Tera-pies

My go-to high gain tone is more to the "modern rock"/"alternative metal" side of things. Believe it or not, it's quite hard to find a pedal that can do that in its stock form. The best results are still best achieved with an amp. Even then, not all high gain amps have that balance of sponginess-meets-clarity-meets-tightness that I mentioned earlier. At the top of my head, I can only think of these names; Marshall JVM, Orange Rockerverb, Diezels, ENGLs, PRS Archon(I've only had first hand experience with the first 2 amps...the latter 3 belum try lagi, just basing it on youtube reviews and live/studio tones of other bands).

So the key here is "heavier-than-most-mainstream, but still relatively 'tame' than straight-up metal"(and that I also tend to favor warmer rhythm-friendly tones than sizzling cutting lead tones). There's this studio back home that a friend of mine works/frequents. The main room has a Marshall JVM combo and a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier stack. I would always make a beeline for the JVM straight away. Right off the bat, it's got that particular sound I like.

As an amateur, semi-intermediate guitarist, I'm in search of a rig that's both portable and more importantly, practical(c'mon, lugging 2 tube heads memang out of the picture la), yet still have a really good sound(see that, not decent, but REALLY GOOD). Thus, my options are limited to either modeling gear, like your Line 6s and Digitechs, or analog distortion pedals. While I'm not necessarily a tube snob, and can competently dial in tones on both forms of guitar technology, I do prefer pedals, just because it's a whole lot simpler, and there's just much less things to go wrong.

So recently I've been trying a MXR Superbadass distortion pedal at the store in the CBD, and I've gotta say I'm in love with it. It's got plenty of gain and character on its own, without mushing out or being too fizzy(typically speaking, most "high gain" pedals will have that problem). It really does sound like a dirty channel of an amp. It can go from light break up to Mastodon-heavy distortion. Frankly, that's more gain than I'll ever really need. Over the years, I've learned to be more particular about the overall eq of the tone, rather than just diming the gain for saturation and chunk. On both occasions, I've used a secondary pedal to help bump up the needed frequencies for my riffy metallic stuff. The first time, I used a MXR GT-OD(basically MXR's version of the infamous Tubescreamer), and for the second, I used an Earthquaker Devices Tone Job EQ pedal. Personally, I prefer the second round of testing. Boosting a distorted signal with an EQ pedal allows for more fine tuned tone sculpting, without the need to add more gain. I was able to get Myles Kennedy's live tone through a very bright, "clean" setup; I used a Fender Deluxe Lonestar Strat with a maple fretboard, through a fender combo(if I'm not mistaken, it was a Hot Rod Deville). Imagine that? Best of both worlds! I can do poppy-clean, Paramore/Hush Sound stuff, and immediately switch to Alter Bridge/Abingdon Boys School with a tap. Another tap(for the EQ pedal), and I was in KSE territory.

Since I wasn't able to record any samples, here are some demos from youtube to give you a rough idea of what this pedal is capable of;