturers, cf the Hudson Broadcast, as they can find it hard to balance supply with demand.