Wampler Pedals has unveiled The Compulsion Drive, a fully featured overdrive/distortion pedal inspired by the Fulltone OCD but with an expanded set of features.
The Compulsion Drive, or TCD as it is named on the enclosure, is Brian Wampler doing Brian Wampler things, the product of a pedal designer who will workshop circuits just for fun, as in, for a thing to do on a Saturday night when there’s nothing on the TV.
And given that the OCD has long been one of his favourite dirt pedals, it was only a matter of time before his electrical engineering curiosity led him to do his own take on the pedal.
But this is very much a take on the OCD; it’s no clone, even if you have those classic OCD elements present and correct. Wampler has added a 3-band EQ to the pedal. There is a toggle switch for selecting between two modes. One is a more “traditional” gain stage. The other is configured to be “harder hitting” with cascaded MOSFET gain stages.
The 3-band EQ is a signature move from Wampler. Besides his mini pedals for guitar, we can’t think of a Wampler distortion or overdrive pedal without it.
There is, however, a twist. The Treble control does exactly the same thing as the Tone control on the original OCD. The idea is that you can use this to nail that classic OCD sound, then adjust to taste. Or maybe The Compulsion Drive is more about nailing classic OCD sounds, plural, because there are two internal dip-switches to avail players of four different iterations of the original pedal’s circuits.
“The Fat switch adds deep low-end warmth for a thicker foundation, while the Diode switch shifts the gain profile with an extra clipping diode for tighter, more saturated distortion,” says Wampler.
This makes the already pretty versatile OCD platform that bit more versatile. Wampler also promises plenty of gain hiding under that Level control, so you can hit the front end of your guitar amp hard. This is part of the OCD magic, how it sits with your amp and makes it sing – and how it plays nice with other drive pedals. It has always been a stackable dirt pedal. It has an amp-like quality, especially at lower gain settings.
The only question, really, is whether this is an overdrive or a distortion , and there are many internet threads to debate it. Brian Wampler made a video exploring it, which you can watch below.
Perhaps, when all is said and done, it’s both, capable of doing that sparkly hot drive, then getting a little nastier as you dime it. Like we said, versatile.
The Compulsion Drive is made in the USA, can be run on 9V or 18V DC from a pedalboard power supply, and is available now, priced £/$199.
See Wampler Pedals for more details.
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