Fulltone Catalyst

It is a great pedal with a bit more tweak ability that the '69 or 70 pedals from Fulltone. This one is more of a modern fuzz box that will allow you to dial in more usable fuzz and distortion tone fro today's new music standards. My opinion on the pedal is that is suits more towards the overdrive style of pedals than it does to fuzz boxes. I think more in the overdrive sound and voicing when I hear this pedal a great deal more than say a Big Muff from Electro Harmonics which I set the standard to for any fuzz box that I come across. It will get chewy like a Big Muff on the flame channel though.

Fulltone CT-1 Catalyst Guitar Effects Pedal Features:

* True Bypass switching
* Volume Knob
* Gain Knob
* Spark/Flame toggle switch
* Compact and tough metal chassis
* Bass/Mids and Treble mini-knobs
* Flame/Spark switch
* Produce an array of fuzz, distortion, and overdrive tones
* Use it as an effective clean boost pedal

UTILIZATION

Fulltone CT-1 Catalyst Guitar Effects Pedal Specifications:

* Input Impedance: 1 mOhm
* Output Impedance: 10 kOhm
* Current draw= 5 milliamps
* DC Power Options: 9 volt battery (included), voltage between 9 and 18 Volts DC as long as the adapter is (standard) 2.1mm x 5.5mm barrel plug with "Negative to Center Pin" configuration.
* Limited 5-year warranty



SOUND QUALITY

Don't get me wrong the thing can get a little hairy and sound a lot more saturated then an Ibanez TS9, but the fuzz is more organic towards tube amp distortion. I like the sound of it but it find the thing that is most useful for this pedal is to get good fuzz overdrive clean boost going into an overdriven amp. You can get that on the spark channel. The flame channel is geared more towards the fuzz side of the pedal. If you do crank up the gain and switch it to flame channel then you do get a fuzz sound but I think the best this pedals sounds is over on the spark channel.

OVERALL OPINION

This is a cool little pedal for those who want a basicaly two channel fuzz/overdrive box. I know they don't advertise it as a two channel box but the spark/flame switch really changes things up to which constitutes my opinion that it is two channels.

At new these units come in at $150. Not a bad price for a cool little fuzz box. I would recommend this unit to anyone who likes the style of a Big Muff but also wants to explore some simple overdrive capabilities.

The Fulltone Catalyst is an overdrive, boost, and fuzz pedal designed for use with electric guitar.  The pedal is an analog one that has standard 1/4 inch connections and can be powered by a nine volt power supply.  The pedal isn't rack mountable as it is a stomp box.

UTILIZATION

Using the Fulltone Catalyst overdrive pedal is quite easy to do because it has simple parameters.  However, at the same time it definitely offers up enough parameters to make it possible to get a wide array of different overdrive, fuzz, and distortion tones.  The pedal has parameters for volume, gain, treble, bass/mid, and a switch to choose either between a spark or flame mode, which is pretty ambiguous on paper, but is easily distinguishable once you try it out and play around with it at a little bit.  I don't think that a manual is needed because it is easy enough to use figure out how to use on its own.


SOUND QUALITY

The overdrive tones that are possible with the Fulltone Catalyst are pretty varied, but I have to say that I'm a fan of just about every sound that I have been able to get with this.  I use the pedal with a Fender Strat and a '76 Fender Twin Reverb and this combination gives me an awesome set up for recording that I've used a number of times for recording.  You can use this pedal as more of a subtle boost, but can also get it to crank pretty nicely to give you some great overdrive.  It is a very realistic tone that you can get with this pedal and is quite natural since this has no compression on it at all like some pedals do.


OVERALL OPINION

I first used the Fulltone Catalyst about six or eight months ago for a recording session and was immediately impressed with the lead tones that I found myself getting.  It is definitely good for rhythm parts as well, but I think that it excels best for lead tones.  The price is definitely reasonable for a well built pedal like this, but isn't the cheapest pedal on the market.  If you are a rock or blues lead guitar player, the Fulltone Catalyst is definitely an overdrive pedal that is worth looking into.