For the past 15 years or so my entire sound has been based on the clean channel of my Marshall Valvestate amp, a CE-2 Chorus and MT-2 Metal Zone distortion. It always worked for me, but when the Nevermind 20th Anniversary edition arrived I decided it was time to seek a milder distortion sound, and here it is. Used by many bands (including Nirvana), this pedal packs a classic rock distortion. With 3 dials - level, tone, distortion, this pedal is incredibly versatile. Without touching the tone or level knobs the DIST knob gives a great range of sounds from mild crunch to full-on grunt. The sound is very rich at all settings - I haven't taken the tone past 12 o'clock though. All in all this is a perfect addition to my collection, allowing me to create a wider range of distortion tones.

I think this is the best distortion pedal you can buy and yes, it's forty quid! Steve Vai and Satch uses one. Great quality too. I think also that this pedal works best when it's driving into something else like the front end of an amp or another overdrive pedal; I would say this is better than a Big Muff Pi. There are some good sounds to be had from this pedal and its worth just sitting with guitar amp and pedal and experiment.

this pedal is awesome it creates exactly the tones i was after, it doesn't mask the tone of either your guitar or amp. if youve got the talent you can make it sound as good as i do

I just find this pedal weak as it doesn't seem to cut it onstage. It seems to have a genrally low quality sound in my experience. I'll stick with my Marshall Jackhammer for basic distortion and overdrive. <br/>

The Boss DS1 is always worth a try in your set up as it's one of the cheapest Boss pedals. I've found it to be an OK sort of pedal but it's never really convinced me it's really got it. The tone control is far to treble and sharp at 12 and beyond and the distortion quickly loses tone after 12 too... it gets all raspy and thin. The best sounds I think are up to about 9 to 10 o'clock on all settings. Sounds OK with valve amps but awful with solid state.. IMHO. Build quality is superb... it's Boss! As always though give it an audition with your set up before deciding... hope this helps!

This was my first stompbox, and i find it really reliable. I have yet to get a power supply for it, but for &#163;39 you can't really go wrong. As it comes with only 3 knobs you don't get a volume gain with the level gain, but its fine, because with my Kustom amp i can choose my volume/gain anyway. I'm using an Encore with it, (not the best guitar ever) but it does the job. It increases the distortion on my gutiar anyway, which is what i got it for. A buy for anyone looking for a crunchy distorted sort of sound out of any guitar (recommended for begginers/begginers guitars). <br/>Drawbacks: Sometimes hard to find the tone you want.

beautiful lead sounds when plugged in the fron of a tube stack....proved the smooth lead my metal zone cant....

The reason some people dislike this box is because it can sound so different depending on the guitar, pickups and amp youre using etc. I use this box with a marshall solid state amp (sounds great with a tube amp as well btw) and a washburn guitar with seymour duncans and the distortion i can get is brilliant. Its lso very versitile (especially with only 3 knobs). The reason i love it so much though is because of the excellent controlled feedback i can get. The best thing to do with this is to try it with your setup, and if it sounds good buy it! (If you dont, buy it anyway, its only &#163;40!!)

The bands you mentioned use different sounds! For muse?whitestripes sounds you need a Electroharmonix Big Muff, for Darkness sounds you need a marshall guvnor, but not the silver (re issue) ones, you need the vintage ones which you'll probably find on Ebay or second hand music shops!

i want a distortion pedal at around &#163;45. I want to play stuff like Muse, The Darkness, The White Stripes and so on. Somebody help me!!! Please respond someone!!!!

after trying out various distortion pedals the DS1 was perfect for my multi-style playing and costs less than the rest. I'd recomend it to any metal/punk guitarist

A quality distortion pedal with change from 40 quid, what a bargain. great for practice or gigs and wont run the batteries down after 10 minutes

so good it mad me <br> fart!