Best Guitar Distortion Pedals (2024 Update)

This pedal is becoming harder and harder to find. Not many places carry it. Just happened to check Sweetwater and they finally had em. This pedal is so worth $. It's not an exact HM-2 but it's brilliant in its own way. Fantastic with low tunings. Just out right addicting to play. This pedal is so heavy and solid, you could end a dinosaur with it. Love the Entombed tribute. Grab one as soon as you can before they disappear for months again.

We all know the cult status of the Boss HM-2 pedal, used for terrible war crimes in the 90's. Known to be used by bands like Entombed and Bloodbath, the HM-2 was dimed in front of an already overdriven amp. That sound is the sound we've had a love/hate relationship with. Since then the Boss HM-2 has risen in price and is currently a very expensive way to achieve such sounds. Enter the Eyemaster, which sounds almost exactly like a dimed HM-2. For 1/5th of the price no less. The sound is untweakable, it's always dimed, and you can only control Gain and Volume. If you're into the old school death metal sound, this is a great reproduction. If you want more options, for example to sound like the other users of the HM-2 (Eric Clapton for example), then this is not your pedal.

Sound: OK, so the pre-set programs are hit and miss for me. But that had to be expected, as I am not plugging a guitar into it, but rather a Korg RK100-S2 keytar. For obvious reasons, the cleaner patches, and patches designed around arpeggios sound decent, while the shredding metal patches sound like ass. I'm sure they would both sound good if I was hooked up with an actual 6 string. Features: The most useful feature as far as I'm concerned, are all of those knobs all over the front of the unit. They make it so easy to dial in the sound. Especially when compared to the all digital products like the GT-1. I had a GT-1B last year, and it was aggravating to modify sounds on the fly. The other most useful feature is the Tone Central app. OMG!!! Last month, I trashed Korg's design decision in their app for modifying the keytar's sounds. The window can't be resized, the lines of text are nearly microscopic, it isn't REMOTELY intuitive to figure out how to re-write the patches. Boss' Tone Central app is the EXACT OPPOSITE of all of that. Full screen, each effect section is on screen alone and has 3 different ways to modify the settings. Get things the way you want, name your patch, and click "write," then choose where you want it saved, and click "OK." It couldn't be simpler. Ease of Use: If the preset patches are hit and miss, the "manual mode" is why I bought this board. The keytar really needs some effects to come alive. This board is simply a placeholder until I can build a quality keytar/synth specific pedal board. Compression, delay, and/or phasers can add a lot of depth to my sound depending on what I'm currently using. Those dials make it super easy to get the sound right quickly. It does sort of suck that they are on the floor, but how could that have been avoided without bluetooth and a phone app? And, if that was the case, I wouldn't have bought it in the first place! Quality: I bought this "blemished." My guess, based on the condition of the box that the factory shipped to zZounds, is that this took a fall off of a shelf in the warehouse. One end of the box was mangled badly! Thanks to Boss' attention to detail in packaging, and legendary build quality, I got this product without a scuff, scratch, or dent for 20% off. I like that build quality. (Feel free to play football with some of those synth specific stomp boxes guys! *wink-wink*) Value: Before my fretting hand got too badly damaged to play bass anymore, I wanted the bass version of this product. I believe that it was discontinued, and I missed my chance. I got the GT-1B but didn't like working with it. When I saw that this was available, I didn't hesitate to put it into my cart. Only then, after the fact, did I realize that it was in "blemished" condition. I almost went back and put a new, full priced one in my cart simply because I didn't want the hassle of potentially returning a broken product. So, yes, I do believe this is worth the normal retail price. Manufacturer Support: In the 12 years I've been playing, I've owned several Boss products from tuners to metronomes to multi effects pedals and I have NEVER had to reach out for support. In my estimation, that's the BEST form of customer service! The Wow Factor: G.A.S.! I can't play guitar a lick. But I've bought guitars in the past simply to hang them on the wall. I can't say that I would ever buy THIS product if I didn't need it. But I'm sure that it will still find some place in my home studio, even after the actual pedal board is complete Overall: An easy recommendation for the guitarist on a budget. Depending on one's needs, stomp boxes and pedal boards can become quite pricey. Between this, the Tone Central app, and the hundreds of additional patches available there, if you can't get the sound you're looking for, the problem lies mostly with you.

The tone sweep is nice and there are some interesting spots because it is linear while kind of non-linear at 10 to noon and about 1-2 on tone control. I can't say why but usually I had purchased like more expensive versions of ehx pedals. That being said, I think people need to realize that these are quite accurate reissues and circuits, and just because it is an affordable pedal doesn't mean it isn't great.

Overall: I've been playing through a Headrush gigboard and needed something different that was just as easy to use, had plenty of tones that were inspiring, that didn't cost as much. I've owned a few Line 6 products over the 30 years of playing music and decided to buy the Pod Go. So worth it! The tones were better than expected, and if you can't afford the Helix series, this is the best choice for a floor unit under $500. The built in expression pedal with toe switch is perfect. You can switch between volume and wah wah or other parameters just by pressing the toe switch in the expression pedal. Basically you don't have to have another expression pedal. The built in pedal can do what you need. I am not tech savvy, I bought the Headrush gigboard last year because of how easy it is to use. I didn't think a floor unit could be. Then comes the Pod Go. It's actually much easier to use than the Headrush. Granted the two have different features but I found making your own sounds easier with the Pod Go. It seems I make them in a shorter time. The color display along with color footswitches make organizing sounds easier than making coffee. If you need a floor unit under 500 the Pod Go is the best choice on the market. If you're a metal head or a traditional Jazz player or love the complexity of Fusion, the Pod Go has your sound.

Overall: I wish I could say something positive about this unit. Although it does have some great sounds and features, the fact that it is constantly having to be rebooted because it freezes up or shuts down on its own make it pretty much worthless (Yes I’ve done all the updates and other futile suggestions from the support folks at line 6). Add to that a power supply that is a complete piece of crap. It’s cheap, fragile and generally a bad design. It is almost impossible to find a replacement because line 6 wanted it that way. Simply using a Standard, generic replacement (9v 2500 mA) Is tricky and not guaranteed to work. My review for this product: Look for something else better from a company who is not obsessed with nickel and diming their customers to death over some ridiculous accessory.

I have to say I love his board, I've been through several multi effects and was recently building up an all analogue pedal board myself with some nice TRex and Keeley pedals in there. I was inspired after watching Johnny Marr and listening to some of the tones he got from the GT100 so I jumped when it was on offer. I run it through a small Behringer mixing desk into two Yamaha DBR12's and all I can say is that it sounds awesome. As a change to my usual random approach I went through each preset and made a note what it reminded me of or what it might be useful for,if I liked the patch. Its a testament to the board that out of the 200 presets I marked nearly 50 out for being useful out of the box. Now i just refer to that sheet and if I have a cover song I want to try or a feel for an original piece I just the closest preset as a starting point. There are so many features on this board its pointless trying to list them but suffice to say its got everything you are going to need, and there is always the effects loop if you are missing some random effect. What else can I say, oh yes its improving my playing as I use the metronome on it loads, really helping me improve my speed. The screens are clear and easy to view, and the whole menu is very intuitive to work with. Gets a definite thumbs up from me absolute winner of a product 🙂

The distortion operation is like MT-2. Sound and operation is similar, But it has differernt knobs for min settings. Distortion levels quickly passes overdrive/crunchy so it it not usable for that. Bass level is not usable after 2 o'clock setting. Treble and mid levels and mid frequency levels change a lot sound. Level setting is use fun if you don't want to load the amps input and cause additional distortion… Battery changing is easy.

Overall: That baby would be born a black and orange stomp box. Ok we all now how most of us are going to use this pedal, straight chainsaw mode. Many of us want that early entombed sound. The cool thing bout this pedal is it can be used for so much more. You can get slightly broken up tones, a nice Gilmour sound, and everything in between. Custom mode adds more bottom end making this thing sound huge. If you are running everything on ten and roll the low end completely off you go from sweden to norway circa 88-93 (church burning and murderous bandmates not included) seriously, this pedal is everything dirty and heavy that I could have asked for. I FINALLY found the sound in my head. Now if you'll excuse me, I have neighbors to annoy.

If you want the sound of chainsaw metal or David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) “A Momentary Lapse of Reason” distortion this is the pedal for you. It’s no one trick pony however. This pedal has found a permanent place on my pedal board. Worth every penny and more. Don’t miss out on getting you my hands on one of these!