Question for the Guitar Players RE: Distortion Pedals

[The Spartan]

Basically, recommend a few. I'm looking for something crunchy that's good for metal. Think early Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Pantera, those sorts of things.

[YT300000]

Well, that's quite a tonal range you've got there - early Metallica still has a fair amount of saturation and a decently thick sound, whereas Slayer is a lot thinner and more hissy, and Pantera is just utterly mid-lacking and dry. For that reason, my recommendations will be geared more towards the mid-80's Metallica/Megadeth sound, and probably not as comprehensive as some can give, because the sound I'm usually after is more based in the early 70's.

Firstly, as a quick note, it's best to get as much distortion from your amp as possible (as long as it's a decent amp), with the pedals just punching your sound up a bit. The new Marshalls have stupidly huge amounts of gain on their heavy channels, but as always Mesa/Boogie and Soldano are also solid bets. A good amp will always be worth it's weight in distortion pedals.

Onto the pedals: for a thrashier sound, you'll want something bass-heavy, like the ProCo Rat/Turbo Rat, or Electro-Harmonix Big Muff. The latter can be a bit tricky to dial in, but has some great tones. If you've got a nice sounding overdrive from your amp, but you just want it more powerful, an Ibanez Tubescreamer is fantastic, especially a TS-9 or TS-808. The big advantage of this one is that it doesn't change your tone too much, it just very pleasantly pumps the lower-mids and rounds the sound out, so you can use it with your amp's clean channel for a more bluesy tone or with your amp's distortion channel for full-out thrash, giving you at least 4 tonal options. But it'll probably not be extreme enough for what you seem to be after.

A lot of people like the Digitech Metal Master and Boss Metal Zone, but I think that both sound pretty thin and assy... great for Pantera, basically.

The Boss OD pedals will probably be a bit too weak for what you're after, but the DS models might have enough gain. The DS-2 in particular has a very thrashy turbo mode, but it acts a lot like a compressor pedal and does back off the lows. Good for solos, but perhaps not for constant rhythm use. If you can find one with a Keely mod, then definitely snag it, because any thinness will be gone, and the result is like an Orange Thunderverb on steroids.

Marshall makes a few pedals, the two that might interest you the most being the Guv'nor and Jackhammer. The latter pulls off a very good imitation of a JCM-2000 on full blast, so you might like that.

The Danelectro CM-2 is a pretty good metal pedal that actually sounds nice, but being a Dano it's in a plastic case and might not be tough enough for road use.

Finally, if none of that does it, try the Damage Control Solid Metal. It's easily the most expensive pedal I've mentioned, and comes with two valves (probably 12AX7's) which give it mountains of really delicious gain. You'll pay the most, but it'll be worth it, I think.

[The Spartan]

Sorry, not trying to be difficult; I gave a range specifically to get a range of pedals to consider.

I probably should have mentioned what I'd be playing and my amp. It's a Gibson Les Paul through a Peavey Envoy 110. The amp doesn't have bad distortion, in my opinion, but I don't have a foot pedal for it (and I'm not sure if one even exists), so it's a pain in the ass to switch back and forth when I want to change in the middle of a song. I actually do have a Dunlop Fuzz Wah, but fuzz isn't really my thing.

[YT300000]

Sorry, not trying to be difficult; I gave a range specifically to get a range of pedals to consider.

Yeah, I know, I just added the disclaimer that it's not the tone I'm best at finding.

I probably should have mentioned what I'd be playing and my amp. It's a Gibson Les Paul through a Peavey Envoy 110. The amp doesn't have bad distortion, in my opinion, but I don't have a foot pedal for it (and I'm not sure if one even exists), so it's a pain in the ass to switch back and forth when I want to change in the middle of a song. I actually do have a Dunlop Fuzz Wah, but fuzz isn't really my thing.

I think I've either played that amp, or the 112 Bandit. It sounded pretty good for what it is. But since it'll probably be on the clean channel all the time, all distortion from the pedal, I can narrow my recommendations down.

The ProCo Rat and EH Big Muff are still options, though they aren't as effective on clean signals. A Keely-modded Boss DS-2 would work, but is very hard to find, and getting the work done yourself isn't worth the cost. The Damage Control is still an option, but also probably too expensive.

I'd recommend the Marshalls, either the Guv'nor or Jackhammer. Both sound great and can be dialed back (especially with a bit of volume rollback on the guitar) to get a bluesy tone, or just pushed full up for metal crunch. The Guv'nor is a bit muddier but thicker, and the Jackhammer a bit thinner but more articulate, and goes heavier. And despite the badge, they're both decently-priced.

[The Spartan]

I did some more research and I found that there is a Peavey footswitch available for about $40.

Supposing that I don't go that route anyways, how is the ruggedness of the Marshall pedals?

[YT300000]

They seem quite sturdy enough - they have a metal case, solid knobs and the usual sort of switch. I'd comfortably gig with one without question.

[The Spartan]

Cool. I had a Tech 21 XXL at one point and it wasn't as heavily made as I would like. Too much plastic in the body, too lite. From a construction standpoint, a Boss pedal is much better put together. I've also handled Dunlop pedals (in fact that's who made my wah pedal), which are just beasts, plus I used to have a Tubescreamer reissue that was quite rugged.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Some related questions...

Being more of a noob at this, I'm not totally sure what I'm looking for in general. I want to achieve tone in this general range (especially the first part of the guitar solos). I'm looking to do some serious gear upgrading after Christmas, as right now all I have beyond the guitar itself is just a little Crate amp with a (I'm guessing) passable DSP (it's got a small variety of chorus, reverb, delay, flangers, etc). For what it's worth, I love chorus effects to death.

So, what should I be looking at in terms of amps and other gizmos? Mostly looking at intermediate stuff right now, I'm not quite a total noob but I'm no Hendrix by any stretch of the imagination.

[YT300000]

Cool. I had a Tech 21 XXL at one point and it wasn't as heavily made as I would like. Too much plastic in the body, too lite. From a construction standpoint, a Boss pedal is much better put together. I've also handled Dunlop pedals (in fact that's who made my wah pedal), which are just beasts, plus I used to have a Tubescreamer reissue that was quite rugged.

Yeah, Boss makes tanks. The previous owner of my DS-2 once had it fall out a second storey window, and it just bruised the ground. Crybabies are basically brick shithouses as well.

Some related questions...

Being more of a noob at this, I'm not totally sure what I'm looking for in general. I want to achieve tone in this general range (especially the first part of the guitar solos). I'm looking to do some serious gear upgrading after Christmas, as right now all I have beyond the guitar itself is just a little Crate amp with a (I'm guessing) passable DSP (it's got a small variety of chorus, reverb, delay, flangers, etc). For what it's worth, I love chorus effects to death.

So, what should I be looking at in terms of amps and other gizmos? Mostly looking at intermediate stuff right now, I'm not quite a total noob but I'm no Hendrix by any stretch of the imagination.

Ah, some real metal.

DSP tends to be garbage, and even for the good sounding stuff, if it's not fully-adjustable, you'll just have someone else's sound. Since you'll probably want to upgrade to pedals sooner or later, you might as well save yourself from wasting money on stop gaps and buy something that you'll still want to use a few years from now.

For amps, it really depends what you want to do. If you're just playing in your room, buying a half stack is stupid, because you won't be able to crank it. And if you don't crank at least a bit, instead relying purely on preamp gain, you'll sound all hissy and naff. So I'm going to assume that you predominantly play/record at home, and go with smaller amps. And if you want to play live with such an amp, you can always just mic it, which gives you greater sonic flexibility anyways.

The most important thing is to stay the hell away from modeling amps, and go with valves. They bring out so much tonal responsiveness in your playing, you won't believe your ears. Especially for stuff like Judas Priest, you'll need that spongy characteristic which solid state can't provide. If you're really worried about reliability, you can buy a hybrid transistor-valve amp. The Kustom HV is pretty good, as is the Marshall Valvestate (particularly if you get an original series 1990-1992 amp, like my 8240. The newer AVT's sound a bit more lifeless).

But you should really go with an all-valve model. My first and foremost recommendation is always for a Traynor, probably a YCV-20. The overdrive channel with boost mode is pretty heavy, and you can kick it up even more with one of the pedals I discussed above. If you can't find one for a low price, you can also try the Peavey Valve King (I much prefer the tone of the Classic or Delta Blues, but you'd need to get most of your drive from pedals with those), one of the smaller Laneys (the LC-15 is probably your best bet, and if you tune down to C# you can nail Tony Iommi's tone on Master of Reality with it), or another Crate.

Crate makes some good valve amps, their best being the Palomino series, but also the more aggressive (and brittle) V series. The Blue Voodoo is actually quite a good amp, Glenn Tipton uses it... but it's a 100 W head, so very loud, and you'd have to buy a cabinet for it. While we're on the topic of higher volumes: if you have the money, definitely look at Orange, the Rockerverb and Thunderverb can give you this sort of articulate but spongy crunch with ease.

As for chorus and other effects, I'm actually looking into getting a few of those myself, I've been woefully under-pedaled for years. Live and for recording, I just rely on the (utterly gorgeous) stereo chorus of my Marshall Valvestate, but from what I've seen/played so far, both the Boss and MXR chorus and flangers look fantastic. I've been looking for a good Uni-Vibe, though I'll probably end up with the Voodoo Labs one. For reverb/echo/delay, the Danelectro Dan-Echo is shockingly good (too bad about the case, again), and the Electro-Harmonix XO is of course a solid choice. Other than that, I'm afraid I can't help too much in this regard, you'll really have to go to a guitar store, choose a guitar and amp similar to yours, and try every effect you can.

[YT300000]

And I can add another company to the list - Onerr. They're an obscure Brazil-based firm, but have very high quality products at good prices. Their Tungsten overdrive would be of interest to you, it produces a very full, powerful sound, great for something like Judas Priest.

I bought their flanger today, and the sound is excellent - I can nail a Van Halen MXR tone, crank the pedal for an almost synthesized Prince sound, or get more subtle chorus-like sounds. The case is also solid steel and the whole thing weighs about a pound and a half - if I were to throw it at my Boss DS-2, that one would probably break first, amazingly enough.