By Corey Bray

       Choosing the right distortion pedal for your rig can make the difference between a mediocre and an absolutely fabulous playing experience.  But, with hundreds of distortion pedals out on the market, where do you begin?  If you are into older rock, a classic distortion pedal to check out is the Electro Harmonix Big Muff pedal.

THE ELECTRO-HARMONIX BIG MUFF

       Though I love EH pedals, I was not as impressed with the Big Muff as I had imagined I would be.  But, if you just want a basic pedal to get you started in working on defining your distorted sound, the Big Muff is not a bad pedal to start out with.

If you just need a decent distortion pedal that gives you a lot of flexibility, the Boss MT2 Metal Zone might be right up your alley.

THE BOSS MT2 METAL ZONE

       You really can dial in a lot of different distortion sounds with this pedal.  I sometimes use an MT2 through a Lexicon PCM-81 effects rack to get an almost violin sound.  Which is kind of ironic, because the cost of the MT2 is around $90 and the cost of a Lexicon PCM-81 is close to $2000 new.  So, sometimes the best sounds come from mixing cheap and expensive gear together.  You never know what is going to give you precisely what you need.

       Now, if you are really into the sound of players like Joe Satriani, you can begin to approach his signature sound with the new Vox Saturator pedal.

THE VOX SATURATOR

       Though I think the Saturator pedal is likely going to find its way into my pedal chain in the near future, the Ibanez Jemini distortion pedal seems to give more of the control I’m personally looking for in my own playing.

       
THE IBANEZ JAMINI

       Of course, you should really go out and check out a lot of different distortion pedals before deciding which one belongs in your rig.  When trying out distortion pedals in the music store, I recommend running a distortion pedal through an Equalizer Pedal as well as a decent sounding reverb pedal.  Often, pedal demos online tend to present a pedals raw sound, but in reality, that sort of demo is really pretty useless. Knowing how a pedal is going to work along with other effects is typically a far better way to gage its performance and whether or not it is right for your rig.  So, don’t be shy and make those sales reps down at the music store really work their butts off to prove to you that they have helped you to find the right distortion pedal for the job.