Best-Selling Overdrive & Distortion Pedals A collection of our best-selling overdrive and distortion pedals - all in one place! 7 Of The Best Overdrive Pedals Under $100. A classic overdrive pedal which can be found under the feet of many thousands of guitarists. ... One great, to me, tube overdrive pedal that I have been using for many years is the Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor. + Encourages experimentation Whether you’re a metalhead looking to push the front end of a high-gain amp, a blues player who wants to add sustain to a solos or a jazz guitarist craving a slight boost, overdrive stompboxes will fit the bill. Bath The October 2020 issue of Guitar Magazine is out now! It has a more neutral EQ-curve than the String-Singer and an arguably more versatile voice that can take you from Clapton’s Blues Breakers days to Kossoff to Young. The action is sky high, it won’t play in tune and the neck is coming off. The best overdrive pedal will deliver in the area of boosting your guitar and amp tone without overwhelmingly distorting its … Let’s get this one out of the way first thing. The predecessor of distortion and overdrive pedals, it alters your guitar’s sound wave into a square wave, producing a fuzzy sound made up of a multitude of complex overtones. The January 2021 issue of Guitar Magazine is out now! The Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer has earned itself a congregation of devotees since its debut in the late 1970s, and four decades later, not much has changed. Price: $/£199 Description: Overdrive pedal Controls: Overdrive, tone, level I/O: Input, output Bypass: Buffered bypass Power: 9V, + High-headroom The November 2020 issue of Guitar Magazine is out now! The filter knob controls the brightness and the EQ, so you can get that high piercing lead guitar tone to low-end metal power-chord tone with a simple three knob system. The tone knob has a sensibly voiced range: instant closed-back heft or Blackface glassiness awaits at the flick of the three-way pre-clipping EQ switch. Shop by category ... New listing Wampler Pedals Dual Fusion Overdrive Guitar Effect Pedal. Created with the input of That Pedal Show hosts Mick Taylor and Daniel Steinhardt, the D&M Drive is a twin-voiced overdrive and boost that offers remarkable tonal versatility in a relatively compact two-switch pedal. You’ll find that it elevates the performance of your other stompboxes, which is perhaps one good reason why almost every single guitarist has bought, borrowed or stolen a Tube Screamer-style pedal in their playing lifetimes. Undaunted by the glut of overdriven offerings demanding buyers’ attention, Walrus Audio launched the Ages five-stage overdrive – with versatility being the operative word. Finding the best overdrive pedal can be a make or break for getting your tone just right, and ultimately fitting in with your unique style. + Effective tone shaper It swaps out the brand’s own Broken Arrow’s TS808-style chip for something more akin to a Bluesbreaker. + Quirky design Originally designed to mimic the growl of overdriven tubes, the TS808 offers a flattering compressed, sweet and full overdrive tone that many rockers and bluesmen simply can’t do without. You can then stack ’em together. While the most expensive overdrive pedals will deliver in many areas, not all that soar in prices equate to capabilities. If you’ve never used an overdrive with a wet/dry control, you may be surprised at the difference it can make when sculpting your tone. Best Boutique Overdrive Pedals. The TS808’s three knobs – overdrive, tone and level – make it as beginner-friendly as it is essential. The Duellist combines two markedly different overdrive circuits: on one side, the String-Slinger is a refined take on the Tube Screamer, and on the other, the Heavy-Handed is inspired by a 90s Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal. The Top 6 Best Boutique Overdrive Pedals. – Premium pedals don’t come cheap. Simple models, like the iconic Ibanez Tube Screamer, give you control over output level, drive and tone, whereas advanced pedals like the Origin Effects Revivaldrive Custom offer a mind-boggling array of knobs to tweak. Great as an always-on device, or to provide boost with a mid to high-range bite, the Soul Food manages to push tube amplifiers to the point of breakup efficiently – while still maintaining core amplifier characteristics. Check Amazon Price. Thank you for signing up to Musicradar. The Mjolnir concerns itself in the realms of low-gain drive, adding just enough upper-midrange bite to help a guitar’s signal really punch through a mix. The Blues Driver responds well to picking dynamics, too. Depending on your outlook, it may be either fortunate or unfortunate that it’s virtually impossible to have a discussion about overdrive … The waiting list is approaching two years, and if you can find one secondhand, expect to pay at least double the price of a new example. Extra flexibility comes from input and output jacks that will take TRS cables to allow the two circuits to be split, so each can be used in a different loop of a switching system, effectively having two standalone pedals. The difference between the KOT and that other mythical transparent overdrive, the Klon Centaur, is you can still buy one, though that might not be the case for long. Xotic, a brand considered to be on the more boutique side of distortion guitar pedals, delivers a unique pedal to a copycat market. The best overdrive pedal can turn your dry, boring tone into a warm, distorted timbre full of the subtle harmonics you get from pushing the gain on a tube. Fans of the best show on the internet, That Pedal Show will already be totally familiar with this pick. A two-in-one featuring OD and clean boost sections that can be stacked or used separately, the Keeley D&M Drive overdrive pedals are designed in conjunction with tone maestros Mick Taylor and Daniel Steinhardt. + Flexible stacking options It's not the smoothest Screamer we've ever heard, but it is faithful to the '80s incarnation in that it compresses up a treat and cuts the low-end a little. That Pedal Show's Mick Taylor and Daniel Steinhardt's signature pedal with Keeley Electronics is a dual-format design featuring overdrive and boost sections that can be used individually or stacked – with the option of putting the boost before or after the drive. A lot of people are not aware that this much loved pedal is based on an early version of the Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal. Instead, he came up with the Heavy Water, a compact dual-booster that offers a whole range of level-lifting options. They say you get what you pay for, and with Strymon pedals that seems to ring true. I own this pedal myself and it sounds amazing through a Fender Blues Jr. amp and a Fender American Deluxe … The Ibanez Tube Screamer overdrive pedal is one of those guitar effects pedals that has gained close to a cult-like following. While the drive doesn’t quite reach crazy splat-fuzz levels, there’s still plenty of midrange bark to be found – especially as tones can be further spiked or smoothened with the presence-like tone control. The boutique pedal market has a glut of great sounding gain pedals and the right one for you is out there. Part of the Tube Screamer’s beauty lies in pairing it with other gain pedals, or letting it gently drive the front-end of your amp. Best Boutique Overdrive Pedal – Keeley D&M Drive. The former is rich, thick and oozes classy harmonic content, with loads of responsiveness. + Customised to order The prolific Dayton, Ohio rockers complete a second hat-trick of albums in two years. It’s since gone on to become one of the biggest-selling boutique overdrives on the planet, and a go-to for professional players of every stripe. We’d be remiss not to include this here. The OCD has a large dynamic range and offers a continuum of usable sounds – from clean boost to gritty, harmonic-laden fuzzy distortion. The Timmy has been hyped by guitarists ever since its introduction in the early noughties. + Low noise floor The Heavy-Handed circuit adds a far superior range of volume, tonal control and gain to the Marshall unit it’s based on. + Versatile gain range It's considered the best of the boutique Klon Centaur clones at a much cheaper price, making it a no-brainer for anyone hunting around in that particular sub-class. The circuits include the usual suspects alongside quirkier offerings. The preamp section is minimalistic in its layout with a volume knob, 3-band parametric EQ, and Aux Level – setting the volume for the two auxiliary inputs and 2 switches for the Ultra HI and Ultra LO circuits. The rich harmonics and responsive controls make it a great overdrive for capturing that hallowed classic-rock sound of an amp pushed to 11, while its HP/LP switch affords it considerable versatility. The best bass overdrive pedal, aka bass tube pedal, makes it easier to produce the same effect without a tube amp. It goes without saying that every guitarist should own at least one overdrive pedal. The boost side of things offers everything from a rich, midrange bluesy boost all the way to a dynamic overdrive with wonderful touch sensitivity, while the drive side of the equation runs the gamut from valve-like overdrive to searing rock leads. Hailed for its transparency, the Timmy comes highly deployable as a clean boost to push your amplifier, an edge-of-breakup OD or as a singing overdrive with ample amounts of sustain, responsiveness and harmonics to boot. It’s extremely versatile, matches pretty much any genre, and doesn’t make too much of a hole in your pocket. If you’re a guitarist, your tone is your voice. Anticipating seemingly every user need, the Sunset not only has three distortion options with different topologies, but also three boost options and flexible routing that allows for either boost or drive first. All these options don’t make the Sunset a difficult beast to tame. This is where the details come in. Check Price on Amazon . While JFET overdrives are known for organic, amp-like tones; Beetronics pedals are known for sounding fat and gurgling. With the Mjolnir, pedal maker Zach Broyles made it a point to add to, rather than subtract from, the guitar rig’s core tone. From the circuits used within, to the pedal’s main objective, there are tonnes of small variables that have an effect on the tone the player hears. The best overdrive pedals are traditionally there to add flavour or colour to an existing character of your sound, often but not always achieved from a driven tube guitar amp. 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