A Gain and EQ stacker's dream:
The Fulltone GT-500 guitar pedal is a D iscrete F.E.T Hi-Gain Distortion and Overdrive Booster all in one box. You could think of them as 2 separate pedals or think of them as stages to be linked together for endless combinations. Hi-Gain side has Volume, Distortion knobs, Bass, Mid, and Highs minipots. Booster Side has Volume, Overdrive knobs, Bass and Highs minipots. These new hi-Q sealed minipots don't break.
Hard clipped distortion (the way most pedals achieve distortion) at one point in a circuit can be cool, but stage after stage of FET (GT-500) is very real, very amplike, has ridiculous amounts of sustain even at low volume, does the great chunky low string rhythm stuff and cleans up incredibly well when you turn down the guitar's volume. The GT500 contains 9 x FET's, 2 Mosfets and 1 x Transistor with no opamps or clipping diodes used.
What's special about the EQ?
The Hi-Gain side of the Fulltone GT-500 has a discrete Inductor-Driven Midrange circuit, which has never been done in a pedal before. Yes there's a wah wah inductor inside the pedal that gives the Midrange control its ability to drastically increase or decrease the entire Low Mid, Mid, and Hi-Mid frequencies to comical proportions. All this is done without any opamps because all of the active 3 Band EQ's I've tried are horrible, killing all harmonics, all excitement, and sounding as sterile as the "EQ" in a Digital Recording Program. Nope, this has 100% discrete matched FET's.
This Mid control mixed with a strong Bass and Treble control help give the GT-500 the ability to dial in more variations than a simple tone control, which can only roll off the Highs.
What's the "Series switch" in the middle do?
The Series Select Switch allows you to choose which pedal comes first, allowing you to instantly change the order of the 2 circuits.
Booster ------> Distortion
or
Distortion-------> Booster
For example: A Clean Boost slamming into the front end a Distortion sounds way different than a Distortion followed by the clean Boost, and when the EQ"s of the respective sides come into play, it's a wide open canvas. Regardless of which side of the pedal is designated as "first in line" you can still use each side by itself, completely independent of the other side.
Specifications:
- Maximum Current Draw= 14 milliamps (all knobs cranked)
- Weight= 1 pound 8 ounces
- Size= 5 ¾" (left to right) x 3 7/8" deep x 2 ½" height (top of Knobs)
Distortion side
- Input impedance = 150K
- Output impedance = 15K
Booster/OD side
- Input impedance = 500k
- Output impedance = 600 ohms
