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…

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.