What’s the best distortion / overdrive pedal available today?
With the power of social networks, it’s absolutely great to ask a question, and to receive so many opinions. This week, I thought I’d ask the question “What’s the best distortion / overdrive pedal available today?”. Again, I’m asking this question with predictions of what people will probably say, so it’s fun to see pedals either a) I wasn’t expecting or especially b) pedals I’m not familiar with. Today was no exception.
I asked this question via Twitter as well as on the Facebook page. Here are the results, but please continue the conversation here by commenting below. We all want to hear your opinions. Is there pedal not mentioned? Do you agree with others? Do you disagree?
via Twitter
jnewton @effectsbay the fulltone OCD!
jtsimeone @effectsbay sansamp rocks
disandroid @effectsbay i use IbanezTubescreamer TS9DX. great warm tone, good sustain. for overdrive i use the MXR Distortion+, great boost and clean.
LeeChavez @effectsbay keely boss od’s. Those kick a..
beeflin @effectsbay For many years until I got a good Marshall I used an Ibanez Mostortion pedal. Good enough to go straight into a PA.
thejessalexa @effectsbay i think the best distortion pedal out now is the electro-harmonix metal muff. great for heavy riffs and it sounds amazing 
xx
AustinRemington @effectsbay in my opinion, the VOX Satchurator is the best distortion pedal on the market.
FatToneGuitars @effectsbay Lots of good ones. I like the MJM London Fuzz and the Earthquaker Devices Tone Reaper
KJFAN1 @effectsbay http://bit.ly/2fOqsY the Boss os-2
seanmbrage @effectsbay barber direct drive, any of the Jetter gain stage units, fulltone MOSFET drive.
The_Original_1 @effectsbay Imo, the best dist. pedal is the Boss Metalcore.
BooDooPerson @effectsbay I’m all about the Keeley TS-9+ mod. The stock Ibanez isn’t great, but I love what he does with it.
3naturalsixes @effectsbay I love my rat/zvex machine combination.it’s total dirt
TyJbbvx @effectsbay I just heard some Boss Pedal Demos at Youtube and I had interest in DS-2… also a DN-2 is a unique thing 
jeremynwood @effectsbay ac booster by xotic effects! Amazing!
Falcon_Charles @effectsbay BOSS OS 2
urbanwilliams @effectsbay Butler Tubedriver. Hands down.
rcannonp @effectsbay I don’t know if it’s the best or not, but I like my Barber Direct Drive.
patrickloggins @effectsbay DS-1. Tried and true. Or the Z-vex fuzz factory.
GeeHalen @effectsbay I think the ‘Satchurator’ created quite a buzz. I’d separate the question to tube-driven and solid-state ones.
via Facebook
Justin Vigeant I have a Home Brew Electronics (HBE) Power Screamer OD that I absolutely love. To be fair, it is a TS808 clone, so my vote has to go respectfully to the original TS-808
Lucas Hölbling Line-6 Dr. Distortio– amazing powerful distortion with lots of functions
As you can see there were some interesting pedals mentioned. I was surprised to see the Boss OS-2 mentioned a couple of times. I’ll definitely need to take a closer look at that pedal. I was expecting to see the ZVex Fuzz Factory, and was glad to see that mentioned. I was curious about the AC Booster (heard great things about that in the past) and the Butler Tube Driver. Anyway, hope others find this as interesting as I did!
Popularity: 27%
Related posts:
- Fulltone GT-500 FET Distortion + Booster and Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal Today I wanted to talk about the Fulltone GT-500...
- Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal So today’s question “What’s the best distortion / overdrive...
- Question: Distortion before Wah or Distortion after Wah. Let the discussion begin! Today, I asked the question “Question: Distortion before Wah...
- MI Audio Crunch Box v.3 Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal Today, I’ve been interested in distortion boxes, and I...
- BOSS MD-2 Mega Distortion Review The following is a guest post review of the...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Sure the Satchurator and DS1 are great. Digitech Hot Head is surprisingly great as well, but my all time favorite od/ds category pedal is my friend’s mod chipped TS9DX. Does it need to be modded? probably not. Is it the sexiest piece of guitar equipment iv ever stepped on? Heck yes.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
I’m torn between saying the Cusack Screamer or the G2D Custom Overdrive for the best OD pedal I’ve used. For distortion I’m a big fan of the AMT Fatal Tube
Owen Vickers´s last blog ..NZGuitars.com Auckland Gearfest – October 2009
November 22nd, 2009 at 5:10 am
For straight overdrive, you can’t go wrong with the Keeley-modded Blues Driver, although the Catalinbread Silver Kiss deserves honorable mention as well.
For distortion, go with something more interesting than your standard Boss fare: a Devi Ever fuzz (pick any one to suit your taste), or an LAL 88.
For even more interesting: a bitcrush/sample-rate-reduction device like the Alesis Bitrman (even if it does suck tone in bypass), or Frostwave Sonic Alienator. And new pedals like the WMD Geiger Counter can go completely unhinged.
December 1st, 2009 at 4:29 am
There is no BEST overdrive or distortion pedal. As long as there are different ears around, with different musical and anlytical abilitys and different musical backround and style there CANNOT be a best one.
Also – reality is, that music industry and their marketing departments telling us storys and technical nonsense since decades trying to make big money. Dont forget all that “Sound Priests” and self-appointed specialists & gurus which had the only competence to replicate stories, youtube clips etc from others to profile themselfs. They never had the chance to play with real vintage stuff to build up a strong groundwork for their mostly false and sometimes very funny sugestions.
To get in a position to give debitable statements and build up your own opgnion you have to invest lots of money to generate an environment, that allow you to compare in a identical situation (same amps, same cables, same levels, same guitars, same hearing geometry, blind test comparing etc) the different pedals. Every preamp section in our amps interacts different to the pedals, every cable has different capacitance and tone as well as the plugs, different tone capacitors in the guitars have a big influence on tone and so on…never ending story!
I am a “Tone” freak (no sound freak) and I’ve been there and spended much money and time to answer that question since many years now.
All I can say is -> at present time I have some favourite pedals which support different styles. A realy extraordinary and outstanding pedal that works with most amps, notwithstanding which type of PUs I use, is the “Rockett Afterburner” overdrive. Very versatile and with a nearly perfect tone voicing. For ClassicRock style there is the “MHP 72°” togehter with the “Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret” -> both are very close to THE universial and usable pedal and worth a sugestion. For a country rock, roots rock or americana style overdrive the old and cheap Nobels ODR-1 is unbeatable – tonewise. But it is cheap made and noisy too. Rockett started to make a clone these days but I haven’t got a chance to check it out yet. When I need some tones for AC30 TB association my favourite pedal is the “Menatone TOP-BOOST-IN-A-CAN” – very usable! For lead tones there is the “Hermida Zendrive” or alternative in conjunction with the amps gain channel the “Exotic BB Preamp”. For high gain lovers w/o a own Recitifier f.e. there is no way around the “OKKO Diablo”. Most the time I use a TAD RangeKing or a Exotic RC Booster in front of all those pedals just to get a little “dirt” or “balls” on my clean signal and to feed the following gain section with a more even and stronger signal with enhanced upper mids & highs. But like I said before – these are very personal sugestions and experiences with my gear. Very subjective…