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What is your favorite distortion pedal?

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This thread comes right in time for me to learn from you guys, 'cause I am looking for a distortion pedal to get "high" gain sounds.

Rob, is the SD-9 really capable of producing high gain sounds? I was about to check the Digitech Metal pedal...
 
Hands down, DVM's Rabid Rodent. It has a stock rat clone mode, but many, many other modes (6 distortion, 6 overdrive) that sound great, and make it very versatile. The overdrive mode colors the sound much less than my other overdrive, my Bad Monkey, so it gives me that too.

I still enjoy my DS-1 (my first distortion pedal) for certain things, but usually in combination with other pedals. Either the chorus to pick up a grunge sound, or using my Bad Monkey after it to smooth it out. But as a stand alone pedal, it cannot stand up to the Rodent.
 
I love my DVM R_R , versatile & powerful too..

I tried the Digitech Hothead , cheap powerfull disto but you must tweak a bit for good tone , colored the sound too..
 
Red Llama, although it's not really a distortion pedal, more of an overdrive-y fuzz.
 
Effects Pedal Boutique SRB 808 Plus 2 in 1 Dual OD...I stack od1 set in the TS808 mode into od2 in the Marshall mode and bingo!
 
I do indeed love that Rabid Rodent modified Rat, though most of the credit goes to Keith Vonderhulls at BYOC for an outstanding kit design. All I did was change a couple of the clipping arrays and install the "Ruetz mod" switch, which isn't original, either. I will take credit for building them pretty well, though. :D

Sumi, You'll have yours next week! :dude: :rockon:

Among commercial pedals, I think the Marshall Gov'nor Plus is my favorite. Best EQ section I've come across in a pedal. Amazing bottom end. And they're not expensive. $70 most places, though they seem to have been discontinued.... :(
 
So far, it's my ZYS by duhvoodooman. After having time to evaluate it against all my other pedals, it wins hands down........ I like it better than the Bad Monkey, and even the Plexitube, both of which I'm thinking of selling now.
Maybe I can sell those and try out the Rabid Rodent.
The ZYS doesn't "throw a blanket" over the speakers like the others, if you know what I mean.

I've had people ask me.... "can you hear a difference in those videos?" when I get on Youtube and hear pedal/amp demos. Usually I can, sometimes I can't. But when I play here at home, I most definately can. The Monkey and the Plexitube sound good until you A/B them with the ZYS. You can EQ them 'till they don't really "color" the sound, but you can't kick them in w/o noticing that they muffle the sound, they kill the big, wide open sound that the amph gets naturally.
 
If the Marshall Guv'nor Plus is considered a distortion box... I'd have to pick that as my favourite.

As mentioned in other posts, it has tremendous EQ properties, and it makes my tele bridge p/u sound freakin huge! It does a great job with buckers too... very versatile when I want to have a hard rocking moment and crank it up loud.

Huge deep base, and incredible drive... all at an affordable price.

It's a keeper :AOK:
 
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Radial Tonebone Hot British. This pedal is completely over the top for distortion and it's a very high quality at that. It's not subtle - it's a distortion pedal!:rockon:
 
Spudman said:
Radial Tonebone Hot British. This pedal is completely over the top for distortion and it's a very high quality at that. It's not subtle - it's a distortion pedal!:rockon:
Click to expand...

I listened to some MP3's on the Tonebone site after I saw your pedalboard. That thing smokes.
 
Spudman said:
Radial Tonebone Hot British. This pedal is completely over the top for distortion and it's a very high quality at that. It's not subtle - it's a distortion pedal!:rockon:
Click to expand...

Looks like they have a more small & compact version now ...

 
I've heard the Barber DirtyBomb on UTube and I think it's great but I would like to hear it live.
Cheers,
 
The Tech21 XXL - no other Pedal could replace it from the board so far. Makes a monster out of a Fender-amp and clears up with the guitarvolume better than anything i've tried so far. On the overdrive-side, there's the Crowther Audio Double Hot Cake - my personal souvenir from travelling through NZ:AOK:
 
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Gutmann said:
The Tech21 XXL - no other Pedal could replace it from the board so far. Makes a monster out of a Fender-amp and clears up with the guitarvolume better than anything i've tried so far. On the overdrive-side, there's the Crowther Audio Double Hot Cake - my personal souvenir from travelling through NZ:AOK:
Click to expand...

Do you have the original or reissue? I was always curious about those, but never really dug the clips.
 
schenkadere said:
Do you have the original or reissue? I was always curious about those, but never really dug the clips.
Click to expand...

There are no reissue Hot Cakes. Just different versions. A bit like RATs with the difference being that new Hot Cakes are just as good as they used to be.
 
It's the original Tech 21 XXL, the one in the silver box. I use it for 5 years now, bought it used.
The clips show what you can do with it but they could show more flexibility.
Here are two SAMPLES I made, all with the same settings, only the guitar-volume varies.

The XXL has a serious amount of gain when set to minimum - the dynamic sample at the end shows minimum gain with guitar-volume up (G&L ASAT with quite a high output). With the warp-poti, you can change the character of the drive to a really thick, fuzzy tone.

The hotcake really is a bit like a rat but with more transparecy - but never heard one of the old rats. Theres two versions of the hotcake, the normal and the bluesberry. The last one has a bit more low end. The double hotcake contains a normal hc and the bluesberry cascaded one into another which makes it the perfect flexible pedal.
Proguitarshop has a cool demo.

Uli
 
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Gutmann said:
It's the original Tech 21 XXL, the one in the silver box. I use it for 5 years now, bought it used.
The clips show what you can do with it but they could show more flexibility.
Here are two SAMPLES I made, all with the same settings, only the guitar-volume varies.

The XXL has a serious amount of gain when set to minimum - the dynamic sample at the end shows minimum gain with guitar-volume up (G&L ASAT with quite a high output). With the warp-poti, you can change the character of the drive to a really thick, fuzzy tone.

The hotcake really is a bit like a rat but with more transparecy - but never heard one of the old rats. Theres two versions of the hotcake, the normal and the bluesberry. The last one has a bit more low end. The double hotcake contains a normal hc and the bluesberry cascaded one into another which makes it the perfect flexible pedal.
Proguitarshop has a cool demo.

Uli
Click to expand...

Yes, i was refering to the XXL about the reissue thing. Thanks for the clips. The XXL seems a bit more fuzz than than smooth and creamy, right?
 

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