Pigtronix FAT Drive Demo

A little while back, the kind folks at Pigtronix sent over the FAT Drive for us to take on a test drive. They unleashed the FAT Drive at NAMM this year, it’s great to get a new unit to demo! The FAT Drive is an overdrive that uses CMOS clipping with the standard controls you’d expect from a overdrive – Volume, Gain and Tone, but also has something a little extra. A toggle switch simply called ‘More’. The ‘more’ toggle changes the gain structure.. for more goodness. The pedal can be powered via 9volts, but comes with a 18v adapter for increased clarity and output.

Here is the official description from Pigtronix’s web site:

Pigtronix FAT Drive is thick and juicy, dripping with touch sensitive overdrive that responds to every nuance of your playing style. Multiple cascaded
gain stages enable the FAT drive to cover sounds ranging from slightly overdriven to rich saturation, all while retaining musical dynamics and the original character of your instrument.

FAT Drive takes a futuristic analog approach to create complex crunch tones using CMOS clipping and a variable low pass filter for tone shaping. Bringing the tone control all the way clockwise takes this filter completely out of the circuit for total transparency and robust low end. Rolling the tone control back smooths out the highs, leaving ample mid-range bloom and bottom end punch.

A Hi / Lo toggle switch brings additional versatility to the FAT Drive’s wide-ranging palette of overdrive tones, altering the gain structure for enhanced crunch and soaring leads. The FAT Drive features true bypass switching and runs fine on standard 9-volt power but ships with an 18-volt adapter for superior headroom, clarity and overall output.

For the demo we have my good friend Jimmy Rolle on guitar duty again. He’s playing his trusty Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Elegant into a Germino Lead 55 head through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. There is nothing between the guitar and amp besides the Pigtronix FAT Drive.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clip via SoundCloud

The FAT Drive is available for purchase, and is a great value. It’s only $139 at Amazon!

Make sure you check out Pigtronix on the web, Facebook and Twitter for more information on their great products!