Fulltone Full-Drive

The Fulltone Full-Drive is a family of overdrive pedals built by Fulltone, the company founded by designer Mike Fuller. The original Full-Drive dates to 1995 and was one of the first hand-made boutique pedals, built by Fuller himself in his garage in a version JHS's Josh Scott describes as "the label-maker version that Mike Fuller built in his garage"¹². The line grew into the Full-Drive 2, the Full-Drive 3 and later revisions, and it became one of the pedals that helped build the boutique pedal boom of the 1990s³⁴.

At its core, the Full-Drive is a dual-channel overdrive with a footswitchable boost function. GuitarPlayer described the Full-Drive 2 as a dual-channel unit with the usual volume, tone and overdrive controls plus a boost function with its own level control⁵. Sweetwater's Don Carr calls the Full-Drive 1 "full tones classic mid forward medium drive pedal"⁶.

History and versions: Full-Drive 1, 2 and 3

The original Full-Drive (1995)

The original Full-Drive was released in 1995 and was among the first hand-made boutique pedals on the market¹. It carried the core feature set that every later version kept: an overdrive circuit with a footswitch that engages a fixed gain boost¹. Fuller built the earliest units himself, and the pedal's clean true bypass switching and independent Boost footswitch that pushed the circuit into a thick, singing lead tone for solos set the template for the whole line⁹.

Full-Drive 2 (1995 onward)

The Full-Drive 2 debuted in 1995⁵ and became the version most players know. It is a dual-channel unit with volume, tone and overdrive controls, plus a footswitchable boost function with a separate level control⁵. A toggle switch offers three distinct clipping modes⁴.

Guitar World's Charlie Wilkins, writing about the pedals that built the boutique boom, credits the Full-Drive 2's clean true bypass switching and its independent Boost footswitch with pushing the circuit into a thick, singing lead tone for solos⁹.

Fuller made numerous changes to the Full-Drive 2 over the years since it was first introduced in 1996, according to Guitar World's Chris Gill⁸. (GuitarPlayer gives the Full-Drive 2's debut as 1995⁵; the two sources disagree by a year.)

Full-Drive 3

The Full-Drive 3 keeps the overdrive-plus-boost concept but adds a top panel switch that sets the order of the two stages. On That Pedal Show, Mick and Daniel explained that you can either have overdrive first and then boost, or boost then overdrive: boost into the overdrive compresses more, while boost after the overdrive gives an overall lift and a bit more gain³.

Full-Drive 1 (2018)

The Full-Drive 1 was released in 2018¹. Despite the name, Aion FX notes it is not actually a reissue of the original Full-Drive, but a new product that is essentially a single-channel Full-Drive 2 with tweaks to sound more like the late '90s units¹. Sweetwater's Don Carr describes it as "a smaller version of the very famous 1990s full tone full drive"⁶.

It incorporates a 3-way Mode switch giving two extra settings in addition to the vintage Tube Screamer circuit¹. The Flat Mids and Vintage modes come from the later blue and cream versions of the Full-Drive II⁶. Its controls are volume, tone and overdrive knobs⁶. Gearnews reported its recommended retail price as still to be confirmed at the time of the announcement¹⁰.

Full-Drive 2 V2 (2018)

In July 2018 Fulltone announced the Full-Drive 2 V2, a downsized successor to the Full-Drive 2¹¹¹². Controls consist of full-size volume, tone, drive 1 and drive 2 knobs plus a new drive 2 volume control mini pot, with on/off and drive 2 footswitches⁸. It uses Fulltone's No-Pop true bypass circuit¹².

Bypass and the boost circuit

The Full-Drive line uses true bypass with a mechanical footswitch. JHS's Josh Scott explains that Fuller starts using mechanical switches, so true bypass is basically what we call switching that uses the mechanical footswitch⁷. On the Full-Drive 1, that means there is no buffer in the signal path when the pedal is off⁶. Aion FX notes the Full-Drive 1's user manual only mentions true bypass, even though the announcement referenced Enhanced Bypass, suggesting a last-minute change¹.

The boost side has drawn its own attention. JHS Pedals offers a modification service for the Fulltone Fulldrive 2 aimed at players who, in JHS's words, "like the drive sound but find the boost setting to not actually be a boost"¹³. On the Full-Drive 3, the order switch changes the boost's character: boost into the overdrive compresses more, while boost after gives an overall lift and a bit more gain³.

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