Educate me on distortion pedals

shady

juansolo

Maxi said:

I recon your method probably steers it away from being a one trick pony . Ive built a few of them , a couple for my self and one for my bro .

I cant fault the G.M schem for brutalz but the original Mesa rec emulation does not translate particularly well to backed off gain but then Ive never owned a high gain distortion box that does .

I was pretty impressed with the voicing  . Cap and resistance values over all create that Mesa rec signiture tone . More amp like than I would ever have believed before making one .

Its just the crunch tones that are missing on mine .

Yeah, the crunch is there with the mods. It's the problem we had with it, all brootz and nothing else before.

Lil bit of ACDC on it: 

monquixote

I've been playing on this quite a bit since I got it and it's absolutely fucking epic. 

Expensive, but worth every penny. 

I've tried loads of distortion pedals and not a one has ever actually sounded like an amp other than this one. I know there are others that apparently do like the Mesa and Blackstar, but none of them take a 9v.

hugbot

If you havent tried boosting with a tubescreamer, try that before you try anything else.

spacecadet

It's big and needs it's own power supply but you really need to check out the Radial Tonebone stuff. The Classic is more Mesa/ Fender like and the Hot British is typically Marshall. Best od/ distortion pedal ever that will get you ANY drive you want.

Dave_Mc

I generally like to stack an od into a distortion pedal. To me that normally sounds closer to a high gain amp than using a single pedal, even if it is advertised as sounding like a high gain amp alone.

Out of what I've tried:

I like the rat- my mooer black secret is pretty versatile and works with pretty much any amp i've tried it with.

For more amp-in-a-box type tones (though the way I dial in a rat it doesn't sound unlike a high gain marshall type tone either), i like my joyo crunchbox and suhr riot clones, and my tonerider british distortion (I'm guessing it's a clone/derivative of something, I'm just not sure what... my guess would be guvnor or crunchbox though it's a fair bit brighter than my joyo crunchbox clone so I dunno).

I'm not sure the point of the super-expensive ones, though- unless you absolutely need some way to make an unsuitable amp do heavier stuff, I mean thomann sells jet city amps for little over £200, and they sound (and feel) better than any distortion box I've ever tried if you want high gain tones.

viz

mike_l said:

viz said:

I thought everyone starts off with a Boss DS1?

I hated the one I had. Found it too harsh. But that might just have been my playing, and (at the time shitty) amp.

I might just try another.....

yep @Mikel they have that reputation, especially into tranny amps or clean channels, but if you play them into a well-driven tooob amp turned up loud, and keep the distortion knob below 7, they deliver a good old-fashioned screaming solo sound, for 20 quid second hand I reckon they're still a deserved stalwart. And they're on so many of my fave albums including most of Vai and Satch. Obviously the keeley ones are miles warmer.

ragingben

In my experiences with distortion pedals I've found its all in the eq. I love the railhead tua for high gain, hard to stomp in a hurry though. Barber dirty bomb is always a reliable bet too

mike_l

viz said:

 

yep @Mikel they have that reputation, especially into tranny amps or clean channels, but if you play them into a well-driven tooob amp turned up loud, and keep the distortion knob below 7, they deliver a good old-fashioned screaming solo sound, for 20 quid second hand I reckon they're still a deserved stalwart. And they're on so many of my fave albums including most of Vai and Satch. Obviously the keeley ones are miles warmer.

It was into a shitty tranny amp, mind at the time it was "turn everything to 10, or louder*". I shall have a look in a few weeks for another.

*Yes, I am Nigel Tuffnell