View other reviews for this product:
wwhhhaatt « Not so ultimate »
Published on 07/21/11 at 09:02The fulltone ultimate octave is fuzz pedal with a foot switchable upper octave effect.
The pedal has controls for volume, tone, and fuzz as well as a fat/bright switch.
The "fat" setting has more mid range while the "bright" setting is scooped out with tons of bass and treble. It can be run from a 9 volt power supply by using the rear DC jack or from a battery.
There are two stomp switches one being the true bypass and the other is for the upper octave.
UTILIZATION
Setting this pedal up is simple as everything is clearly labeled. You plug your cables in then put some power to it and kick it on. The manual explains everything well and gives some tips on how to make the most of the octave effect.
SOUND QUALITY
I used this pedal in a guitar set-up mostly into a fender champ and a Framus tube amp. The pedal is true bypass so it does not change your tone when off. I bought this pedal looking for a mean sounding fuzz with an upper octave but it fell a little flat on my ears. It was not bad but also was not anything special. The fuzz was rather tame for my liking and was very picky about the amps it was being run into. I could not get it to sound good into a clean amp and had trouble getting good sounds when run into my main amp's light crunch channel. Running it into a tube amp with a slight break up yielded the best results. Another annoyance was any time I got a good sound then tried it with my band it would not cut through the mix. Then I would adjust the tone knob but when I got to a point that it could be heard it sounded brittle. The octave effect was also not very prominent and I wish there was some sort of dial to control the intensity of it. It should also be known that hitting the octave switch makes the sound drop for a brief moment before coming back in with the octave effect. I think this is the same with all analog upper octave pedals.
I do not want to completely bash this pedal because there were some times where I could get a great sound out of it. Mostly in a recording environment where things can be further processed. It also sounded pretty good into older amps on the verge of break up.
OVERALL OPINION
I think at the 200$ range there are better options out there.I also had problems with the switches on my pedal and was not greeted with the best customer service.
There are many people who love fulltone pedals but for me it just was not too inspiring to play.
The pedal has controls for volume, tone, and fuzz as well as a fat/bright switch.
The "fat" setting has more mid range while the "bright" setting is scooped out with tons of bass and treble. It can be run from a 9 volt power supply by using the rear DC jack or from a battery.
There are two stomp switches one being the true bypass and the other is for the upper octave.
UTILIZATION
Setting this pedal up is simple as everything is clearly labeled. You plug your cables in then put some power to it and kick it on. The manual explains everything well and gives some tips on how to make the most of the octave effect.
SOUND QUALITY
I used this pedal in a guitar set-up mostly into a fender champ and a Framus tube amp. The pedal is true bypass so it does not change your tone when off. I bought this pedal looking for a mean sounding fuzz with an upper octave but it fell a little flat on my ears. It was not bad but also was not anything special. The fuzz was rather tame for my liking and was very picky about the amps it was being run into. I could not get it to sound good into a clean amp and had trouble getting good sounds when run into my main amp's light crunch channel. Running it into a tube amp with a slight break up yielded the best results. Another annoyance was any time I got a good sound then tried it with my band it would not cut through the mix. Then I would adjust the tone knob but when I got to a point that it could be heard it sounded brittle. The octave effect was also not very prominent and I wish there was some sort of dial to control the intensity of it. It should also be known that hitting the octave switch makes the sound drop for a brief moment before coming back in with the octave effect. I think this is the same with all analog upper octave pedals.
I do not want to completely bash this pedal because there were some times where I could get a great sound out of it. Mostly in a recording environment where things can be further processed. It also sounded pretty good into older amps on the verge of break up.
OVERALL OPINION
I think at the 200$ range there are better options out there.I also had problems with the switches on my pedal and was not greeted with the best customer service.
There are many people who love fulltone pedals but for me it just was not too inspiring to play.