Fulltone GT-500

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

Features

From The Fulltone Website:

Discrete F.E.T Hi-Gain Distortion and Overdrive Booster 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 BTW)

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 has a discrete Inductor-Driven Midrange circuit....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.

Review

This is a sophisticated multi-function and programmable distortion pedal.  Not a simple fuzz box, to be sure.  I usually shy away from pedals with so many knobs and options, leaning more towards the one knob (or no knob!) type pedals. I first ran into this pedal at my friend Matt Baker's shop, Action Music, in Arlington, VA.  A friend of his brought it in and was raving all about it.  He insisted that I try it.  Begrudgingly, I plugged in a guitar and started tweaking.  "What does this switch do?  It does what?  feeds one side of the pedal into the other, or vise versa?  Woah, this is fancy."  After 10 minutes of tooling around with the thing, I realized that the GT-500 is a very powerful pedal indeed.

I have used a Marshall Guv'nor and built a clone so I'm no stranger to the F.E.T. based distortion circuit.  The F.E.T. distortion side of the pedal could stand alone, for sure (maybe it does?).  It handles complex chords without beating against itself or caving in at all.  Great for complex metal.  Three small tone knobs allow the user to adjust the bass, mid and treble settings.  The low end on this pedal is retarded.  Maybe too much?  Let's just say the tone settings have a pretty wide sweep.

The Booster/OD channel is much more subtle.  It has plenty of volume to drive the front end of a tube and and simple bass and treble tone controls. 

The real trick to this pedal is the little two way toggle switch in between the Booster/OD side and the Distortion side.  Depending on how you have this switch set you can route the Booster/OD through the Distortion or vise versa.

The Final Word

Woah.  This thing can get very extreme sounding in a hurry.  I wish I'd had one of these when I was still playing in the Fucking Champs.  We always ran into the problem of trying to go one louder for solos, but our amps didn't go to 11.  Where do you go when you're at the top of your pre-amp volume and your Guv'nor pedal is all the up?  Well the GT-500 could take you one louder - to 11.  Maybe even 12 or 13?  By adding the Booster/OD after the Distortion, you get a real volume jump.  You could even add more top if your looking to get your solos to cut through.

Routing it the other way around, (Booster/OD feeding into Distortion), you can get a really nasty, super heavy, sludgy, stoner rock style sound.  It's the sound of too much distortion and it's a beautiful thing.  It can get a bit squeally, but that's what a gate is for (if you even care).