I’m spending the day exploring whether or not these two pedals pair well together (for me) or not.

On the left, we have Fender’s Full Moon Distortion pedal.

On the right, we have Fender’s Santa Ana Overdrive pedal.

Even though they're pedals made by Fender, even though they're going into an amp that does blackface-style cleans, even though it's #straturday ...

... I'm using my Les Paul today.

There's two reasons why.

First off, when I play my Strat, it's almost always completely clean. That's my thing with Strats.

For better or worse, the Les Paul is my ax of choice when I'm reaching for the dirt.

But perhaps more importantly: well done Fender for making a range of pedals that work really well with their competitors' products.

They don't get enough credit for this, in my opinion.

Fender could have easily tuned the new range of pedals to be for Fender instruments and amps first and foremost.

I mean, that's how tech bros do it, right?

They didn't. These pedals work just as well into a Marshall, and just as well with a Les Paul.

The Santa Ana Overdrive was part of their first wave of releases, along with the Pugilist.

The Full Moon Distortion was part of their second wave of releases, along with The Pelt.

Before we talk tones, let's talk prices.

When it first came out, the Santa Ana Overdrive was expensive. Something to do with one of the components inside it, I believe?

I bought mine second hand to save money.

Right now, the Santa Ana Overdrive can be found for about £16 more than the Full Moon Distortion - if you shop around.

Otherwise, at £149, it is still expensive.

£149 will buy you a lot of really good overdrive pedals, especially if you buy second hand.

In that respect, the Santa Ana Overdrive needs to be really good to be good value for money.

The Full Moon Distortion sells for around £120 brand new, so up to £30 cheaper than the Santa Ana Overdrive.

As price-points go, that's competitive. If you went to the @andertonsmusic website and looked at pedals around that price, many great pedals cost more.

Enough about price. Let's talk about what they sound like, and what they feel like to play.

For me, the key control on the Santa Ana is that mids dial.

It changes the character of the pedal, while the other EQ controls are best at adapting the pedal for amp & guitar of choice (imho).

I definitely flip-flop between having the mids down, and the mids up to about 1:30.

With the mids down AND the bass around 3 o'clock, it's my kind of soft attack, low-mid thick rhythm tone.

It's modern in character, w/o sounding too scooped.

With the mids to between 1 and 2 o'clock, the Santa Ana takes on a more vintage character.

There's a lot more texture in the tone and has a really nice bite to it.

Is it tweedy?

I've grabbed a Lovepedal HP Twin pedal to compare it against. The Santa Ana's in the ballpark, yeah.

Feels like a tweed amp in a tux, compared to the HP Twin.

That's a good thing. I love having options.

I've just figured out why I like the Full Moon Distortion so much.

It sounds, and feels, just like my OCD pedal - only without the mud.

Not identical, and it doesn't have the thickness of the OCD.

Huh. When I started this thread, I had no idea how to classify the Full Moon Distortion at all.

I was going to grab a plexi pedal off the shelf to compare it against, tbh.

But no: this thing is firmly in OCD territory.

That's great news, because I've been struggling to come up with a recommendation for people who either can't get an OCD (because retailers have stopped selling them), or who choose to boycott the manufacturer over events earlier this year.