This has probably been done to death but what's your got to distortion/ gain pedal?

+1 Me too. It is my almost-always-on pedal.

 

Tough choice between Menatone’s The King and the Origin RevivalDrive Compact.

I’d probably pick The King because it has a midrange control and can be dialed in to work with any amp.

 

MXR Distortion+ (homebrew clone with switchable clipping)
ProCo Rat (Little Bear R.Attack clone with switchable Rat mode)

 

I’m using an Xotic SL Drive, running it at 18v with the dip switches at the stock settings. I think that’s going to suit me for a while. I also love my Rat, though it’s not at its best with the pickups I’ve got in my Les Paul.

I expect when we’re able to gig again, all the dirt pedals are going to go on the shelf and I’ll just be cranking my amps like the good lord meant us to.

 

Right now its a Greer Lightspeed between the compressor and the overdrive of a v3 Route 66.

 

Fulltone OCD V2 Sounds good in front of any of my amps.

 

I'm thinking about getting the Caline version of this pedal I really like what I'm hearing from the demos

My answer to the OP would be a stock boss Blues Driver but I can see really liking this Caline for a little bit harder distortion
I also like the separate bass and treble controls for this pedal

 

Mainly I use a Cali76 Compact compressor with a fair amount of gain dialed in to goose the front of the amp. If I want dirt, I'll switch that off and use the Timmy. One or the other is always on but not both.

 

Keeley DS-1



Everything you've heard is true.

 

hm-2 or the fz-2.

 

To get an amp to just sound like more of a good thing, I like the J Rockett Archer.

 

BD-2 does it for me... May be some time I'll try the OD-3

 

Damn, I must have 50 or more dirt pedals now and got rid of another 40 in the past.
For pedals that attempt to simulate or enhance amp overdrive?
They all suck!
A little fattening boost can be nice though.
For pedals that make a clean amp scream?
Certain muffs at certain secret settings do it for me.
A bit of a mystery how seldom I hear muffs used to get the sounds I get with them, doubly odd that they are seen as a sort of one sound pedal.

For circuit families I can't stand TS unless into mid scooped BF amps.
Almost anything based on the DOD250 circuit can do clean boost, mild OD or moderate dirt for me.
So The original in both colors, the VLOD, the OCD but only with gain off, and the Oddfellow Cave Man.
Oddly I never liked the MXR Dist + which is same circuit with I think a dash of germanium.

My narrow minded view on Plexi pedals is that exactly zero of them sound like a Plexi.

My ideal amp overdrive or straight into the amp distortion sound comes from an old Plexi.
Some metal panels get it too.
Pedals never ever do!

Tweed dirt I like the 5f8a HPTT.
Had an old Deluxe and prefer more distinct bass dirt.

 

Boss bd2.

 

Usually my first choice is the Crowther Hotcake. Sometimes I just press them all

 

While it's not a commercially available pedal, I think the runoffgroove.com Thunderbird might work for some plexi-ish things.

For example - Blackmore's Marshall Major sound- http://www.runoffgroove.com/thunderbird5.mp3

ROG seemed to go to considerable effort to come up with a pedal circuit that wasn't the same old same old. I love that it uses a charge pump to deliver ~24VDC, instead of the just ~18VDC that you'll see in some other drive boxes. They also IMO figured out a clever way to sidestep the whole 'jFETs as triodes' thing.

...Maybe still a far cry from the real thing, but not too shabby nonetheless.

 

I will say from my experience with pushing an already distorting amp, you can’t go wrong with SD-1, Tumnus or a Spark boost.

As far as getting all your gain from a pedal, my past favorites have been a Big Muff or the old Danelectro Fab Tone, but the jacks eventually go out on them.

Capgun

 

Wampler Paisley Drive just because & Suhr Shiba Drive Reloaded Mini for a Vox-ish tone.

 

Boss Super Overdrive