Distortion & Effects pedals

Right guitar geeks, best brand to go for if I'm going to buy an effex pedal/distortion pedal??
Want to keep it under £60 if possible, $108, so what should I be looking at????
All comments welcomed

 

Ebay!!

Well, you did say ALL comments welcome

 

Lol that doesn't give me any info on products does it!!!
And you can't use it's friday as an excuse for the bad jokes

 

My fav was a Boss "Heavy Metal". It was black and orange, and pretty inexpensive, around $50 if I remember correctly. I used to turn down the mids and turn up the low and high. Gave it a real deep Misfits/Samhain fuzzy sound.

I also used a DOD that was pretty cool, but I can't remember which one it was, just that it was purple. The Ibanez sound tanks or whatever they're called are pretty cheap, but I don't have any experience with them.

For the price though, you really can't go wrong with Boss. Best thing to do is try some out. Most shops will let you bring your own guitar.


-Steve

 

LOL....let me redirect you to the "Losing the Plot" thread....THAT'S my excuse

And I know nothing about the product...I was just being a smart ass

 

I'm not a professional musician, but have played guitar and been deeply interested in guitar players and their signature sounds over several decades. My conclusion is that what you're looking for, as far as distortion is concerned, is probably not in a pedal. It's more in a combination of guitar, pickup (including type and position), pre-amp gain, post-amp and speaker characteristics. You want edge, or "woman tone", or buzz-saw distortion, it can be achieved with just guitar and amp. You just need to find the combination that suits you..

 

If you're gigging with it, I'd invest in an amp with a decent distortion/overdrive/gain channel and foot pedal to switch between that and clean.

Boss pedals, IMO are made with cheap components and don't produce a very precise and well balanced sound, however they are made like tanks and will take quite a beating. Be wary of people selling power adapters for them, though, they tend to be badly made and buzz like hell on your signal chain, especially when they're powering a high-gain pedal like distortion or overdrive.

Names I've heard: RATs are supposed to be good, but better for bass. The "Big Muff" from Harmonizer is also quite good, its supposed to be bass, there are American and Russian versions of those, apparently the American one is better for guitar than bass (which is what its aimed at).

I agree with what TheDoug says, amp combination and setup is the best way to get the sound you want, but it's not the cheapest. A friend of mine (bassist) went through 3 or 4 different bass distortion pedals before he decided to buy a Peavy TMax Bass head (dual channel, transistor and valve channels) to go with his Black Widow powered cab. The mix between the valve and transistor channel makes a beautiful distorted sound, very warm and wholesome. Reminiscent of tape saturation, without the changing EQ. No pedals required, apart from a line switcher for chorus and flange/phaser effects, and for switching between channel presets on the amp.

 

Cheers for the input guys, there's gigs done round here locally, and at school, where they just use huge speakers and require you to have your own effects pedal for them to work.

 

Tell me if the amp you are gonna run thru is solid state or tube, what kind of guitar you are using(what type of pickups and wood the guitar is built out of if posible) and what type of music or sound you are striving for.

 

Didn't see this before I replied. Excellent info here!!

 

I'm using a cheapish Stagg basic series electric, pickups are probably the lowest of the low hehe. Not sure how to determine the difference between solid state or tube if you elaborate, and don't have a clue what the wood is, could be pine.
I just need basically a distortion pedal with a few effects built in too.

 

If you need a multieffects unit ZOOM, Boss, or Line6 make great units. If it were me I would probably get something by line 6. They make great stuff.

Tube amp will have valves in it, like tele sets used to have.

 

I'll have to have a look when I get back to school to see what they use, I looked at line 6 and they looked nice, along with Boss.

 

i'm still a big fan of the saturated tube sound. an small tube amp running through an attentuator will give you a nice saturated sound. very cool

however, i have a digitech RP200a that i got awhile back from a friend. not exactly the worlds best distortion, but had lots of cool stuff to fiddle with and a few great scooped 80's distortion sounds

 

You're not the only one . I am currently putting together a Trower/Hendrix rig for playing some private stuff. 50 watt el34 custom built plexi, Weber HP load dump, Roger Mayer Stone Fuzz, SweetSound Mojovibe, 2 wahs, germanium treble booster, SD-1, Voodoo Labs Microvibe, custom 2x12 with G12h30's , SRV sig strat with custom singles made by yours truly .

 

that sounds like a rockin' rig! should work out quite nicely!

 

I myself am partial to the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone distortion pedal. It has a built-in equalizer that you can use to dial in some very meaty tones, or you can dial it back and go for a more bluesy sound. It allows for MANY options.

 

I've had some experience with that pedal - its nice! My only complaint might be is it can sound a bit synthy if you're not too careful. Its also excelent for recording if you're using a Line Out or DI box, because of the way it "colours" the sound - its fairly predictable compared to say a standard boss Overdrive pedal (which sounds like crap anyway...).

I'd also say that if you're running guitar through a PA (seems a bit OTT for a small gig, but hey), the techies will like you because they won't have to aim their EQ at you and nobody else