Joben Magooch
Well-known member
So, let me head this off by saying...I've never taken much of a look at the schematics myself so I'm not entirely sure what the differences are/would be.
But I'm curious: Is the Minidrive based on the Fulldrive 1 (which itself is claimed by Mike/Fulltone to be built off of the late 90s/early 2000s "pre-Mosfet" Fulldrive 2), or is it closer to the "modern" Fulldrive 2 Mosfet?
Fulltone's Full-Drive 1 does not have a toggle for Mosfet/Standard clipping. The early Full-Drive 2's did not have a Mosfet/Standard toggle either (and for that matter, did not have switchable "Comp Cut" / "Flat Mids" / "Vintage" modes, either), early ones just had the "Pull for Comp-Cut" volume knob.
The toggle for CC/FM/Vintage was added in version 2.4, and it wasn't until v2.5 that the Mosfet/Standard toggle was added with the Fulldrive 2 MOSFET.... I believe this was around 2006 or 2007?
ANYWAYS, like I said, I don't know what exactly the differences between the various revisions are...I owned a couple of Pre-Mosfet FD2s over the years, both "toggle" version as well as an earlier "Pull for comp cut" one, and I've had a newer Mosfet version as well. To my ears they sound quite different - the pre-Mosfets are both much warmer and fuller sounding, while the Mosfet versions are almost unusably bright to my ears (with my rig, of course). Off the top of my head I remember reading a while back that there was at least one capacitor that had a fairly big value change which would presumably impact that, but I'm just speaking from vague memory...Anecdotally, I can say that with the Pre-Mosfet models I would have to nearly crank the tone control for it to be bright enough, while with the "Mosfet" models I find it too bright even with the tone nearly all the way off. Of course, I suppose that could also be a matter of pot value/taper but I suspect there's more to it than that. Then they went and made the FD3 which I find to be FAR too dark. So it goes...
So...all that to say: Which one is the "Minidrive" based off of?
If it's based off of the more modern FD2 Mosfet, sans-boost...Any leads on how one could mod it to a more "vintage" spec and/or any possibility of getting a pre-Mosfet circuit made up? I suspect with the recent news regarding Fulltone, such a pedal may be getting more and more popular...
But I'm curious: Is the Minidrive based on the Fulldrive 1 (which itself is claimed by Mike/Fulltone to be built off of the late 90s/early 2000s "pre-Mosfet" Fulldrive 2), or is it closer to the "modern" Fulldrive 2 Mosfet?
Fulltone's Full-Drive 1 does not have a toggle for Mosfet/Standard clipping. The early Full-Drive 2's did not have a Mosfet/Standard toggle either (and for that matter, did not have switchable "Comp Cut" / "Flat Mids" / "Vintage" modes, either), early ones just had the "Pull for Comp-Cut" volume knob.
The toggle for CC/FM/Vintage was added in version 2.4, and it wasn't until v2.5 that the Mosfet/Standard toggle was added with the Fulldrive 2 MOSFET.... I believe this was around 2006 or 2007?
ANYWAYS, like I said, I don't know what exactly the differences between the various revisions are...I owned a couple of Pre-Mosfet FD2s over the years, both "toggle" version as well as an earlier "Pull for comp cut" one, and I've had a newer Mosfet version as well. To my ears they sound quite different - the pre-Mosfets are both much warmer and fuller sounding, while the Mosfet versions are almost unusably bright to my ears (with my rig, of course). Off the top of my head I remember reading a while back that there was at least one capacitor that had a fairly big value change which would presumably impact that, but I'm just speaking from vague memory...Anecdotally, I can say that with the Pre-Mosfet models I would have to nearly crank the tone control for it to be bright enough, while with the "Mosfet" models I find it too bright even with the tone nearly all the way off. Of course, I suppose that could also be a matter of pot value/taper but I suspect there's more to it than that. Then they went and made the FD3 which I find to be FAR too dark. So it goes...
So...all that to say: Which one is the "Minidrive" based off of?
If it's based off of the more modern FD2 Mosfet, sans-boost...Any leads on how one could mod it to a more "vintage" spec and/or any possibility of getting a pre-Mosfet circuit made up? I suspect with the recent news regarding Fulltone, such a pedal may be getting more and more popular...