I need a distortion pedal for my new amp!

[Xir0n]

Can any of you guys help me out? I'm trying to get my ultimate rig and I want to have nothing but the best equipment. Money is no option.

I want to have as metal of a sound as possible but I still need the clarity to play some wicked awesome blues shit.

If you guys have any ideas. I want something that will go well with my new Orange Rockerverb 100 (there's a video of it in a different thread titled "Record your rig!")

I need a pre-amp and some nice effects. Typical distortion pedals don't like to play nicely with it so I'll probably need some top notch equipment.

So RockMyMonkey.com, tell me how to make the perfect rig!

[Bradzilla]

You've got a tube head right? Try a Tubescreamer. Or you can get your head modded. One of the guitarists in my band has a Soldano Hot Mod which adds an extra gain stage to the preamp, basically just extra overdrive without an extra pedal.

[Xir0n]

Yeah. It's an extremely high quality tube amp... I'm kinda iffy about the modding.

[Xir0n]

I guess I maybe should explain the exact tone I want.

I want a ridiculous amount of distortion which I already get with my Orange head, but I crave much, much more. The hard part is that I still need to have a large amount of clarity which is kind of hard to do with large amounts of distortion. What I'm looking for is a full bodied thrash metal done with the clarity of a power metal band and the heaviness of the most brutal death metal band. Let me state again that there is almost no limit to how much money I will spend, but I don't want to have tons of equipment. I'm thinking a good pre-amp and a distortion pedal would be nice?? I don't really know, I've never needed a distortion pedal in the past, but I'm trying to make the best tone I could possibly have.

[tbhride]

When I watched your video the other day I thought to myself about the tone "all that amp really needs is a quality overdrive to kick it over the edge."

Theres a few newer overdrives out there that I haven't personally tried out (such as the MXR Zakk Wylde overdrive or the Krank Krankshaft overdrive) but are supposed to be a little hotter than overdrives like the Tubescreamer if that is what you are looking for. Both kinds can do great things though so don't discount more traditional sounding OD's. Many modern metal players still use Tubescreamers and the like. My advice would be try a few out in a guitar store to get a feel for their tonal characteristics and buy one that you like. Most places will let you return an item within a certain time period so you can bring it back if you aren't to keen on how it sounds with your Orange.

As for preamps, as far as I understand it the proper way to use a preamp is to hook it into your amps poweramp, bypassing its own preamp, which where your tone comes from in the first place, so if you already like the base tone of your Orange I don't know why you would do something like that. (whoa - huge run-on sentance but I don't care)

[Xir0n]

Seems keen. I was looking at the Distortus Maximus, know much about it?

[tbhride]

Well heres the main difference between distortions and overdrives. Overdrives are designed to push more gain into the tubes in your preamp and therefore can sound very different on different amps. At the same time an OD can be more transparent than a distortion pedal (won't color your tone as much). A distortion pedal is more for creating a new sound and is usually used on a clean channel. I've found that when using a distortion on an already distorted channel, the results aren't typically all that great unless one of them (either your pedal or the amp) is at a much lower gain.

From what I hear about the Distortus Maximus it is a good pedal. Good construction and good tone. Again I haven't used it myself however so I am mostly going by reviews and soundbites I have heard.

[Xir0n]

What are your guys' thoughts about Homebrew Electronics? Jack Gibson recommended them to me. Have you guys heard anything about them?

[tbhride]

What are your guys' thoughts about Homebrew Electronics? Jack Gibson recommended them to me. Have you guys heard anything about them?

Hmm... never heard of em... going to check out their website.

[tbhride]

Hmm.. they seem interesting.

Definitely have some respectable names on their artist page... Bonamassa, Lukather, Santana...

The Full Metal Jacket pedal seems like it could be a good solution for you... provided it sounds good.

PS - who is Jack Gibson pray tell.

[Xir0n]

The bassist from Exodus. I'm his girlfriend's best friend.

[CFH]

I want a ridiculous amount of distortion which I already get with my Orange head, but I crave much, much more. The hard part is that I still need to have a large amount of clarity which is kind of hard to do with large amounts of distortion. What I'm looking for is a full bodied thrash metal done with the clarity of a power metal band and the heaviness of the most brutal death metal band.

Interesting. That's the same distortion sound I've been looking for since I started playing ten years ago.

As for a good pedal, you may want this:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Line-6-ToneCore-Uber-Metal-Distortion-Pedal?sku=150389

[Bradzilla]

I've heard of people using the Metal Zone pedal as a boost and EQ since it's got semi-parametric mids and you can turn up the output independantly of the distortion. Plus if you want a lot of additional distortion it's pretty good for that.

[Mythos Inibri]

I've heard of people using the Metal Zone pedal as a boost and EQ since it's got semi-parametric mids and you can turn up the output independantly of the distortion. Plus if you want a lot of additional distortion it's pretty good for that.

I just bought one of those today. Boss Metal Zone MT-2:thumbs
I remember tbhride mentioning it too. Sounds fucking killer and I only have a Peavey Rage 158 amp.

[Xir0n]

I chose the Wylde Overdrive from MXR and it's pretty awesome. It adds on that little bit of bite that it was missing, and I mixed this in with the rectofier emulator on my Digiteck multi-effects pedal and it just sounds amazing!