Distortion

The Caline CP-21 Rock Face Distortion packs some serious Marshall heat in its sturdy, slim form body. Its sound is influenced by the Wampler Plexidrive and specializes in creating medium timbre distortion heavily reminiscent of old-school Marshall JTM speakers. There’s a two-way switch that lets you access Special and Normal modes, each of which adds subtle but noticeable variations to your tone. You can sculpt your sound further with the Tone knob while the Drive knob controls the amount of gain.

The CP-27 Sand Storm from budget guitar effects pedal company Caline is aptly named. Crank this little monster up and you’ll be whipping your sound up into a furious frenzy. That’s not to say it’s a one-trick pony, though; the CP-27 Sand Storm can do light, subtle signal boosts and classic mid-powered crunch as well as it does screaming high-gain distortion. It also boasts a high level of touch sensitivity and will respond dynamically to how hard you hit your strings.

The Caline CP-27 Sand Storm Distortion guitar effect pedal continues Caline’s legacy of reasonably priced, incredibly responsive, and highly versatile stompboxes. This distortion pedal can serve up anything from a lightly boosted sound, through to a classic crunchy rock tone, and, once cranked all the way up, screaming high-gain distortion. The Caline CP-27 Sand Storm Distortion is very responsive to picking attack and string dynamics, comes with a true bypass feature, and can be powered by a 9V battery or compatible power supply.

After a good, long stare at the Stevie Ray Vaughan statue in Austin, Carl Martin decided to include a Texas-flavored overdrive in his Vintage lineup. The Blue Ranger comes in a royal blue package with an ’80s video game-type font and cream-colored knobs. The control layout includes a true bypass footswitch and controls for Level, Tone, and Drive. The Blue Ranger is equipped with a dual-clip circuit for a clear, unmuffled sound at any level.

The Dual Injection from Carl Martin is an innovative two-in-one boost pedal featuring two separate boosts and infinite possibilities. It incorporates the high quality, transparent boost from the Hot Drive’n Boost. Each boost has an individual level control and can be used independently or simultaneously. You may switch between Parallel and Serial modes using the toggle. The Dual Injection allows you four Boost settings—your usual set up, both Boost 1 and 2 engaged simultaneously, Boost 1 engaged to your preferred setting, and Boost 2 engaged to a different setting than Boost 1.

The CNZ Audio Crossfire Metal pedal transforms your clean guitar signal into a war zone of intense and unique distortion tones. It consists of Tone, Distortion, and Volume knobs. Crazy levels of saturation, sustain, and distortion can be unleashed with the turn of some simple knobs. The Toggle switch provides three settings for your pedal—Boost-Off (more mid-range meaty tone), Hi-Boost (more treble, less body), and Lo-Boost (extremely full mid and deep tone). All three choices work nicely across various genres and effects for players.

Tap into that classic Mesa Boogie Mark IV amp tone with the Caline CP-16 Mark 4 Distortion guitar effect pedal. Two gain stages with separate control knobs give you unprecedented control. Use the Gain 1 knob to dial in as much treble distortion you want for a hard and sharp attack, then use the Gain 2 knob to control the bass distortion and fatten and round out your sound. The Caline CP-16 Mark 4 Distortion comes with a true bypass feature.

With massive low end and bright, sparkly highs, the Danelectro BC-1 Cash Cow Distortion guitar effect pedal is a great little addition to any pedalboard. The Gain knob gives you almost every kind of distortion under the sun, from screaming, oversaturated sound to warm, classic tones. You can polish up your tone even further by holding back on the Level knob and using the Treble and Bass knobs to control the top-end sparkle and low-end rumble, respectively.

When it comes to inexpensive and straightforward stop-and-play distortion guitar effect pedals, the Danelectro Fab D-1 Distortion stompbox is among the leaders of the pack. Just plug in your guitar and amp, dial in the level of distortion you want via the Level, Tone, and Dist knobs, and let ‘er rip. The warm vintage distortion tones served up by the D-1 are very responsive to your picking dynamics, and its simple controls give you a lot of tone-sculpting flexibility.

With massive amounts of mid-range and high-frequency output, the Danelectro Fab D-3 Metal guitar effect pedal packs a serious amount of metal mayhem in its unique budget-priced enclosure. You can take your tone to new metal heights, serving up harmonic squeals and insane sustain for the most face-melting of solos. A three-knob control setup for Level, Tone, and Gain makes the D-3 easy to use but versatile enough for even the most serious tone-sculpting aficionado.

The Danelectro DD-1 Fab Tone distortion guitar effect pedal serves up some serious distortion tones, be it vintage dirt or more modern fare. Even better, you can get a lot of musicality and incredible tonality out of this uniquely-designed stompbox thanks to separate Bass and Treble tone controls. You can quickly dial in everything from a down and dirty blues tone to massive metal mayhem. The Danelectro DD-1 Fab Tone is versatile, sturdy, and makes for a great-sounding addition to any pedalboard.

The Danelectro DJ-16 Bacon & Eggs guitar effect pedal is an amp in stompbox form–and no, we don’t mean preamp. Plug your guitar into it and it’s literally an amplifier with its own built-in speaker packing great tone and power that you wouldn’t expect from such a tiny pedal. Got a full-size amp already? Plug the DJ-16 into it and it turns into a cool little distortion pedal. That’s a lot of bang for so few bucks.

Danelectro forgot what the word “restraint” meant when they worked on the massive metal distortion they packed into the Danelectro DJ-12C Black Coffee Metal Distortion guitar effect pedal. This is the stompbox for any musician who wants an all-out metal assault. It’s so easy to use it’s basically stomp-and-play, and it comes with Treble and Bass knobs to sculpt your tone. High gain, screaming distortion—crank it all the way up and drink some Duncan Hills. You’ll do Dethklok proud.

Brutal, hard-hitting, and downright nasty–all fitting adjectives for describing the Danelectro DJ-22C Black Licorice Beyond Metal guitar effect pedal. This evil little stompbox doesn’t just give you growling, snarling distortion, it also has an octave effect for that extra bone-crushing attack. The DJ-22C has a fixed high gain setting, but you can even out the distortion a little bit by holding back on the level knob. There’s also a Bass knob for finer, wide-range parametric control over your bottom end.

The Absolute Destruction is arguably Death by Audio’s most insane pedal yet. Showing little-to-no respect for your instrument’s natural sound, or even how most individuals want them to sound like, Death by Audio pushed this device until it appeared disgusting. You can achieve that thick, gnarly fuzz tone that sounds marvelous. The Absolute Destruction features OVERLOAD and GAIN sliders that interact to provide an enormous range of unique sounds in different positions. It’s up to you how much to distort your sound.

The DOD Boneshaker is a distortion pedal like no other. It is equipped with an ultra-versatile three-band parametric EQ which drives its gain to provide more of everything—more frequency-specific, bowel-churning lows, more responsive highs, and more bare-knuckle mids. Black Arts Toneworks created the Boneshaker’s circuit for extended-range guitars, bass, and baritone—anything low, loud, and heavy. Apart from Level, Distortion, and Depth controls, the Boneshaker also has separate High Frequency, High Level, Mid Frequency, Mid Level, Low Frequency, and Low Level controls.

Touted as the “fattest sounding distortion available,” the FX69 Grunge is the most popular DOD distortion pedal ever. It is the perfect tool if you crave a modern crunch with a huge low-end response. So heavy and so nasty, this hypercharged high-gain preamp delivers screaming distortion and may be shaped with four clear-cut knobs: Grunge, Low, High, and Loud. The Grunge features a distorted distortion. Among the pros of utilizing a pedal-type distortion such as this one is that massive distortion can be created at whatever amp volume or setting.