Last Updated on October 28, 2025 by IDS Team
Welcome to this month’s directory – an in depth low down on all the distortion, fuzz, and overdrive pedals you’ll need. Plus, it also contains some unique hybrid pedals that let you blend and sculpt your own sound.
Whilst fuzz, distortion, and overdrive can help ahieve similar heavy sounds, they are very distinct, with overdrive providing power and boost, distortion providing the classic sound we all know and love that was developed in the early days of rock and roll, and fuzz providing a grainier sound that often has more nuance in the high frequencies.
Within each, there are also variants, which high gain distortion as a distinctive sound popular in modern metal and entire pedal ranges focussed on providing this sound. This directory has plenty of variety for all of these, as well as some specific pedals only for certain genres – so dig in.
Catalinbread Pedals: Drive and Distortion
The Portland manufacturer Catalinbread excells in the indie distortion pedals market, with unique offerings designed to spice up your playing.
RAH Overdrive
Catalinbread is a unique pedal manufacturer from Portland, Oregon, that designs high-quality pedals with unique inspirations. The RAH overdrive pedal is a one-of-a-kind pedal inspired by the legendary Led Zeppelin performance at the Royal Albert Hall. It features four knobs marked with the same font as the band’s iconic logo and lettering: treble, bass, gain, and master. This pedal costs 152 GBP or 200 USD and is available from retailers such as Guitar Guitar in the UK or Guitar Centre in the us.
CB Distortion
This is an incredibly powerful, simple, and streamlined distortion pedal that is designed to maintain its meaty crunch and thick sound, even at low volume. It simply has one knob, a gain knob, and a basic on and off switch. The main sonic focus is an aggressive overdriven sound, which is achieved through a pre-set gain stage which locks the circuit at the right tonal spot. And is capable of both high gaindistoriton as well as saturation and gritty fuzz. It’s a mid range pedal, and costs 119 GBP or 160 USD approx depending on retailer.
Pedaltrain Distortion Pedals: Creative Overdrives
Pedaltrain provides fantastic distortion pedals that work together with their daylight and nightlight overdrives. Check out the differences below.
Pedaltrain Daylight and Nightlight Symmetrical and Assymetrical Overdrives
The daylight and nightlight pedals from pedaltrain were the indie boutique pedal developer’s first release. Whilst the pedals can be used individually, they also work well as a pair and are designed to complement each other. Each of them has three dials -level drive and tone, which can be adjusted as you like. Additionally, the daylight is symmetrical, whilst the nightlight is asymmetrical, with a rich and complex array of harmonies, though both of these pedals are fluid, dynamic, and layered. Both retail around 199 USD.
Moog Minifooger MF Drive Guitar Pedal
This is a classic pedal based on the iconic and constantly recognisable sound of Moog technology. The Minifooger provides portable drive so you can take the iconic sound with you wherever you go. Furthermore, it has tone and filter knobs to shape the sound similarly to the controls found in classic Moog synths. In short, despite being a regular distortion pedal, this is the Moog sound in a small package, for rich and versatile distortion.
Mooer Distortion Pedals: Micro Pedals With Huge Power
Thes emicro distortion pedals pack a lot of power despite their small size. Most pedals from this company are too small for a battery compartment, however. That means, unlike other distortion pedals, you’ll have to rely solely on external 9V power.
Mooer Blade Metal Distortion
The Blade Metal Distortion pedal is a pedal specifically designed to let you switch between old-fashioned, classic metal sounds, and ultra-high-gain precise modern metal tones. It contains a low boost and high boost mode combo, as well as an option to turn this off depending on whether you want a flatter tone or something more vintage and asymmetric. Like all the pedals in the Mooer distortion series, this requires an external 9V DC power supply due to being too small for a battery compartment. It costs approx 50 GBP or 66 USD.
Hustle Drive Distortion
Hustle Drive is a distortion pedal capable of creating a crunchy and slightly distorted sound as well as low-level overdrive. It has a rich and fat tone reminiscent of vintage blues pedals and gear, and it contains drive, tone, and volume knobs with a high and low peak toggle switch for the tone knob. It has bright and striking harmonics, making it a powerful pedal across all levels of the frequency spectrum. Hustle Drive Distortion costs 50 GBP or 66 USD depending on retailer.
Cruncher Distortion
Mooer Cruncher is a classic crunch pedal ideal for bluesy sounds, hard rock, or modern alternative and more. It has the capacity for high gain, making it ultra-modern, yet its deep and rich sound is equally appropriate if you want to mimic the sound of vintage bands whilst still preserving modern clarity. It has two basic, clean, and simple knobs like the rest of the micro series from the same brand: volume and tone, and then a very simple gain knob in addition. Mooer Cruncher costs 50 GBP or 66 USD.
Ragemachine Distortion
This is a specifically designed heavy metal distortion pedal with four knobs – rage, low, level, and high. Like the rest of the Mooer range, it is a slim pedal making it easy to fit into your pedalboard. Its sound is mostly a modern high-gain classic metal sound reminiscent of bands like Gojira, with strong bass frequencies that make it clear and powerful in contrast to such a small pedal. It’s a micro pedal like many of the others in the same range from this manufacturer, meaning you will need an external 9V power supply. Otherwise, it also costs 50 GBP or 66 USD depending on retailer.
Ultradrive MKII
This is a distortion overdrive combo pedal with the same slim design and basic yet perfectly complete set of knobs. It’s designed for indie and alternative rock and has a laid back, thick, and layered sound. It is capable of surprisingly high amounts of drive and can create a strong, fuzzy sound that can hold its own on heavier tracks, yet it can also be turned right down to add very subtle effects to your tracks. The Ultradrive MKII can cost up to 60 GBP or 80 USD.
Earthquaker Devices Creative Distortion Pedals That Sit In Between Categories
Earthwuaker Devices specialises in interesting distortion pedals that provide new tones and ways to play with your sound, without breaking the bank.
Acapulco Gold
This pedal is based on a vintage Model T amplifier,, which offers huge fuzzy, crunchy tones. It means you can carry the sound of this classic amp with you wherever you go, in a much more portable format. It’s a very simple pedal with one knob, allowing you to do most of the tone control from your guitar. This pedal costs approximately 130 GBP, or 175 USD based on retailer.
Blumes
Blumes is not strictly a classic distortion pedal or overdrive pedal; instead, it is billed as a ‘low signal shredder’ which influences the low end of your tone to make it dirtier and more distorted. Specifically, it is a soft clipping bass overdrive that is designed to be paired with the Plumes pedal from the same company. It has three modes, and level, gain, and tone knobs. Like other pedals from the same manufacturer, it retails around 120 to 130 GBP or 175 USD.
Gary
With a slightly different design to other distortion pedals from the same manufacturer, this pedal is a dynamic, natural overdrive with modulation fuzz. This pedal is designed for a range of music from indie to alternative rock, and was dreamt up by IDLES’ Lee Kiernan. It was originally designed as a version of the Gray Channel pedal, but Kiernan then developed and designed ways for it to be grittier and darker, with op-amp overdrive and modulated fuzz. Like other distortion pedals from the same manufacturer, it costs approx 160 USD based on retailer.
Plumes
Plumes is an overdrive pedal designed to be used with Blumes from the same manufacturer. It contains three EQ bands that you can control with the tone knob, and it is based on soft clipping and a tube circuit. It has plenty of headroom and comes with built-in sustain and full, gritty bass tones. This is a complete analog pedal that has tone, level, and gain knobs as well as a main dial. It generally costs approx 120 GBP, or 160 USD.
Special Cranker
Lke Plumes, Special Cranker is not a full distortion pedal, but is instead a unique pedal designed to add some analog distortion and grit to your sound. Essentially, it works by adding very subtle saturation style overdrive and allows you to flesh out your sound, giving notes bloom and sustain that makes them fuller and have more character. Special Cranker retails for around 120 GBP or 160 USD.
Sunn O))) Life Pedal
This pedal is a collaboration between Earthquaker Devices and Sunn O))) and is the third version of the pedal. It has multiple dials, including magnitude, octave, clip, distortion, filter, and amplitude. The latest change in the new addition is a flexi foot switch to allow further sculpting and shaping of tone. Overall, this pedal is perfect for a heavy, crushing sound and adding all the fullness you need to get your tone as powerful as possible. It retails at a high price, around 340 GBP or 450 USD.
Zoar
This is another 6 knob pedal from Earthquaker Devices which is billed as an ‘audio grinder’. It has 2 sets of these dials for different purposes – bass, mid, and treble dials, and level, weight, and gain dials. It is designed to let you fluctuate between different kinds of audio modifications such as gain and fuzz, to full modern distortion. This distortion uses only transistors, and it balances a modern high-gain sound with more low-key features as well. It costs approx 150 GBP or 200 USD depending on retailer.
Digitech Pedals – Boneshaker
Digitech distortion pedals are geared towards heavier, meatier sounds. Boneshaker is a six knob, gritty distortion pedal with a modern sound that is equally applicable to classic rock tones. It’s warm and powerful, and has specific dials for the low frequencies and the depth control. Overall, it has a deep and growly sound with a focus on the low end that allows you to add extra power and drive to any guitar sound.
Fender Distortion Pedals – Classics For Every Guitarist
This is as it says on the tin. The well known guitar brand provides classic distortion pedals at varying prices, suitable for a wide variety of guitarist needs.
Hammertone Metal
This is a classic and multipurpose metal effects pedal that provides modern gain and overdrive to any guitar sound. It contains a 2-band active bass and treble EQ, and otherwise is built around neutral-sounding high-gain circuitry that allows you to apply to a large variety of sounds. For ultimate power and a driven sound, this is the perfect pedal. It costs approx 70 GBP or 95 USD.
Full Moon Distortion
This is a feature-packed distortion pedal from Fender that is extremely versatile and comes with a couple of additional switches for added flair to your sound. Texture and bite switches add the details and character that make each guitarist’s tone unique, whilst separate hi treble and treble knobs ensure that your tone remains bright and interesting whilst still being clear and powerful. It costs 150 GBP or 200 USD approx.
Bassman Driver
The bassman driver is a classic, versatile all-rounder pedal, which allows you to crank up the gain or keep things down low. As well as the expected level and gain knobs, it also has a blend knob for perfecting and balancing your sound. Lastly, two switches for bass and mids mean that you have control over the whole EQ spectrum. Ultimately, this is a classic pedal that is applicable for everything from classic rock to modern indie. It costs 85 GBP or 115 USD approx.
Bassman Fuzz
The Fender Bassman Fuzz is a super versatile pedal that gives you the best of both worlds: it allows you to choose between either warm, rich vintage fuzz, or a more clean-cut and dynamic state-of-the-art modern fuzz. And, like the name suggests, there is plenty to help you focus on maintaining rich, fat bass tones, including the ability to control the 3-band EQ to ensure your low end is exactly as you like it. It costs 90 GBP or 120 USD approx.
Source Audio Indie Guitar Pedals
Distortion Pedals can be anything from emulations of classic gear to exciting up and coming sonic experiments. Source Audio is one of the most innovative lesser known pedal developers with a selection of exciting distrtion offerings.
Ultrawave Distortion Lab and Bass Distortion Lab
This is a combination of two pedals, which you can buy separately, but which are essentially the same pedal for guitar and bass, respectively. The ultrawave series offers both distortion and tremolo effects, and its tone is rich and warm, with a knob for sustain as well as treble, drive, and level. These multiband processing pedals offer you a nuanced and controlled tonal addition to your guitar or bass, but are on the pricer end, at approx 250 GBP each or 335 USD.
Aftershock Bass Distortion
There are quite a lot of different kinds of distortion in this high-end pedal from Source Audio. The aftershock bass distortion contains a toggle switch to decide whether you want tube distortion, classic heavy distortion, or fuzz. Apart from this, it has four knobs: drive, level, clean, and tone. Furthermore, you can split the sound engine into series or parallel output to control how the drive engine connects to the end sound. Aftershock costs 174 GBP or 230 USD.
Kingmaker Fuzz
This is another high-end pedal from Source Audio, which is a fuzz pedal with a unique octave feature, giving you more tonal diversity, richness, and depth than ever before. This pedal is based on over 50 years of fuzz experience and technology. The centre switch lets you toggle between 3 distinct fuzz engines – heavy, normal, and octave. This pedal is slightly cheaper than those from the same manufacturer but still a premium pedal at almost 200 USD.
LA Lady Overdrive
With mono, splitting, and multi signal mixing output capabilities, this is a combination pedal for both fuzz and overdrive designed to give you a classic, vintage tone, and the ability to toggle between three modes: classic, crunch, and smooth. Apart from this, it has four knobs, starting with drive and level, and then giving you separate controls for the bass and treble. Like others from the same manufacturer, you can connect it to the free Neuro 3 software tool to share FX with your friends online. It costs approx 200 GBP or 260 USD.
Fulltone OCDR Overdrive Pedal
This is a popular pedal from Fulltone that is a staple of many musicians’ pedalboards. It is a classic, simple, yet ultra dependable, versatile, and effective pedal that has three knobs for volume, drive, and tone, as well as a switch to toggle between a high pass and low pass filte,r making it super effective and varied for any tone you desire. It’s a reasonably priced pedal that is popular with beginners and is medium priced, costing 166 GBP or 220 USD.
Pigtronix Disnortion Fuzz and Overdrive
This is a rich and full fuzz and overdrive pedal which has two basic knobs for gain and volume as well as other knobs controlling a combo of drive and tone, and fuzz and shape respectively. Lastly, it has a toggle switch so you can route the signal either parallel or in series. This is a diode-based pedal with gritty clipping that makes it ideal for low-key genres such as indie, but which can also hold its own for heavier alternative rock or even metal. It retails around 80 GBP or 120 USD.
Vox: Distortion Pedals From a Classic Brand
Vox distortion pedals are most often based on classic sounds. They are ideal for all levels of guitar player, and don’t need to break the band, either.
Copperhead Drive Distortion Pedal
The valve energy copperhead drive distortion pedal is based on a 1980s full-stack amp and can go from a basic overdrive to full, fat distortion. It has three amp modes, including an amp sim, pre amp, and regular standard pedal. It comes with volume and gain knobs, as well as a brightness switch you can toggle, and bass, treble, and mid dials as well. Apart from this, it is an analog pedal with an active EQ. It retails around 150 USD.
Valve Energy Cutting-Edge Distortion
This is a modern pedal that is designed for heavy metal; however, it has a few features that give it the rich, warm quality of gear from a variety of eras, such as an all-analogue build and a deep, dynamic and character-filled sound reminiscent of a tube amp. Nevertheless, it is a powerful and modern pedal specifically designed to give you a tight, high-gain sound that is broadly applicable across a variety of genres of modern metal, alternative rock, and so on. It retails around 170 USD.
Valve Energy Silk Drive
This pedal is a counterpart to the cutting-edge distortion pedal that is based on more vintage tones, although it has the same internal technology as an all analog Nutube based tube system, a modern take on tube technology. It also has internally boosted voltage, which gives you greater headroom and tighter control over the dynamics of the pedal. Despite this, it still has a vintage and boutique adjacent sound that is designed to have rich dynamics and plenty of character. Thus, it combines the best of both worlds – softness and power, in a versatile pedal that can do whatever you want. It’s retail price is around 170 USD depending on source.
JHS Pedals Drive and Distortion
JHS distortion pedals are one of the most accessible brands that provides unusual pedals with features like EQ. They’re exciting to use, though on the higher end of the scale price wise.
JHS Pedals Hard Drive
The Hard Drive is a high-gain distortion pedal modelled on sounds from the 1990s and early 2000s. It’s specifically for those who want to play modern metal, grunge, and alternative, and mimics the internal circuitry of the best high-gain amps of the era. One unique feature is a sweepable mid-frequency EQ, which ensures that your sound is lush, smooth, and balanced, even when cranked all the way up. Apart from this, it has drive, gain, and bass, middle, and treble knobs. Hard Drive costs 199 USD.
JHS Pedals Series 3 Distortion
Whilst it is called a distortion pedal, this is an extremely versatile stompbox for an affordable price that can cover a range of different sounds within the distortion envelope. For example, by adjusting its simple and streamlined controls, you can achieve low-level gain, gritty fuzz, or crunchy overdrive. Its knobs are volume, filter, and distortion, and by combining the latter two, its easy to create a much wider variety of sounds than many other pedals. Lastly, it has a gain toggle which operates the pedal’s dynamics. It costs approx 130 USD.
Keeley Electronics: Creative Pedals With Special Focus on Fuzz
Keeley electronics doesn’t just focus on distortion pedals but has a wide range of exciting fuzz pedals which we have classified here under distortion. It also contains inovative and interactive hybrid distortion pedals that allow you to blend the sound of two or more circuits.
Manis Overdrive
This is a high-end pedal that is an interaction of the transparent overdrive. It’s essentially a clean, modern overdrive with a bass boost feature to ensure that, in addition to modern crispness, it has the full richness and power you would need for adapting it to a variety of sounds. It’s split into tone and drive knobs, with the drive knob letting you toggle between transistor and diode to control the pedal’s tube amp-like sound. The manis costs 280 USD.
Octa PS1 Transfiguration Fuzz
This is a higher-end fuzz pedal which has a focus on analog fuzz with additional effects that enhance your tone. Specifically, it’s pitch shifting octave generating analog fuzz, and the pedal itself has a separate dial just for pitch and as well as one for blend, a toggle switch for pitch with up, down, and dual features, and a separate button for the octave setting. Otherwise, it has basic fuzz, level, and tone knobs, as well as a distinct toggle switch to set the character of the fuzz, with punch, psi, and scoop features. This pedal costs 249 USD.
Noble Screamer Overdrive and Boost
This is a 4-in-1 hybrid overdrive and boost pedal from Keeley Electronics that sits in the mid-range of what they have to offer. Either way, it contains two toggle switches for each channel and additionally allows you to switch between true bypass and buffered bypass seamlessly. In terms of actual setup, apart from this, it has classic tone, drive, and level knobs, as well as an all-analog circuit for an authentic, amp-like sound. This pedal costs 199 USD from Keeley Electronics.
Blues Disorder Overdrive and Distortion
This pedal has a similar setup to the Noble Screamer, but is focused more on blues-style overdrive specifically. Like other pedals from the same manufacturer, it has a hyperrealistic, authentic sound based on a combination of 4 distortion circuits. It has three knobs: tone, drive, and level, and a toggle switch for each of the tone and level knobs to allow you to run different modes per feature or in parallel. Blues Disorder costs 199 USD approx across varying manufacturers.
Angry Orange Distortion and Fuzz
This is a hybrid pedal that emulates two classic circuits and allows you to mix and match them with its controls, making your own fuzz and distortion blends. These are the 1978 Japanese Orange Distortion Circuit and 1991 Soviet Civil War Fuzz. This pedal allows you to switch between true and buffered bypass and has three knobs: tone, level, and drive, as well as an inbuilt tone switch for each, as well as both hard and soft clipping options. It costs approximately 199 USD.
Super Rodent Overdrive and Distortion
Similar to the Angry Orange, the super rodent is a hybrid pedal that combines two classic circuits (Japanese Super O-Drive and Rodetia Michigander) to allow you to create new hybrid tones. It has true and buffered bypass options, as well as toggle switches to choose between SD overdrive and RT distortion. You can also swap around tone and distortion sections to create all-new hybrid tones. Lastly, it has three streamlined tone, drive, and level knobs, and costs approximately 199 USD.
Suns Ultradrive Fuzz
This is a lower-budget pedal from Keeley Electronics, making it perfect for beginners. The Ultravoid fuzz is designed more to create a distorted, clipped, fuzzy, and messy sound as opposed to giving you ultra-tight high-gain distortion, or less powerful soft sat. It’s based on Moon, a preexisting pedal from Keeley, but has a tiger low end due to a redesigned tone stack. Furthermore, reactive clipping LEDs make it responsive and nuanced. Furthermore, this pedal costs only 99 USD, and is available exclusively from Sweetwater as opposed to from the Keeley website.
Wampler Pedals: Famous Creative Design
Wampler pedals emulates classic circuits and still manages to innovate. These distortion pedals are the best mix of crowd pleasing yet exciting enough to give you more to play around with as a guitarist.
Moxie
The Wampler Moxie is the company’s emulation of the screamer circuit sounds of the 1970s, resulting in a rich and warm pedal that nevertheless has a punch. It contains two knobs for volume and gain, and one for tone, as well as toggle switches for voice and fatness. This is focused on rich and warm sounds as opposed to high gain, but it’s nevertheless possible to add plenty of additional power and drive through combining these settings. These vary from light boost to gritty overdrive, but the overall focus is a warm and full sound. It costs approx 130 USD across various retailers.
Belle Overdrive
This is a lurid green pedal from Wampler that looks like it has four controls, but actually has five. It’s capable of a wide variety of different overdrive sounds and can achieve anything from a soft boost to crunch distortion and drive. Its fifth control, a clipping switch on the side, allows you to further sculpt the shape and sound of the drive. Otherwise, it’s a slim pedal with four different dials – bass, color, level, and gain. Price-wise, it costs approximately 130 to 150 USD.
Pantheon Deluxe
This is one of the more expensive pedals from Wampler and is billed as a deluxe dual overdrive. It contains two channels, each of which has controls for volume, gain, bass, and treble. Beyond this, it has a central presence dial, as well as a toggle switch which controls the channel you use when. It’s a versatile pedal that is capable of everything from a slightly creamy gain to hard-hitting, gritty overdrive. The Pantheon Deluxe costs 250 USD approx across various retailers.
Ratsbane
This is a distortion pedal that has the high gain sound of harder rock and heavy metal that became popular in the 1980s, and indeed it’s a throwbacks to the technology and circuitry of this time. It has three knobs: volume, distortion, and filter, so you can also change the shape and tone of your distortion, making it darker or brighter depending on whether you shift it towards the bass, mid, or high frequencies. Otherwise, apart from this it has two toggle switches for gain and voice. Ratsbane costs 150 USD, depending on your retailer.
Dracarys Distortion
This is a metal-specific distortion pedal that is designed to provide all the aggression and drive you may need, in a small package. It contains an in-built, scoopable EQ to help design your sound and five knobs: the EQ knobs, ranging from bass to treble via mid, and then two volume and gain knobs. The last finishing touch is a toggle switch that lets you select either ‘tight’ or ‘open’ mode, depending on the character that you desire. It’s a higher-end pedal, costing up to approx 200 USD.
ZVES Effects Vextron Distortion
This is a distortion pedal designed specifically for balancing out the low end, especially if you’re using it with low-end heavy amps. It contains a basic set of knobs: volume, tone, and drive, as well as a gain switch toggle for flipping between low and high gain. Lastly, a sub control level has three different iterations which you can toggle between with an additional switch. The vextron costs approx 150 USD depending on retailer.
Eventide Riptide Overdrive
This is a vibe-based overdrive pedal that is designed to give you the classic crunch and driven sound you need for any guitar, with the addition of more nuanced controls for vibe, speed, and intensity. This gives you the ability to integrate features such as modulation, with two distinct voices (vibe and drive) for each effect. The drive feature spans everything from smooth overdrive, crunch, and distortion, as well as a uni vibe feature and a deeper vibe for rich, dreamy tones underneath the classic FX it provides. It costs approx 299 USD depending on retailer.
Blackstar Pedals: For All Your High Gain Needs
Blackstar make distortion pedals with an emphasis on the high end, generally suited best for metal, as well as powerful mids for classic rock. They are either high gain or rich overdrives but either way are guaranteed to pack a punch.
Blackstar LT Distortion
This is a very compatible and versatile pedal from Blackstar Audio that features a unique technology developed by the company itself: the ISF knob. This allows you to blend the characteristics of American and British amps, with this now transferred into pedal form. Apart from this, it has three other knobs: gain, level, and tone, which interact with each other to sculpt your shape and sound for a distortion pedal that can cover almost any base you need. It averages around 90 USD.
HT DIST Valve Distortion
This is a valve distortion pedal with a ri,h warm tone and significantly more knobs and features than the LT Distortion. It’s more of a creative pedal allowing you to mess around with sound, with a focus on depth, richness, and warmth, as well as analog sounds. This makes it suitable for anything from blues to metal or classic rock sounds. It also contains the same ISF technology for blending between Brit and American sounds as the LT Distortion. Otherwise, it has bass, mid, and treble knobs, and dials for gain and level too. It costs up to 70 USD depending on retailer.
LT Metal
This is a specific counterpart to the LT distortion that uses the same features and setup but is more for heavy metal guitarists. Specifically, this is a modern, high-gain pedal with a focus on providing the right sound for post-2000s bands with crisp leads and sparkling high end as well as high-gain distortion. This is the sound of acts like Gojira, As I Lay Dying, and any other modern metal, nu metal, and alt acts, making it the ideal pedal for you specifically if you are in these genres. However, it still has the same ISF technology as other Blackstar pedals, letting you balance sounds across both sides of the Atlantic. It costs on average 80 USD.
Hudson Electronics Retro Inspired Guitar Pedals
Hudson Electronics specialise sin more vintage influences distortion pedals, with sounds from eras like the 1960s. They are higher end, sometimes costing up to 200 USD.
Broadcast
This is a pre-amp pedal based around the sounds of classic pre-amps from the 1960s. This is not a pedal with high gain sounds, instead its focus is adding thickness and fatness to the middle, richness to the low end, and finally fuzz, depth, and complexity to the high end once you have cranked the gain up. If you want a warm and fat tone, this pedal can provide this in terms of saturation and pre-amplification. To do so, it has three knobs – low cut, gain trim, and level, as well as a simple gain toggle switch to let you combine features for your perfect rich sound. It costs 285 USD.
Motorcycle
This is a limited edition pedal dones as a collaboration between Hudson Electronics and Joe’s Pedals. It’s based on Hudson Electronics’ pre-existing sidecar pedal, and features a nuanced and responsive EQ as well as soft-clipping based overdrive. Its built-in 2-band EQ is based on a vintage recording console, but the pedal itself is versatile enough to use for both classic and modern genres. It has four simple knobs- drive, bass, pedal, and level. Otherwise, it retailed for approx 150 GBP or 200 USD but is easier to find secondhand now, and prices may vary.
TC Electronic Pedals – Eyemaster, Cinders, and More
Eyemaster
This is a simple, affordable, yet fun pedal that does one thing only and doesn’t claim anything beyond that. It’s an ultra high gain pedal especially for metal, which can knock out your sound with screaming top end, smooth, powerful mids, and a roaring bass. It is super simple and has only two knobs – volume and gain, as well as the pedal on off switch. There is ta oggle switch, it is as basic as that, yet it is powerful and effective and extremely versatile for all modern metal genres. It costs up to 50 USD
Cinders
Cinders Overdrive is a retro-inspired pedal that is ideal for anyone seeking a classic sound rooted in music history. Like the other similar pedals from the same manufacturer, it is highly affordable at under 30 USD. It has a clean and simple interface, yet an effective design means it isn’t lacking in anything. It’s essentially a classic rock and blues overdrive pedal with lush, fat tones for a timeless sound. Its three knobs are tone, volume, and drive, and you can have anything from raw crunch to subtle boost with this pedal. It costs approx 30 USD.
Zeus
This is an overdrive pedal that gives you lush, glittering golden tones, blending your overdriven signal and clean signal together to ensure a sound that will dazzle at any performance. The Zeus pedal is part of the same TC Electronics range that is mostly under 30 USD, making it extremely affordable for any musician. It’s two special features apart from two dials for drive, and volume are a treble dial and a fat switch, designed to brighten up your high end at thicken out your mids and overall tone respectively. Zeus costs 30 USD.
Magus
This is another pedal for under 30 USD that aims to bring more diversity to the current range of high-gain distortion pedals out there. As a result, it contains three different clipping modes in order to vary the exact types of distortion that you end up with. Otherwise, it has three knobs: gain volume, and the last one, filter, which can bring a great amount of flexibility to the bits of the EQ spectrum it lets through. Magus costs around 30 USD at retailers such as Sweetwater.
Dark Matter
Dark Matter is a versatile, lively, and dynamic distortion pedal from the same low-budget TC Electronics range that is especially nuanced, flexible, and responsive. It boasts the unusual combination of vintage voiced distortion and dynamic range, making it a cutting-edge pedal with a throwback element. Apart from this, it contains four knobs: gain, level, bass, and treble. Likewise, there is a true bypass switch, 2 band EQ, and crisp, powerful sound. It costs up to 66 USD based on retailer.
Pedals From T-Rex Engineering
Mudhoney Distortion
This pedal has a tone control, boost switch, and gain and level controls to allow you to have ultimate adaptability from one fuzz pedal. Its speciality is a saturated, distorted, fuzzy, grainy sound that adds texture and character to your music. It’s billed as ‘crunchy, fuzzy distortion’ and can create a wall of sound and power. Mudhoney costs up to 165 USD depending on source.
Moller 2
This is a chunky pedal to boost your sound subtly through the bass frequencies and offer distinctive and powerful overdrive, though it does not venture into the high-gain territory. Instead, it’s got a lot of knobs specifically for fleshing out sound – a specific boost dial, as well as tone, level, gain, and mix knobs, plus a second bass switch and a dedicated bass boost toggle. As a resul,t it provides powerful overdrive that doesn’t lose any richness of sound. It is on the affordable end of the market, costing under 100 GBP or 130 USD.
Strymon Pedals (Higher End)
Riverside
Riverside is a classic-sounding pedal from Strymon that emulates an amp. It falls into a category of pedals that offers a dynamic and complete set of tone modification features to fully flesh out your onstage sound. It contains two toggle switches for gain and push, as well as dedicated knobs for drive, level, bass, middle, and treble. It’s a multistage drive pedal, allowing you to layer effects to get the perfect tone, and is a higher-end pedal, coming close to 300 USD.
Sunset Dual Overdrive
This is a large and chunky dual overdrive pedal that has a range of effects and as a result, is one of the more versatile overdrive pedals on the market. A specific standout feature is a pair of toggle switches that range from germanium diode overdrive to ‘Texas’, which uses soft clipping. These are split across two channels, which you can run in either order or even in parallel. Otherwise, it has drive, tone, and level dials for each channel, and it costs close to 400 GBP.
Dunlop MXR Distortion
This is a hugely simple, classic, and effective distortion pedal that provides a neutral-sounding, versatile, and interchangeable distorted tone that you can use in anything from classic to hard rock. Although it’s a dedicated distortion pedal, it’s possible also to get a bluesy, overdriven sound from it by dialling back the distortion knob and raising the output, too. It’s a reasonably priced pedal, costing 99 USD.
Electro Harmonix: Germanium Fuzz and More
Bender Royale
This is a creative distortion pedal market as ‘germanium fuzz’, using germanium diodes for an ultra distorted, cranked out fuzzy sound. Its main feature is the amount of tonal control you get from it, as it has not just a specific tone knob but also a dedicated bias knob as well. Aside from this, it contains volume, treble, and blend knobs, and two toggle switches to control fatness and clipping specifically. It’s a higher-end pedal, costing close to 150 USD>
Lizard King
This is a specific octave distortion pedal for bass, and it has specific controls to flesh out a huge, fuzzy, distorted sound. This pedal gives you ultra distorted fuzz that stands out in the mix but which doesn’t come at the expense of your low end. As a result, a blend knob gives you the option to merge the two, ensuring your highs stand out while your lows are still powerful. Apart from this, it contains a sun/shadow toggle switch, which influences whether the fuzz or clean tone is altered, and octave, volume, and tone knobs. This pedal is 129 USD.
Spruce Goose
The Spruce Goose is designed to be a versatile, timeless, and classic bluesbreaker style overdrive pedal from Electroharmonix. It’s an effective emulation of a Marshall bluesbreaker style pedal, and has specific knobs for bass, treble, gain, and volume. It’s designed to give you fat, crunchy sounds, with a lift switch you can toggle to influence the levels of input gain, too. Spruce Goose costs approximately 129 USD from different retailers, including the Electro Harmonix official site.
Pico Triboro Bridge
Electro-Harmonix Pico Triboro Bridge is a three-mode pedal that is designed to give you the best of all worlds; drive, fuzz, and distortion. It has four simple kno controls: volume, gain, bass, and treble, as well as a type switch which lets you switch between different configurations. Bass and treble knobs also double up for gate and tone, respectively. Otherwis,e it has an inbuilt low pass filter for further tone sculpting and can be used even for subtle saturation if you desire. The Triboro Bridge costs 145 USD approx from various retailers, including the official Electro Harmonix site.
Satisfaction Plus
This is one of the least expensive pedals from the manufacturer, but it still has a powerful array of features. Its specialty is offering you a range of tones from the 1960s to the present day, with anything from creamy gain to growling distortion. The Satisfaction Plus has four knobs: volume, attack, tone, and bias, which are chosen to help you control the aggressiveness or smoothness of your sound. Either way, it’s an affordable pedal, at only 99 USD.
Nano Metal Muff
This is another extremely budget-friendly pedal from Electro-Harmonix, except this time there is less of a focus on warm vintage sounds, as this is a high-gain distortion pedal with an aggressive high end. Its special feature is an inbuilt noise gate, and the ability to sit somewhere in between fuzz and distortion whilst still providing heaviness and gain levels appropriate for most genres of heavy metal. Otherwise, it has 6 knobs: volume, gate, distortion, treble, mid, and bass. It costs approximately 84 USD across retailers.
Boss Pedals – Classic Pedals for Beginners and Pros
JB2 Overdrive
This pedal is a collaboration between pedal designers JHS Pedals and Boss, and aims to give you the best of both Boss’s classic BD-2 Blues Driver overdrive and JHS Pedals’ Angry Charlie, which has a more aggressive rock voice. As a result, it’s got an expressive low end and aggressive distorted mid to high end plus the ability to blend the two with a mode knob, allowing for a focus on the Boss tone, JHS pedals inspired mode, both combined, or even a parallel feature. Otherwise, it has the perennial level, tone, and drive knobs, which add further ability to blend and sculpt tone. Its price range can be anything from 150 up to 200 GBP/266 USD.
Mega Distortion
The mega distortion, or MD-2, is a pedal designed specifically for modern metal and is geared towards those who want a powerful, rich, bass-heavy sound – appropriate for chugging or syncopated riffs. It’s a simple yet effective pedal with four knobs: level, tone/bottom, distortion, and a gain/boost knob, proving this pedal is all about power. It has a dual-stage distortion circuit for added power, and one specific feature is the ability to adapt to 7-string guitars, giving you all the ultra-heavy, bass frequencies you need. It’s affordable too, costing under 100 USD.
Turbo Distortion
This is a classic, versatile, and crowd-pleasing distortion pedal from BOSS that covers a range of distortion styles. It’s not for ultra heavy or high gain metal (although it can reach heavy distortion when used correctly), nor is it a simple drive or boost. This is broad spectrum distortion that is powerful and full-fleshed, ideal for anything from classic rock to modern grunge revival. It contains three main knobs, level, tone, and distortion, as well as an additional knob to switch between turbo 1 and turbo 2 modes, the first offering saturation to the low end and the second offering distortion with a focus on mid range and harmonics. Like other Boss Pedals, it’s affordable, coming in at under 100 USD.
Red Panda Bitmap 2 Bitcrusher
This is a unique bitcrusher pedal that doesn’t fit into any particular category. We’ve listed it under distortion, as this is the closest thing. However, bitcrushers are not distortion pedals but in a class of their own. Ultimately, it’s every bit-crushing or glitch FX plugin you can imagine, but in pedal form, giving you a unique analog option to create a gritty and unusual distorted sound. In some ways, it works almost like a mini synth or sampler machine with options for using presets and controlling the wave shape, and dials for mix, crush, and frequency, as well as filter, rate, and depth. It’s a higher-end pedal, costing approximately 299 GBP or 399 USD.
Death By Audio – All Your Extreme Audio Needs
As it’s name suggests, these are the distortion pedals you need for heavier genres. All you need is here – from fuzz to high gain.
Absolute Destruction
Absolute Destruction from Death by Audio is a versatile pedal that can produce a large range of distorted sounds, so long as they are high octane. It does this with a classic volume kob and two sliders: one for overload, which really crushes your sound, and the other for gain. In combination, you can get anything from a gritty fuzz to a rich and powerful hard rock distortion. It’s a reasonably expensive pedal, sitting at 180 USD, but it has an option to purchase it in increments.
Interstellar
This is a lower-level overdrive pedal from Death By Audio. It gives you a sweet and harmonically rich overdrive, which you can crank all the way up or used to simply apply a soft level of drive to add to a track. It contains two simple knobs: an overdrive knob and a master knob. It’s an emulation of old tube amps, aiming to give you a rich ,organic sound like turning one of these up to 11, based around a simple circuit – pure tone, less fuss. This pedal costs 180 USD, so it is on the higher end.
Apocalypse
Apocalypse is one of the most expensive pedals from Death By Audio and is a dynamic, creative fuzz pedal with 5 unique fuzz shapes controllable with their own dials. It’s a tone sculpting pedal that gives you creative control over the sonic richness and variation of your fuzz. It can even work as a recording DI to emulate an amp. The final feature to top it off – a sweepable EQ dial to further refine your sound. Apocalypse costs 270 USD.
Morley Pedals: Unique Hybrids
Deluxe Distortion
This is a unique peal with a gritty, vintage sound, and it was one of the first and only pedals from the company to feature a tone control. It’s a premium pedal and a classic for many guitarists. It uses an op-amp distortion circuit and has an unpolished, dynamic sound most suitable for classic rock or underground genres like punk and hardcore. It’s a tone-heavy pedal that sounds somewhat like a tube screamer and which you can use for both guitar and bass. Price-wise, it can sell for up to 300 GBP or 400 USD depending on the retailer and whether you get it new or secondhand.
Distortion Wah
This pedal contains distortion level, distortion drive, and tone controls, and features a combination of distortion and wah for a rich and innovative combination sound. Distortion comes first in the signal chain, whilst you can crank up the wah once you are happy with the distorted tone. A combined knob allows you to turn up the distortion and wah in tandem, while an optical circuit gives it nuanced and responsive dynamics. Distortion Wah costs approximately 203 GBP or 270 uSD, making it a higher-end pedal.
Power Fuzz Wah
This is a simple yet chunky pedal from Morley Pedals, with both vintage and modern fuzz. The first of these gives you a ripped out speaker sound that emulates fuzz in it’s early days, while the second of these is a crisper fuzz that is closer to regular distortion. It also has a switchable wah mode that allows you to activate or bypass wah as desired. This pedal contains a fuzz circuit and a wah circuit with the fuzz coming first before the wah. Overall, it has switches for fuzz, fuzz type, intensity, fuzz level, vintage fuzz mode, and the main pedal. Overall, it approximates around 200 USD depending on retailer.
DOD Effects – Budget Friendly Creative Distortion Pedals and Stompboxes
Gunslinger
The gunslinger is a mosFET distortion pedal that can turn any amp into a gnarly Brit sound. It has four simple and streamlined knobs: gain, level, low, and high. It’s responsive, intuitive, and full of character, and one specific feature is its high level of string separation, ensuring your playing shines through whilst getting the best of its saturation and touch-sensitive abilities. MosFET distortion circuitry mimics the natural clipping sound of a vacuum tube amp, giving it fullness and richness, too. It can cost up to 110 GBP or 146 USD new but you can get it for around 50 GBP used.
Boneshaker
True to its name, this is a pedal that will enhance the power of your playing when distorted. And, it comes with a special focus on the low end and a built-in EQ in order to sculpt this. Three controls, distortion, depth, and level, allow you to sculpt the meatiness of your tone, whilst the regular low, mid, and high knobs give you more subtle control over which parts of the frequency spectrum you enhance. This pedal has a characteristic low frequency growl controllable by the depth knob and is perfect if you’re looking for a deep and powerful sound to let out anything from bluesy hard rock to metal chugging. Boneshaker costs up to 150 GBP, or 200 USD depending on the retailer.
Overdrive Preamp
Tihs is a unique pre amp pedal that contains faithful emulations of vintage parts yet combines them with modern functionality. It contains two simple knobs – gain, and level, and an LED blue indicator light to show you when it is on. This pedal is based on an original DOD circuit design from the same manufacturer yet simply has updated components. Overall, it’s distortion and boost combines, giving you a classic overdriven sound that is timeless and applicable across genres. It costs 388 USD.
Attacker
This is a budget friendly pedal that will give you compression and drive in one go. It’s got four knobs: level, drive, compression, and distortion. It’s versatile and suitable for multiple genres including classic rock or modern, heavier styles. Lastly, it also contains dynamic tone shaping which allows you to sculpt your sound from heavier and more powerful to light compression, boost, and overdrive to give live playing more punch. Suitable for both live and in studio, it’s one of the most budget friendly pedals, coming in at around 80 USD depending on retailer.
Miscellaneous Stompboxes and Distortion Pedals from Indie and Lesser Known Manufacturers
Seymour Duncan Diamondhead
Diamondhead is a multistage distortion and boost pedal that focusses on hard rock tones, although it’s versatile enough for other genres too. It has classic frequency spectrum controls for bass, mids, and treble, as well as separate knobs for boost, level, and gain. It’s a distortion and boost combination pedal and has separate switches for each so you can use them independently or run them in parallel too. Diamondhead costs 229 USD, making it a higher-end pedal.
Way Huge Electronics Small Geisha Drive Blue
This is a highly dynamic drive pedal that can create anything from a bluesy overdrive to crushing distortion. It’s especially touch sensitive so that at every level of intensity, your natural tone and playing shine through. Geisha Drive creates soft and velvety sounds with a tube-like distortion in the mid range, which become more intense and crushing as you crank it up. As a result, it’s equally capable of adding subtle color to your playing or blowing up your amp. This pedal costs up to 150 GBP or 200 USD depending on the retailer.
Hughes and Kettner – Solid Gold FX Imperial MKII Fuzz
This is a unique fuzz pedal that is on the higher end price-wise, but shines with four sliders that cover the regular effects, plus a special addition: contour. In total, the pedal has sliders for volume, fuzz, tone, and contour. It’s based on a vintage fuzz pedal and designed to help emulate the golden era of rock and roll with fat, rich tones, a noise gate, and a high impedance pre-amp that gives it a sharp attack and plenty of power despite its soft, fuzzy sound. The Imperial MKII costs 179 USD.
Walrus Audio – Fundamental Distortion
The fundamental distortion pedal is a dark and gritty distortion suitable for metal and alternative rock. It comes with three separate kinds of diodes, which you can toggle between – an LED diode, which is the loudest and uses hard clipping, a silicon diode, and dark mode, which uses asymmetrical silicon clipping. Apart from this, it has controls for gain, tone, and volume. The different diodes connect to a slide switch; otherwise, this is a simple and streamlined pedal with a dark and moody sound. It is also very affordable, at 99.99 USD.
Diamond Pedals Drive
Diamond pedals Drive – this is a high-end drive pedal from Montreal-based Darkcloud Audio, which is based on some of the company’s favourite components of three other pedals – the Fireburst, J-Drive, and Blaze. It contains a post-gain active EQ and a high shelf filter if you want to emphasise the power of your sound or otherwise have a pedal that reacts intuitively. It’s capable of producing a large variety of sounds, from warm saturation to gritty and hard-hitting drive, making it versatile and effective in any scenario, though it is more expensive at 299 USD.
Atomic Amplifiers Amplifirebox MKII
The Amplifirebox MKII is not just a distortion pedal but acts as a mini amplifier in pedal form. It contains eight knobs – controls for bass, mids, treble, and presence, as well as controls for gain, master, effect, and level. It contains two switches: hold lock and hold save to control these and has all effects you would expect from a full-size amplifier, including delay, drive, EQ, and reverb. It’s also relatively cheap for the amount of features it has, sitting at only 199 USD.
Providence Heatblaster HBL 4
This is a classic, all-round modern pedal designed to emulate the high-gain sound favoured in alternative, metal, and other post-1990s genres. It contains three simple knobs: level, drive, and tone, as well as a toggleable ‘bass boost’ switch. It’s the sound of modern tube amplifiers, rich, powerful, and driving, from a company based in Japan that provides premium technology in simple and streamlined pedals. This is a rich and powerful pedal that balances shimmering high gain with raw force. Heatblaster costs 159 USD.
Providence Stampede OD SOV 2
This is another pedal from Providence, this time a subtle overdrive pedal that is much less intense than the Heatblaster HBL 4. It’s able to enhance your guitar playing with enough overdrive to give it warmth and character, whilst not obscuring your tone. Like other pedals from the same manufacturer, it has 3 simple knobs – level, drive, and tone. Otherwise, it uses a 9V battery or AC power source and costs approximately 150 GB,P or 200 GBP depending onthe retailer, though you can find it cheaper.
Skreddy Pedals – Hybrid Overdrive
Hybrid overdrive Skreddy pedals – this is a British-style overdrive, which is highly intuitive and dynamic, designed by this small independent manufacturer to sit close to fuzz while still having a powerful growl and distorted, crunchy sound. It responds rapidly to your playing; as a hybrid overdrive, it sits at the nexus of different FX. This means it is an amp-like overdrive that is rich and complete without sounding any less powerful. It costs 169 USD.
Skreddy Pedals Skunk Drive
This is a vintage, fuzzy overdrive with a sound reminiscent of early Led Zeppelin. It’s a high level pedal with two streamlined knobs, level, and drive. As a result, it has a rich, sound full of character. This pedal emulates the effect of a low wattage amp being hit with a cranked up sound. This makes it similar to early heavy metal from experiments by Led Zeppelin virtuoso Jimmy Page. This has a darker tone with the drive knob rolled back, or you can crank it up to boost the top end. The general sound ha a midrange cut but is fuller and smoother than many modern overdrives. This pedal costs 237 USD.
Joe’s Pedals 1971 Distortion
This is a vintage-sounding pedal designed to give you lush, creamy tones from independent retailer Joe’s pedals. It has three simple knobs: tone, volume, and sustain. It also has a scoop/flat toggle switch to sculpt your tone. It’s perfect if you want to keep your sound distinct, making things fat and creamy without swamping your playing, and is designed to emulate the sound of old Laney or Mesa Boogie amplifiers. It costs 295 GBP, or 393 USD so it is not cheap, but it is very distinctive.
Rosa Overdrive – Lusithand Devices
This is an indie style pedal from developer Lusithand devices, with three knobs to control the main sound – volume, EQZ, and drive. It’s designed to emulate the raucous and full sound of a pushed, compressed, and saturated tube amp, with options from clean to hevay saturation that is almost like fuzz. It’s got three switches that allow you to mix your tone, too – a clean switch, which blends in the clean signal, a hot switch, which changes the voicing of the drive channel, and a hi switch, which boosts and pumps up the high end and treble frequencies. Lastly, the EQZ knob works as a tilt equalizer. It costs approx 159 GBP or 212 GBP from retailers like Joe’s Pedals.
JHS Pedals 424 Gain Stage
Although it doesn’t sound like a distortion pedal, this epdal actually provides tons of blissed out fuzz that will give you a lo-fi sound that is becoming more and more popular. It’s inspired by the vintage sound of a guitar being plugged into an analogue multi-track recorder. This means it’s low fi, has plenty of artefacts, and is gritty and fuzzy with lots of characters. For variety ,there are multiple knobs to control: gain one and gain 2, as well as bass, treble, and volume. It’s on the more expensive side at 188 GBP or 250 USD, but it offers a unique effect that isn’t commonly found in a stompbox.
JHS Pedals Morning Glory
The Morning Glory is a classic creative overdrive from JHS pedals, acting as a flagship for the brand and is designed to give you crisp and crunchy overdrive and distortion with plenty of richness and sustain. It’s a tube amp emulation, giving it a rich and full sound, and it’s dynamic and versatile, allowing you to add the finishing touches to the sound from any amp setup. It also has an inbuilt bright cut switch to tame the high end, otherwise it has a gain toggle switch and three knobs: volume, drive, and tone. The morning glory is a mid range pedal, sitting at 152 GBP or 202 USD.
SubZero Critical Mass Distortion
The Critical Mass Disortion is a high gain distoriton pedal suitable for modern metal, with a significant amount of tone sculpting and shaping possibilities. Despite it’s modern metal style branding, it’s also capable f smooth soft sat to add a subtle boost to your playing. However, the main features are three knobs: volume, tone, and gain, as well as a toggle switch to alternate between ‘soft’, ‘normal’, and ‘tense’ modes, to alter the shape and colour of your playing. Critical Mass costs under 30 GBP or 40 USD, making it highly affordable even for beginners.
Union Audio – Swindle Distortion
This is a high-gain overdrive pedal with a unique yellow look that is designed to emulate 70s twin amps and offer a happy medium between fuzz and typical overdrives. The high-gain sound is less common on a basic overdrive pedal than it is on some of the more extreme distortion pedals made for metal, meaning this is a really one-of-a-kind stompbox. It’s otherwise super simple with only two knobs, but it doesn’t come cheap, at approximately 190 Canadian Dollars or 135 USD from the manufacturer.
Joyo Dark Flame R-17 Distortion Guitar Pedal
This is a really gritty, powerful distortion pedal designed to cover a variety of genres across rock and metal. It’s not a high-gain pedal, but instead a specific dark switch alters the tone to give you some of the moodiest, most powerful, roaring sounds possible. This is part of a specific toggle between dark and bright, so you can choose your overall sound, and comes alongside low, mid, and high dials. Lastly, it has volume and gain knobs as well. It’s relatively affordable, costing under 50 GBP or 66 USD on retailers such as Amazon.
Joyo Rigel Pre Amp High Gain Overdrive
The Rigel Pre Amp is High Gain Overdrive pedal with five knobs: drive, gain, and then a 3 band EQ spread across bass, middle, and treble knobs. It also contains three toggle switches – feel, mod, and bright/on. Overall, it combines high gain and a sparkling, crisp high end with crunchy overdrive, making it a versatile hybrid between metal-oriented high gain pedals, and nuanced tone shaping, with the toggle switches controlling the tightness and contour of your sound for endless versatility amongst modern tones. It has an all analogue circuit for a naturalistic feel, yet a futuristic focus for precision solos and all modern metal needs. It’s a budget friendly pedal, at under 60 GBP or 80 USD.
Final Thoughts
Most of these pedals were developed for a specific purpose, However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use them for others. Furthermore, music technology innovation has continued to grow and expand, and there are interesting options like the bitcrusher pedal which don’t necessarily fall into any pre existing category of pedal.
Either way, most musicians are spoiled for choice and the only trouble is figuring out what pedals to prioritise. Hopefully this list should help you identify which are best for your needs – and open your eyes to some other unusual options that you may not have considered before. And, if you found this directory helpful, check out our other directories here, for saturation plugins, and here, for amp sims, if it’s software you’re looking for.
