GearDump

Gearmandude did some shootouts on the OCD and it’s various versions. To be perfectly honest my love for the OCD started when I decided I wanted an overdrive pedal again and was tired of the standard Tubescreamer/Boss lineup. I am a big fan of Robin Trower’s playing and tone so I investigated his rig from a few years back and discovered that he was a heavy OCD user. Robin Trower now uses a signature Fulltone Overdrive which is allegedly very similar to the OCD.

For shear versatility the OCD seems to be one of the most amazing overdrives I have ever touched. It can get really gainy and do a distortion kind of effect or you can set the gain back and crank the volume to get a huge volume boost. When I heard there was a clone of it put out by Danelectro I decided to give that a whirl—and for the money who wouldn’t? It is a very similar pedal to the OCD but lacks the hi/lo switch. Honestly I think the OCD V4 I own sounds great at medium gain settings but the Cool Cat Drive sounds better when the gain is maxed. The Cool Cat actually sounds a bit grainier when used with no power tube saturation but when played through cranked tubes it looses that quality completely. Many players cite the Digitech Bad Monkey as a great budget OD but I think the Cool Cat has it beat dollar for dollar. I might be comparing Apples & Oranges though since the Bad Monkey is a budget Tube Screamer and the OCD is something entirely different.

In the versions video you can see that Mike Fuller at Fulltone has made a lot of modifications to the circuit since it was originally released. At some point I want to get one of each version just so I can have them in my tonal pallet for recording purposes but based on the video I think the V4 is the swiss army knife of the OCD’s.

Skreddy has been making pedals for a few years now. The waiting list can range from 30 days to 90 days depending on what you are after and when you get your name on the list. Having never owned one of his devices I am always fascinated with them. The majority of the effects he makes are fuzz or distortion devices. I wanted a Lunar Module for a while just because the whole Dark Side of The Moon paint job looked amazing. The sounds were basically straight off the record too.

For tone snobs many of these custom builders offer a special allure that cannot be found with pedals that sound remarkably similair at affordable prices. Even so, the Skreddy stuff as shown in the clips always seems to have something a little extra special. I’ll let the video do the talking. Make sure you check out Gearmandudes reviews on youtube. They are always fantastic and informative!