Jackson Audio is relaunching Fulltone

Alan W said:
I’ve been able to see Gomez many times over the years, and honestly think they used to put on a better show than ANY other band I’ve seen. (And, in my 70s, I’ve gotten to see many many greats.) My first Gomez concert was a 3 night stand at Fillmore West, I went for just 1 night with friends that were rabid Gomez fans. No song repeats over 3 LONG concerts. They used to not take breaks; with three “leads” they would each do a few solo songs while the rest of the band took a break—and those solos were often highlights.

Up until about 10 years ago, they’d tour with a 6th member, who would either double on percussion or synths. Since then, unfortunately, they use pre-recorded for those parts. I think my most favorite show was just Ian, Ben and Tom, almost fully acoustic, in a small SF hall. It was the final night of a world tour, and they were exhausted and pretty loopy. The tensions that had been growing between Ian and Ben were absent that night.
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I'd never heard of them before I saw them. They stood out to me because they had two percussionists, and the percussion section took up like half of the stage.
 
jesuscrisp said:
Is that a proven fact? Tbh I really don't think he would have been the only one to figure it out. Also the trend nowadays goes towards relay based switches and some brands even start to incorporate JFET flip flop switching again due to the better durability and noise free switching. As cool as 3PDT true bypass switching is for easy implementation, it isn't industry standard anymore.
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I don’t think it was claimed he was the only one to figure it out. But he had the means to order large enough quantities to make them available was how I understood.

From what I’ve heard this is fairly realistic

Giorfida said:
If my memory is correct, about 25yrs ago, if you wanted a 3PDT footswitch, it was a Fulltone switch you were buying. I believe he was the first to have them made en masse and sold to the public.
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By any means I’m still trying to figure out what the guy did exactly to make everyone so bitter to him. Seems like a guy that was into pedals and found some success at it. Maybe he oversold the “originality” of the ocd. That’s also called marketing.
 
Locrian99 said:
I don’t think it was claimed he was the only one to figure it out. But he had the means to order large enough quantities to make them available was how I understood.

From what I’ve heard this is fairly realistic



By any means I’m still trying to figure out what the guy did exactly to make everyone so bitter to him. Seems like a guy that was into pedals and found some success at it. Maybe he oversold the “originality” of the ocd. That’s also called marketing.
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I do believe he allegedly said something that came across poorly. Again, I never saw it so not sure if it really was that bad or not… or if it was something blown up in typical internets fashion and turned into a mob rule against him.
We all know how he internet is: someone says something or makes a video and next thing you know, $25 pedals you couldn’t give away one day are now selling for hundreds (Bad Monkey anyone), likewise say something that offended in person and the next day, the internet is screaming about how you kick puppies and torture babies and every other horrible thing you can imagine- no way related or even true to what the person said.

Personally, I don’t know exactly, and don’t want to see it devolve into political division in this group as it’s the one place that isn’t tainted with the “us vs them” politics… so I’m not even looking it up, since nothing I would do or say anyways would help or hurt the man (and since I build my own pedals, the likelihood of me actually buying one is the same as it was before the controversy- nonexistent)
 
He spoke out about BLM protests because he was afraid his place would be looted. He then doubled down when it was pointed out that it sounded pretty racist. Not long after this he decided America was too broken for his genius to succeed, so he shut it down, right about the time those bunch of fellas got that surprise tour of the Capitol Building…
 
Coda said:
He spoke out about BLM protests because he was afraid his place would be looted. He then doubled down when it was pointed out that it sounded pretty racist. Not long after this he decided America was too broken for his genius to succeed, so he shut it down, right about the time those bunch of fellas got that surprise tour of the Capitol Building…
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See I’ve been told it goes beyond just that and that’s what I’m curious about. What is it beyond the political statement.
 
Well beyond that he's been known for years for his piss poor attitude when it comes to customer service.
 
Locrian99 said:
See I’ve been told it goes beyond just that and that’s what I’m curious about. What is it beyond the political statement.
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I think there is a collection of evidence available that he’s just a dick. Self-important, ego-centric, self-proclaimed ‘genius’ who pisses down on all…
 
Locrian99 said:
See I’ve been told it goes beyond just that and that’s what I’m curious about. What is it beyond the political statement.
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From what I remember he and Guitar Center were discontinuing their business relationship. After his online comments during the BLM protest, GC made a show of announcing they would no longer carry Fulltone. Fuller's comments were very badly timed and poorly made (depending on one's point of view), but it seems to me that GC was also very cynically trying to gain some points by pretending that was the reason for the decision, when in fact it had been made before Fuller's comments.

Read the TGP thread that got locked a couple days ago. It is a wild ride. I could not stop reading it because the entire arc of it is so very classic to what happens over on that forum.
https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/fulltone-is-coming-back.2531225/

It's like people forget how very insane the country got at that time b/w COVID and the protests and just try to paint over everything with one, narrowly focused brush.
 
Locrian99 said:
See I’ve been told it goes beyond just that and that’s what I’m curious about. What is it beyond the political statement.
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Beyond his politics and the handful of racist comments (it goes a bit beyond what was described above), he was already wildly disliked by many, many people for being an absolute d***, with terrible customer service and a massive ego. I had acquired my own distaste for the guy a few years prior, after he got hostile with me for politely letting him know about an issue with a link in one of his marketing emails.

He’s just not a nice guy, and there are tons of companies run by much friendlier people who have much better sounding+looking pedals, so I decided I just wouldn’t ever buy his stuff.
 
Big Monk said:
People tend to forget that his comments came at a time when people were straight up looting and vandalizing and trying to burn down Santa Monica. Not for nothing but that’s like 10-15 minutes from where he was in Culver City at the time.

Sure, it was poor timing, and yes, he’s a dick, but I dont remember him denouncing actual protests, just looters. I could be wrong though because his comments were being deleted and edited, etc.

And yes, there definitely were people at the time conflating protest with looting but I don’t remember him being one of them. I think he was genuinely concerned about what was happening a short drive away in Santa Monica.

Doesn’t change the fact that in general he was unsavory but keep in mind that many of us have not had legitimate looting and burning going on that close to our home or businesses EVER.
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Valid points. Well said.
 
The whole debacle is very well summarized in this article (if you can get through the ads!). I think his apology makes sense and seems genuine and I appreciate him calling out his own white privilege and fear. At the time emotions were running very high from everybody and his initial comments felt completely inexcusable and unredeemable to many, at the very least because of coming off as completely tone deaf (no support for peaceful protest or the BLM cause) and offensive (“prissy boys who were taught to pee sitting down” is a gem of offensiveness). My guess is that GC and Reverb used the situation as an excuse to drop him due to other reasons as well. I personally hope this situation has given him an opportunity to develop more empathy.
 
Given that we’re butting up to some very sensitive topics, I really appreciate how everyone here is approaching the conversation respectfully. I’m not saying we need to “both sides” every issue, but there seem to be fewer and fewer places where people are even capable of having a discussion.

It seems like everything that’s constructive has already been said, so I’ll just agree with the sentiments that hopefully people can learn and grow*.

* Maybe not Mike, but at least you jerks who don’t like music from 1999 😜
 
bhcarpenter said:
Given that we’re butting up to some very sensitive topics, I really appreciate how everyone here is approaching the conversation respectfully. I’m not saying we need to “both sides” every issue, but there seem to be fewer and fewer places where people are even capable of having a discussion.

It seems like everything that’s constructive has already been said, so I’ll just agree with the sentiments that hopefully people can learn and grow*.

* Maybe not Mike, but at least you jerks who don’t like music from 1999 😜
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I think how most are approaching the topic speaks volumes to the character of us here and how much respect we all have for each other.
Quite frankly, it’s great to see!
And just because many of us are remaining civil, doesn’t mean we don’t feel strongly one way or about this and/or other issues, we are just saving it for when we close the curtain behind us and vote!
 
Big Monk said:
Again, context is key here.

What was happening in Santa Monica, pretty damn close to his business location in Culver City, was not protest. It was straight up looting and smashing.

At the time, I remember Ryan Sickler, the comedian, a favorite of mine, was running his Honeydew Podcast out of the Santa Monica Music Center. They were looted and almost completely stripped of stock.

So yes, it was poor timing, and yes, he’s a douche, but he also was not wrong. He was speaking specifically to what was happening in his area.

The tenor of the times was very heated and rightfully so, especially because the wounds were fresh. That doesn’t mean the Individual commentary at the ground level was wrong.

In my eyes, barring certain transgressions of a violent nature, everyone deserves a path to redemption.

Maybe this new era of Fulltone can redeem his past actions.
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I hear you. Violence is never justified and I think that’s probably what Mike was afraid of. It’s hard to balance things out when you have a country wide protest which is mostly peaceful and at the same time these pockets of violence hiding behind it. I remember videos of BLM activists shouting at looters that they should stop. Many things can be true at the same time: the peaceful protest can be legitimate and justified, the looting is a horrible thing to do under the guise of such protests and some white guy in Santa Monica didn’t see the big picture and paid a price for it, even though he apologized for his words.
 
Big Monk said:
To add even more context, I think Fuller was speaking directly about Santa Monica and the Governor of California, NOT the protestors in, and Governor of, Minnesota.

Again, not a Mike Fuller apologist, but I think many people misinterpreted WHAT he was talking about.
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Totally. Unfortunately when putting stuff online one has to be very careful to provide the appropriate context. This applies to everybody, not just Mike. Even this discussion we are having would be much easier in person, ideally in front of a beer! :)
 
spi said:
Fulltone brand can probably be redeemed, if Jackson Audio can resist calling their customers stupid, refrain from insulting them if english isn't their main language, and forgo telling them to fuck off. Seem's not hard to do.
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The bar is pretty low! That’s why it’s called “the Genius Bar” not the “you’re dumb bar”.
 
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