beware of effects that don't give you hard bypass.if you're gonna spend time and cash on a decent tube amp,then either put the effect through the effect loop,so that your killer tube tone isn't muddied up by the effect ,or make sure it is a higher end effect,that promises a hard bypass.me personally,have found that a ratt and the d.o.d.,are both thin and tend to lose the tone.there are some newer distortions ,like a buddah,or tube works,that have an actual 12ax7 tube in the pedal,and they brag that they will just complement your tone and let you keep your original tone.if you are not that much of a tone freak ,and can deal with a soft bypass,and want just a beefy distortion,the boss distortion pedals produce some great results,the tone controls let you really dial in a strong powerful distortion,without having to really spend $$$$.the orange pedal,i forget the name.but all the guys talking about the dual rectifiers and the mesas and the jcm marshall,they are right on the money.you want that true tone100%?get a marshall stack with some nice smoking tubes ,groove tubes,it may cost you a mere2000$,but it will last a lifetime.half price,the sovteks,get a real nice crunch.oh,wait,this site is recording.com?ummm.....these new amp modeling desktops,rack-mounts,or pedals,ones that can emulate several amplifiers in one package.as far as recording an amazing metal tone,one that gets a good plexi or sometimes they even use the artists name as the description of the tone.i get great results with boss,i just recorded a mrshall stack "sound"emulated,on the br-8,but i know they offer their version of"cosm"(amp modeling)in their foot pedals(the really big ones)anyway,at playback,you can't tell that i just plugged in direct,it sounded so beefy and seriously damaging.i know that line 6,and the johnson line,so many companies all the way down to zoom do this.i guess it all depends on what else you need.