Recommend me a crunchy distortion...

Rat or Catlinbread Katzenkonig. The latter is at near your price point. It can be somewhat noisy but man its crunch city!

 

perhaps a vfe triumivrate ... I stack an aya drivesta (miab) just before the triumivrate...that is amp like and responds well to git knob....so rolling down the vol...can clean up and get gritty

 

Bang for the Buck - Rat2
More Crunch and Marshally - Bogner Burnley

 

Fulltone Plimsoul!

 

You're describing a Rat.

 

This is what I use live and it is very VERY good... I have the v2 flat face version. Very crunchy and raw, good for leads singing sustain!

 

I found one I like that's cheap but sounds real good to my ears. It's the TC Electronic Dark Matter Distortion. You can buy them at GC for $49. I've owned over a 100 overdrive and distortion pedals and feel like I know when a pedal sounds good or not. It's Marshallish; has a little DS-1 tone in there somewhere too. I think its comparable to the Barber Direct Drive. Cant o wrong for the price.

 

+1 on the MI Audio Crunch Box. There is a new version called the Super Crunch Box, but I have not tried it yet.

 

2nd the motion on the guv'nor recomendation.

Wampler plexi drive will also do the trick.

 

I really wanted to like this pedal... had it for like 2 years but it just lacks the bass, MIDS and in your face round leads sound.. gobs of gain though and good for rhythm guitar.

 

Oddman Caveman. You will thank me.


EDIT: I'm sorry I meant Oddfellow.

http://tonereport.com/reviews/oddfellow-effects-caveman-drive

Great pedal!!!

 

Well I'd point you at the new Lovepedal JTM and VFE Blues King for that lower gain crunch. To me that's what your describing, Bluesbreaker type crunch. Actually have both of these inline, VFE>JTM, vfe is like the preamp with all controls, JTM just acts like a power amp saturation knob after it.





Recently saw that Snouse is fixing to start churning out pedals again, so there's that to.

Also, have you ever tried a Lemon Drop, now that's crunchy.

 

+1 for the joyo crunch distortion. Word of warming though, if you want the guitar to clean up with the volume control you'll either need a treble bleed or a treble booster before it.

Other than that though it's instant hot-rodded Marshall

 

+1 for the plimsoul.

Also look at the jhs Charlie Brown (not angry Charlie). The Charlie Brown has much less gain than the angry Charlie, and gives you amp a familiar classic rock kinda sound. Works well to help get an amp that is breaking up to really start cooking.

The best crunch sounds I've ever gotten is when the tubes are starting to break up.

 

triple wreck, suhr riot, metal muff

 

Got one. Don't like it. Trying to sell local. No matter how I set it just sounds bleh to me.

 

If you don't need all the distortion of the rat, I like the crunch of the old DOD fx55 (not the supra).

 

ZVEX Box of Rock OR ZVEX Distortron: both are the same circuit, which is designed to sound like a JTM-45, or an amp in a box as you say you want/don't want. However, it is awesome, and to my ears and a couple others, sounds better than the Xotic SL Drive.

 

Fun pedal. Can cop a lot of crunchy tones, including the king of crunch, the DS-1.