Hey guise, I've been using my friend's Metal Zone for a while now until he had to leave for the USA a week ago.
Plus, my band's gonna do a couple of gigs in 2 weeks or so and I will be needing to get my own distortion pedal.

Now, someone please tell me what the difference is between Metal Zone, Overdrive, Super Overdrive, Distortion etc.

It will be good if someone could post up all the names of all the pedals too. Cheers.

the sound is diff? well, u can search the names at boss's site.
there are sample sounds too.

What amp do you have? Some amps have an issue with distortion pedals, especially modeling amps. If you have a tube amp, an OD would be a better choice. TBH, all distortion pedals sound quite bad IMO.

u comparing a pedal to a tube amp? duh.
try a booteek pedal n tell me the sound is bad. i hav a crunchbox(not booteeeeeek) n it sounds good to my ear.
marshall mou.

why not just buy an MT-2? you've used it before, did you like it? if you do, just buy one. it's practically one of boss's most versatile compact pedal.

i think what he is saying is that an OD pedal goes better with a tube amp. he is not comparing a pedal to a tube amp.

Boutique pedals can make shitty amps good?!

Must get a zvex then!

u see... he has this tube amp distortion > all distortion thing in mind, tat's y he says all distortion pedal doesnt sounds good.
so, yup, he's comparing tube distortion with pedal distortion.

haha, of coz cant la.... but wat i trying to tell is, not all distortion pedal suck.
u try compare a ds-1 and crunchbox? there IS some pedal with nice distortion.

shitty amp is shitty amps no amt of bootek pedal can make a shitty amp great, but i got a polish love pedal OD and i swear that shitty amp will not be shit when u plug that in. the shitty amp suffer blow up cone and be RIP.

Or u can go to youtube and type worldmusicsupply. He has lots of reviews of boss effect.

Erm, nope, thats not what i meant at all. I just said most distortion pedals in the market here sound sucky. Thats why i asked the TS whether he has a tube amp. Because if he is going to use the stompbox on a tube, it would be better to get an OD over a distortion pedal.

And do you seriously think he is going to get a boutique pedal? Don't even have to bring that up. I was talking about mainstream ones. Like the MT-2 that i had, it sounded like a box of bees, even when i tried it out on a DSL 401. A Keeley mod might help though.

Of course . If not why pay so much for a tube amp?

I like the box of bees. I bashed it before, but now I kinda like it.
It's no tube amp, but it does the job.

BTW, I HAVE a tube amp and sometimes, you just want that box of bees tone for a few songs.

Metal Zone and all 'metal' type distortion pedals have hard silicon diode clipping which sounds fuzzy and harsh by their own.. while Overdrive or crunch pedals have smoother clipping that produces more overtones in the output signal...something like driving a tube amp..

And as a fact, distortion pedals work in tandem with guitar amps.. They boost the input signal, creating more gain and overtone/harmonics... Some pedals sound transparent, meaning they don't colour the tone...while some are not as they have a bit of EQ in them.. So when a distortion pedal is put in front of a nice tube amp, the preamp stage in the amp gets a nice kick of saturation and combining it with the clipping from the tubes, produces a richer and fuller sound than just the amp alone..

So in short, different types of distortion pedals have their unique tonal characteristics.. and putting them in front of different amps, shapes them even more... it's not just what pedal you use, but what you play them through...

so, okie. u mean all MAINSTREAM distortion pedals. i see.

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Added on July 9, 2008, 12:34 amthis 1 of coz la....
but tat doesnt mean all distortion pedals suck donkeys balls mah rite?

This post has been edited by enteryourusername: Jul 9 2008, 12:34 AM

unfortunately I'm a bloody purist and my comments will probably get me into lots of trouble

well, u've got a mesa , n its all our OWN personal opinion rite? lol.

Wrong choice of words, i admit. I meant the common ones like MT-2 and DS-1. Well, whatever, don't want to go on and on with you, just wanted to help the TS, that's all.

my mesa rosak no money repair

Now i use... Behringer mixer into PC sound card with crappy headphones!!!

It's hard to say what I play them through as gigs usually have preset amps available.

Anyway, the kind of sound my band does is like a jazzy kinda alternative rock. I want to say that I need a simple distortion, but to be more specific I want to get that 90's mainstream rock kinda sound. Like the stuff Bryan Adams always uses.