Distortion pedal

A lot of people use tube screamers.

I've heard good things about the Keeley Dark Side.

I would probably try a Friedman first.

the tubescreamer is more of an OD, the line is blurry but its defintiely a relative of the barber direct drive

for isntance, the original DISTORTIONS were the Ross and MXR Distortion+. Pretty much variations on teh same design, but sow as the DOD overdrive 250. But tis generally accepted that 'distortion will ave a ton of dirt into a bone clean amp and that it'll be pretty ahrd clipping. A tubescreamer produces a lot of its own clipping turned up but tis pretty mellow compared with a distortion+ which is no more distorted but the character of the distorted harmonic overtones is just brash and in your face.

I like your suggestion of the friedman pedals... you also can't go wrong with a rat or similar. its kind've a benchmark in distortion. It took the MXR/Ross/DOD250 formula to new places and a stock rat is still a good starting point with a lot of amp and guitar combs. There are lots of boutique rat-alikes that just kick some extra butt. If you want soemthign that's like a gainier amp in a box theres 2 or 3 camps. The best to my ear are in the brown sound in a box camp. Basically 2 cascaded boosts with some sort of tonestack. This includes the BoR/Distortron, every Catalinbread foundation drive, all of Wampler's amp-in-a-box styles and I suspect even pricier stuff like the Alexander Jubilee, solid state friedmans etc. There's also the CMOS inverter style of dirt. Even a modest 4 stage CMOS chip design like the Red Llama can produce everything from a hairy boost to distortion bordering on fuzz-like. All of these including the 2 non-tube versions of the EHX Hot Tubes, Ibanez Mostortion and Catalinbread Hyperpak/SCOD are based on a project designed by the famous Craig Anderton that he called the tube sound fuzz. Its a fairly brilliant design. CMOS designs tend to suffer from hiss problems. The hiss does not decrease in elvel by turning the gain down, however the red Llama isn't so bad having only 4 stages. If you can live with some static hiss these pedals sound great. There are actually tube distortions out there too but i've seldom seen a design that wasn't producing the distortion by starving the tube's plate and hitting it with a healthy solid state gain boost essentially using it like some clipping diodes. The main stomp boxes that run at high voltage and produce their tones the same way a gain banger amp does are the Matchless, Soldano and Mesa ones. Even the venerable Tube Driver is running a somewhat starved plate, i think that tis the pedal that brought the whole idea to distortion actually. So caveat emptor with the affordable tube stuff at your local big box store.

oh, and then tehre's the Crowther Hotcake, nothing quite like that. Look it up. Its more of a vintage british amp thing though.

I will ask what kind of music you play? That will influence your palette and the voice and amount of distortion of your pedal choice.

Look into a Wampler Triple Wreck or an MSG Twin Unicorn Dual Channel.

Just a couple of options to slap you into hi gain kind of territory

wgile I found the plexitone to handle teh upper frets unusually well, it doesn't sound like superlead! caveat amptor. I think Carl Martin coulda callled it the 'refined distortion'.

I would highly recommend a Proco Rat for the style you play. Mooer also do a copy called the "Black Secret". The RATs are amazing pedals that range from distortion to fuzz.

I'll be the third person to recommend you at elast try a rat or rat-alike, the classic rat design with a tlm103 opamp is classic for a reason... if you are new to gainier dirt boxes its an excellent starting point.

I think the build quality is good for the Plexi Tone...so far i'll report back if it lacks luster. However the Superlead to me sounds like all the other Klone clones.

I meant the model of amp superlead, man... as in the plexi or metalfaced marshall superlead. I am unaware of a pedal named the superlead. I used to play old superleads on stage. The thing they do can be immitated with a dirtbox but turning one all the way up produces some nuance as well as the thunderous power amp breakup. They have a lot going on. I ahd just gotten rid of my last superlead when i got a plexitone in trade many eyars back and I remeber thinking it was a great distortion but it was not really getting everything a cranked plexi was giving me even at relatively punishing volumes, working the speakers hard. I felt the same way about the ZVex distortron when I ahd one. Neat distortion, but it doesn't actually sound like a JTM45 to me.

oh, no kidding, that's a lovepedal? huh... actually, I don't look at his stuff usually

ignore what everyone says get the Boss MetalZone best distortion ever made ;)

I don't thik anyone is being serious in this thread about the emtal zone, or any thread.... I think it got mentioned by anrcist in a tongue and cheek post alst week too.