Hello everyone,

I am currently in the market for a distortion pedal to match with my strat. I am looking for something that might simulate the sound of a high gain head cranking through a couple of 412s. Basically a really saturated, lead kind of tone. (Think 80's metal, none of this death garbage from today).

I am currently playing my strat through a Vox AC4TV (awesome little amp, takes pedals really well). Now, bearing in mind that single coils and the Vox might not exactly be ideal for attaining this kind of sound, any ideas for what might still get the job done?

Thanks & all the best

I hate to say this but have you looked at any products from Line-6? With the shortcomings you mentioned of a single coil Strat and a small Vox amp, I don't think any standard stomp-box style pedals are going to make your ears believe you have humbuckers and a Marshall stack. If you're looking for that 80's hair spray and spandex sound you're going to need some serious guitar processing. The ultimate processor for that sort of thing is without a doubt the Rocktron Prophesy but that would represent a serious cash outlay.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

My personal favourite is the Boss DS-1 straight into my Hot Rod Deluxe - monstrous tone!! If I want a more Metallica-like tone, I switch to a Boss HM-2, or for a more vintage distortion tone, a late 70s/early 80s Guyatone pedal. Of course, none of these beat my mate's old Vox AC30 cranked to full volume, but where can you play that loud today?

My collaborator uses OCD for medium gain Strat tones through his Marshall JVM on a crunchy channel. But for high gain tones he uses a white faced Pro Co Rat. Sounds superb.

We've tried the same set up on my Vox AC4TV (4 watts, just breaking up) and it also sounds glorious, but obviously without the depth, thud and volume of the Marshall.

Hope that helps.

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Fender Highway & Classic 60s Strats, Fender Toronado, Telecaster, Gretsch Projet, Charvel 3, PRS SE Soapbar II & Custom 24, Burns Batwing and many others!

EH "English Muff'n" tube distortion pedal, heavy all tube distortion, beautiful overdrive with none of the solid state nastiness you get from most transistorised distortions. Great sound straight out the box but i replaced the tube with an EH12AX7 Gold for even higher gain. The thing with a lot of solid state distortions is they sound so unmusical and raspy and plain horrible, try the EH you'd like it.

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Hi Toronado. I have several drive options available:



However, just to take it in a different direction for a change, what about a sim pedal? Amazed to hear myself saying that because I have some sympathy with what Gorgon just said, but wait...

Amongst the gizmos in the toybox I have the DigiTech Distortion Factory. It claims to offer emulations of

Ibanez TS-9
DOD overdrive/preamp 250
Boss DS-1
Pro Co Rat
Boss MT-2 Metal Zone
DigiTech Metal Master
EH Big Muff Pi

I never really took it too seriously - just a bunch of contrasting flavours in one convenient box. But in the last couple of months on different occasions I have had both Forum users Nikininja and The_Nutter crouched in front of my rig with the Distortion Factory in one hand and the Big Muff in the other, trying to get the first to sound as close as possible to the second. And to our surprise they both managed it very well indeed, each of them coaxing different tones out of the Muff and then matching them amazingly closely with the DigiTech. If anything the DigiTech gave very slightly better note separation than the Muff, if that is something one values.

So what I'm saying is that A/B'd by people with very good ears the digital sim was a pretty fair replica of the real pedal, which is impressive. And for pretty much the same price - except that the DigiTech contains another six pedal sims into the bargain.

I notice gpd36 has already recommended the Boss DS-1, and it's a good choice. The DigiTech would give you that and half a dozen more: what's not to like?

So what I'm getting at is that if you are unsure at this stage how to choose between all the different pedals we can all name here for you, why not buy a bagful all loaded into one unit and try 'em for yourself? At worst it would help you narrow down your preferences before spending the cash (and in the case of the Muff, the board space) on the Real Thing.

Just an idea to fling around.



Cheers - C

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Probably better getting yourself down to your local shop Toronado, shouldn't be much trouble for them to set up a little vox rig and demo a few, did this when I was looking at some drive pedals and like Gorgon walked out with a valve pedal not the EH but a Blackstar HT drive to my ears it topped the lot, pricey, built like a tank but worth every penny, get down to the shop and try them out I think there are a couple of blackstar distortion pedals 2 channels if I remember, don't know what others think about Valve v Analog v digital regarding pedals, I'd be interested to know what the rest of the guys think, I could contradict myself hear but it shouldn't really matter what signal your sending to the tube amp, it's always a tube sound coming out the speaker, but enough of my ramblings go try some out that's your best option IMO

The pedal that comes closest to simulating a Marshall at full tilt boogie is the old metal boxed Guv'nor although the MIC plastic jobbies sre pretty good.You won't get a very convincing big amp tone with any small amp though you'll need 20W at least to be either bit convincing.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Back when Fender was promoting and finacially supporting the FDP a number of the FMIC employees would post there. Not always officially as employees either, sometimes just posting as regular people. We would VERY often see some of these Fender employees making comments on threads like this one along the lines of, "if you want to sound like such-n-such then you need to use the same gear as such-n-such." You knew that they meant if Bruce Springsteen plays an American Tele and you want to sound like him you should pony up and buy a new American Tele from us. You knew it was a sales pitch but you know what? They were still right. Those guys with the Marshall stacks and their Les Pauls? They bought that gear for a reason. The reason is, that's how you get that sound. The question of how to turn a grapefruit guitar rig into a watermelon guitar rig can't be answered with a conventional apple stomp box.

I'm not trying to fight with anybody here but so many times it happens on this board that someone posts a legitimate question, "how do I sound like ... ?" and the forum members start showing off their own gear and saying, "hey man, this is what I use ..." Again, I have no intention of starting an argument with anybody but the truth is, what you use is irrelevant because that's not what the OP asked.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I understand entirely, BMW. I would love an early 80's JCM 800 but for the sake of the people that I'm living with I just can't go that loud. I am willing to sacrifice the authentic sound for something that is more reasonable for my situation. If I can find something that will put me in the ballpark then that is enough to make me happy.

For what it's worth the strat is a real killer - a '96 John Page-era Custom Shop.

Thank you all for your ideas, I will have to shop around

Check out some of the Line-6 pods. That 80s hairspray sound you want won't be achieved with a simple single purpose stomp box. You need a box that has multiple things going on like some time-based FX and compression.

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I agree.
at low volumes you are going to get allot closer to the sound you want with a line 6 pod of some sort.

also its not a pedal but the low watt blackstar HT amps have a fantastic cranked marshal tone to them. but a strat is still going to sound like a strat through it without modeling.

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Crate GLX-65. Amazing amp. Does everything really well. And I mean everything.

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1984 Squier Contemporary Stratocaster
1986 Peavey Envoy 110
1967 Kingston Acoustic

Yeah dude, I dig the DS-1. I went ahead and did the KEELEY SEM mod to it and now it SCREAMS! I run either my strat (loaded with GFS 60's hot everwounds) or my stock MIJ jazzmaster into a peavey delta blues 115 and marshall 4x10 cab. It gets pretty crazy. As far as the line 6 stuff goes, you can dail in just about any tone you want if you have the patience to do so. Finding your tone is like masturbating, you just have to keep fooling around with it until you get it right!

Rock and or Roll,
Bob-o

I use a Blackstar HD DUAL that kind of looks like the Blackstar pedal near the middle
of Ceri's 'stuff' along with a Fulltone PlimSoul for my dist/od needs and works fine.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!