What distortion Pedal for Recording?

J

jareds270

New member
Hey everyone, I'm looking into buying a relatively cheap distortion pedal to use in my home studio. I'll be running it through a peavey valveking royal 8 put into a new enclosure with a celestion g12l 12 inch speaker. I will be recording mostly death metal(bands like oceano, emmure, etc) but a pedal that can be played with lighter distortion would be nice too. I've been looking at REALLY cheap danelectro metal pedals (fab, cool cat), but would they be bad for recording? Im willing to spend up to around $100 if its really worth it. thanks for all your help.

and by the way, I looked on craigslist and heres what I found:
Boss Metal Zone - $45
Zoom 606 - $30
Line 6 Uber Metal - $50
AMT P1 preamp - $100
The P1 is supposedly modeled after the peavey 5150
 
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There's nothing wrong with the Dan Electro pedals. They aren't built for rough use, but left in a studio, how rough can you be? The Fab Metal is what $19? Impossible to go wrong. But if you have a couple of hundred pounds in a Doc Marten coming at it.......... there goes $19.
If you want the Boss Metal Zone, seriously consider a Keeley mod. You can buy a new MT-2 from Robert for $150 (a bit out of your budget), or he'll mod your $45 pedal for $75, and a grand total of $130. Hmmm, still out of the budget. Skip the Zoom Swiss Army Knife pedal, the Line 6 is decent deal, and the AMT is another great pedal. You actually have a plethora of options. The Line 6 isn't repairable :mad:, the Dan Electro pedals sure aren't either :mad:, so maybe the AMT? It even has a cab emulation output, so it's pretty flexible.
Check out the Keeley Metal Zone mods, or take the AMT. Those would be my two choices. Having two or even three overdrive/distortion pedals isn't crazy, or at least that's what I tell my wife. ;)
 
The Metal Zone actually isn't bad, provided you don't scoop the midrange, leave the treble and bass pretty even, and don't overdo the gain. Set everything at 12 noon to start, and maybe consider a slight upper mid boost. That'd be my pick, on the cheap.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
The Metal Zone actually isn't bad, provided you don't scoop the midrange, leave the treble and bass pretty even, and don't overdo the gain. Set everything at 12 noon to start, and maybe consider a slight upper mid boost. That'd be my pick, on the cheap.
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Just be careful when you open the battery compartment or some of the bees will escape. Then it will sound like an sd-1. :D

beekeeper.jpg
 
ocnor said:
Just be careful when you open the battery compartment or some of the bees will escape. Then it will sound like an sd-1. :D
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:p

You CAN get decent sounds out of it, if you're careful. The problem is it has a TON of gain and a very powerful EQ section, and it's marketed as a "metal" pedal, so everyone immediately cranks the gain, the bass, and the treble, and scoops out all the mids. That's a recipe for disaster. I used one briefly back in college, and with the gain a little under half and a slight upper mid boost it was a pretty decent sound.

I stopped using it ever since I got my first Mesa, of course. :p
 
I'll second the recommendation on the Danelectros IF you use them sensibly and just for recording,sure there are better pedals,but not better bang for the buck.Look at their package deals too.
 
ocnor said:
I used to think that the Metal Zone was the worst sounding pedal I'd ever heard but we have a new tone sucking champion the MXR Fullbore Metal.
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While I hate the MT2, I can't see the logic behind the 'tone-sucking' argument. I could probably make a killing by attaching an input jack to an output jack in an otherwise empty metal box and market it as the worlds most 'subtle' compressor, 100% guaranteed not to screw with your tone.

If I buy a pedal - any pedal - I want it to fuck with my tone. I'd be pissed if it didn't. If I bought an overdrive that didn't overdrive, I'd be fairly unimpressed ya know?
 
I don't mean this to sound rude, but it depends on how old you are and what school you came from, if that makes any sense. If you grew up listening to the Beano album, of course the MT-2 or the Fullbore Metal will 'suck'. If you're quite a bit younger, you grew up with overcompressed CD's and MP3's. One man's escargot is another man's garden pest. I had a stock MT-2 for one day. It really is horrible for what I want to hear. But for some kid who grew up with Pantera CD's it may be just great. And waaaaaaaaay back jareds270 said he played death metal. I doubt he's looking for Paul Kossoff tone. He probably has no idea who Paul Kossoff is. And most of us have no idea who Andrew Gomez is. If you can try any of those pedals before you buy, great. I still say the MT-2, but modded by Keeley, or the AMT will be close to what you want. The AMT with the cab sim circuit will let you record direct with it. An added bonus.
 
If you're into that "Death Metal" wall of muck sound, I preferred the Zoom Tri-metal if you can find one, pretty much the same controls as that MXR... Pretty ok if you run it through a cranked clean tube amp.

But if some dynamics and "feel" of the tube-variety, and "tone" is of any issue..:

-ENGL tubetoner, appreciated by a couple of friends, I thought it was nice too, before I gave it away as a present. A bit too "tight" for my liking.
-Koch pedaltone. My go-to pedal, looser on the bottom end, fatter, like the ENGL, has good plenty of gain on tap.
-Mesa V-twin, even looser, almost sloppy bottom end, I keep at home for rehearsing through stereos.

Don't bother with pedals with only 1 tube in them, unless adding overdrive for something else, seems to work sometimes on basses though...

I play Black Metal, so "tightness" and way HUGE bottom end when palm-muting isn't my first concern, as might be in Death Metal variety.. Also, tubepedals tend to clean up nicer when volume reduced from guitar. I'm mostly after the harmonics and Fat.
You don't even need much gain if you'r tremolo picking is in ordnung.

Too bad I went to the "distortion fom amp"-route...

I really wanted to try out AMT-electronics "Army of Evil"-pedal and some of the Udaloff stuff. :D
 
i'd go with this..

yamaha DG stomp..it has amp modeling in it, for 1/12 2/12 4/12 cabinet structure, and the amp models you can pick from (don't have to) sound very close to 5150, marshall, mesa, etc....and you can get one on ebay for under/ maybe a little over $100.00. also has coaxial output for recording direct.
my guitarist plays through a 5150 full stack and a half, but when we record in the bedroom vs. the practice place, he'll use the DG stomp with phenominal results!..you can just use the distortion without all the amp modeling stuff if you'd like, same goes for the effects.
 

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The Valveking has a built in distortion/gain channel correct?

If so, I'd suggest getting an OD pedal and balancing the gain on the pedal and the gain on the amp, for that I would suggest an Ibanzer DS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer. Check it out. They're usually $60-$80 used in new condition, $110 I think new.

Or you could just not mix the amp distortion/gain (unless the amp doesn't have a distortion then you have to do this) and pedal's gain and just use the amp's clean channel, set the pedal to Turbo and dime the gain and level.

Also the TS9DX can be dialed down to sound like a vintage TS9, so you can get some lighter distortion out of it and a lot of inbetween with the + and Hot settings in between Turbo and TS9 vintage.

Go to GC and test one out with your amp, you might like it, you might now. Let me know what you decide.
 
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