Many guitar effects pedals add edge or crunch to your tones. Although, the one type of pedal that has become a standard in shaping the heaviness of guitar sounds is the overdrive pedal. Metal, blues, hard rock, and many other genres typically make use of an overdrive pedal to layer grit onto the music, making it an essential addition to almost any guitarist’s effects arsenal.
Aside from adding versatility to your sound, an overdrive pedal can also increase gain, boost signals, and shape distortion. In this article, we’ll showcase some of the best overdrive pedals from some of the best-known brands in the industry. But before we unveil our picks, we should address a common confusion: the difference between overdrive and distortion pedals.
Overdrive vs. Distortion: What’s the Difference?
Overdrive and distortion pedals are essentially designed to do similar things. Therefore, confusion often arises when it comes to these devices. While both pedals provide gain and distortion to your tone, overdrive and distortion pedals are distinguished from one another by their clipping. Clipping refers to the distortion of waveform that’s produced when an amplifier’s power level is pushed way beyond its limits, which then creates “bad” sound. Overdrive pedals were, in fact, invented to intentionally reproduce this type of sound.
Overdrive pedals perform soft clipping to achieve its distorted and heavy tone, while distortion pedals are designed to perform hard clippings that produce a heavier, edgier, and generally more aggressive sound.
Best Overdrive Pedals
- Boss SD-1
- Ibanez TS9
- Boss BD-2
- TC Electronic Mojomojo
- DigiTech DOD Looking Glass
- Behringer OD300
- Boss OS-2
- Behringer TO800
Boss SD-1
Best All-Around Overdrive Pedal
Boss pedals have become world-renowned for producing excellent tones at affordable prices. The Boss Super Overdrive SD-1 is no exception. This pedal has been around for over thirty years and has become the industry standard for overdrive pedals. While its basic controls and features were built with simplicity in mind, it can do wonders to your sound. It also offers a more organic tone because of its asymmetrical clipping.
Considering its quality and affordable price, the Boss Super Overdrive SD-1 is our pick for the best all-around overdrive pedal.
Ibanez TS9
Best Overdrive Pedal For Metal
A successor to the Ibanez TS808, the Ibanez TS9 is a classic tube overdrive that works excellently for metal. The Ibanez Tube Screamer creates mid tone boosts with a soft and warm overdrive sound, making it equally suitable for blues players. The TS9 is one of the most famous overdrive pedals and has been used by many metal players, including legendary Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett.
Boss BD-2
Best Overdrive Pedal For Blues
The Boss BD-2 Blues Driver is the standard choice for blues players who want to achieve the classic or modern blues tone. Crunchy and loud tones are also possible if you want to emulate the vintage tube amp sound.
If you’re looking for an overdrive pedal that reacts well to your playing dynamics, then this is the pedal is for you.
TC Electronic Mojomojo
There’s a lot of cool stuff you can do with the TC Electronic Mojomojo. This overdrive pedal enables you to control the volume, drive, treble, and bass controls, which in turn helps you shape your tone more precisely. The voice switch affects the mid-range frequencies to give you the ability to manipulate the bite of your sound.
Aside from its well-roundedness, the Mojomojo overdrive is a compact guitar pedal, which means you won’t have any difficulty adding this to your pedal board.
DigiTech DOD Looking Glass
If you’re looking for beautifully designed boutique overdrive pedals, the DigiTech DOD Looking Glass should be on top of your list. This overdrive pedal was the result of a collaboration between DOD and SHOE Pedals, which means it features a unique circuit design by well-known pedal builder and designer (and composer) Christopher Venter of SHOE.
Its one-of-a-kind circuitry makes the drive tone possibilities vast and high- or low-gains possible. The DigiTech DOD Looking Glass is also distinguished by its sensitive asymmetrical clipping.
This pedal is equipped with treble, bass, gain, and level controls, enabling you to experiment and shape your tone even further.
Behringer OD300
Producing quality entry-level effects pedals is what Behringer is known for in the guitar market. Their OD300 is a unique pedal that allows you to meld both overdrive and distortion tones to your guitar effects—essentially giving you two pedals for the (low) price of one. Players can also shape their sounds to produce edgier distortions or unadulterated overdriven tones.
The Behringer Overdrive Distortion is the true hybrid guitar effects pedal for budget-conscious guitar players.
Boss OS-2
While the Boss OS-2 has yet to achieve the same recognition as the other more famous pedals by the brand, the versatility it offers is definitely something to check out. Extreme distorted tones, warm overdrive sounds, and a lot of in-between are made possible with the OS-2. Tone shaping is also made easier with its level, tone, drive, and color controls.
If you’re looking for a cost-effective, dual-functioning Boss pedal for your heavier riffs, then this is the pedal for you.
Behringer TO800
For just under $20 (as of writing), you can get a decent sounding overdrive pedal with the Behringer TO800. It’s built with the basic controls you need to shape your sound: drive, tone, and level. The TO800 replicates the vintage-style tones of overdriven tube amps, enabling you to bring out screaming tones or blues riffs.
If you’ve got a very tight budget, the Vintage Tube Overdrive is possibly the best cheap overdrive pedal available on the market today.
Featured Image by 戸山 神奈 on Unsplash.
