Best High Gain Distortion Pedals (top 5 picks)

Overdrive pedals are easy to come by. There are a lot of them on the market.

They produce a fairly subtle and bluesy type of gain, that doesn't sound particularly modern and certainly not saturating. But what if you want something more intense? What if you want heavy saturation and high gain?

We've tested a lot of distortion pedals over the years, and there are a handful we've found that truly do high gain well.

As I've pointed out before, it's best to get your distortion from an amp (especially something like a Mesa/Boogie or Diezel). But, if you can't, distortion pedals are a good fallback.

Let's cover some of the best high gain distortion pedals, based on actual testing with pedals in hand.

As usual, our comparison table comes first.

Best High Gain Distortion Pedals (our top picks)

Or, take the quiz to find out which one is right for you

1. Boss HM-2w

The HM-2 was a late '80s and early '90s offering from Boss and one of the original high gain distortion pedals. In the Waza Craft series, it gets a bit of a face lift and sounds absolutely fantastic.

Personally, I'm always looking for the "chainsaw" sound in my high gain distortion pedals, and this is one of the absolute best at capturing that tone.

It also has a lot of sustain and a fair amount of bite, similar to what you hear in a Swedish metal sound.

Boss's own demo video does a good job of capturing these tones:

Standing out on the spec sheet is the all-analog circuit and buffered bypass, which are consistent features of the Waza Craft series.

The control scheme isn't particularly memorable, but it doesn't need to be.

Out of the box, the pedal sounds great and doesn't need a lot of tinkering to be usable. 

It's the sustain that really gets you.

While the pedal isn't cheap (about $200 retail in most markets), I'd argue it's worth the investment, especially if the distortion in your amplifier is falling short. 

Pricing from Multiple Vendors

Price Drop Alert (based on Sweetwater retail)

Price History (based on Sweetwater retail)

IDEAL FOR: Swedish metal, death metal, modern rock tones, sustain, recording, and all high-gain situations

2. Boss MT-2w Waza Craft Metal Zone

Some of you might be too young to remember the original Metal Zone.

To be blunt, it was terrible.

It was raspy, hard to EQ, saturated but poorly defined, and basically just noisy without really being that heavy. 

That pedal is still in circulation, and while I'm fairly certain they've made improvements to it, the Waza Craft version is where we'll make a safer recommendation. It sounds great and has corrected all of the shortcomings of the original.

Compared to the HM-2w, it's less smooth and has less sustain, instead emphasizing a lot of low-end thud and thickness, the kind of tone you want for a lot of heavy palm musting. It's also weirdly more vocal than other distortions, which gives it a nice appeal for pairing with a wah pedal.

Like the HM-2w, the circuit is analog with a buffered bypass, so this helps justify the higher-end price tag. 

Let's go back to Ola Englund:

You can hear in Ola's demo that - like the original Metal Zone - the MT-2w definitely has some of that "raspy" quality, but it's just done much better. There's plenty of definition to each note, and you don't feel like the saturation covers the note or makes it hard to identify, even at lower tunings.

I don't like it more than the HM-2w, but it's a solid high-gain distortion pedal, ideal for those wanting a thicker and perhaps grungier distortion.

Pricing from Multiple Vendors

Price Alert Tool (based on Sweetwater retail)

Pricing History (based on Sweetwater retail)

IDEAL FOR: Power chords, palm muting, high-gain with versatility, recording, general heavy metal

3. Diezel VH4 Overdrive Pedal

Yes, it's titled as an "overdrive" pedal, and I spent the first few paragraphs dunking on overdrive pedals in this context.

However:

I would argue this is not properly categorized as an overdrive pedal, but a full-throttle distortion capable of extremely high gain. Diezel amps is a German based company, so I'm assuming they simply use different wording and language for their effects that I'm simply not privy to.

No harm, no foul.

This pedal is modeled after the Diezel VH4, which we've reviewed here:

Read the full review: Diezel VH4

Simply put, the VH4 is one of the best metal and high-gain amps in the history of amplifier manufacturing.

Since this is basically the pedal version of that distortion, it's an easy inclusion in our list.

There's a two channel version with a preamp, but we'll stick with the original.

Like the Waza Craft pedals it runs off an analog circuit, though with true bypass instead of buffered bypass. 

To my ear, the pedal is a nice balance between the buzzsaw sound of the HM-2w and the thick rasp of the MT-2w. It's heavy with plenty of gravitation towards the low-end, but also grinds nicely on the top end with plenty of sustain. 

Anything by Diezel is worth your time and investment, if you can swing the price tags.

Pricing from Additional Vendors

Price Alert Tool (based on Sweetwater retail)

Price History (based on Sweetwater retail)

IDEAL FOR: Recording, weak guitar amps, metal, modern rock, those who don't want to pay four freaking thousand dollars for a Diezel VH4 amp head

4. Amptweaker TightMetal

Here we're getting into a more boutique brand - although some would call Diezel boutique.

Whatever.

The TightMetal is the pedal I've owned for quite a few years now, back from when they were using the old design, which I actually like a lot better. Here's a picture of it on our dining room table:

This version of the Tightmetal was part of a series where it was the JR version in a series of three. Now, it's just the Amptweaker TightMetal. Though within the old series and the newly designed TightMetals, the tone and distortion quality is all the same and quite good overall.

Like the VH4 it's balanced and does a good job keeping things defined on both the high and low end.

I pair mine with a Mesa Rectoverb amplifier, where it's comparable to the tone I get from that amp's dirty channel.

Here's a demo I did using the pedal to cover a Disturbed song:

I also did an audio demo of this pedal. But, quite frankly, it's not that good. I'll refer you instead to Guitar Bonedo's "no talking" demo. That channel always does fantastic demos so I would definitely recommend a subscribe. 

The noise gate is extremely helpful (something missing from the previous three pedals) and you can hear there's plenty of versatility in the controls. You also have two different mode selectors with two options each:

• Tight
• Fat
• Plexi
• Smooth

Here's a shot of the controls on the new version of the pedal:

There's nothing to not like about the TightMetal, especially if you prefer to support boutique brands. Again, I like the old design better, but functionality and tone quality remain unchanged. 

If high gain is a priority, the Amptweaker TightMetal will definitely get it done.

Pricing from Additional Vendors

Price Alert Tool (based on ZZounds retail)

Price History (based on ZZounds retail)

IDEAL FOR: Recording, noisy rigs, modern rock, balanced tone profiles, and those wanting to support boutique brands

5. Empress Heavy

Empress is a brand that we think deserves a lot more attention than it gets, particularly for the Heavy, their flagship distortion pedal offering.

First of all, the flexibility is fantastic, with individual controls for each channel. There's also global controls, noise gates for each channel, and a mid frequency switch, again for each separate channel.

There are two channels total, which is the first in this list to offer that as a standard feature.

Once again you have an analog circuit to complete our roundup.

The best context for this distortion is fairly obvious. Anyone looking for flexibility and control is going to be best suited by this pedal, far more than any other on this list, especially if the two channels is a priority.

But moreover, the pedal just sounds great. 

It produces a pure and full distortion tone, similar to the HM-2w but with a little more subtlety, perhaps ideal for a more balanced style/genre profile.

Here's my tone demo, which is more decent than the Amptweaker demo:

Again, it's expensive (the most expensive on this list), but it's hard to even be frustrated with that, given what you get in return.

It's an easy choice for inclusion here.

Pricing from Additional Vendors

IDEAL FOR: Recording, live performances, flexibility, multiple styles/genres, lead/rhythm hybrid playing styles, and detailed tone tweaking

Should I use one of these pedals instead of my amp as my main distortion source?

This is a big topic, but we've actually addressed it in a lot of detail here:

Read more: Distortion pedal or amp - which one?

In short, it depends heavily on the quality of your amplifier. Amp-based distortions, particularly in solid state amps, can be pretty hit or miss. Some are decent, few are great, and a lot of them are pretty bad.

But if you have a higher-end amplifier like the Mesa or Diezel amps we mentioned, you probably don't need a distortion pedal.

Other cheaper amp lines that do a good job with high gain would be Blackstar and sometimes Line 6.

Read more: Best Blackstar amps

Does it have to be an analog distortion pedal?

Analog circuits in phasers and delays always seem to get the most attention. But my opinion is that they matter more in gain-manipulating pedals, especially when dealing with high levels of gain.

But, to be honest, the fact that all five of the pedals in this list are analog was a total accident.

I picked the pedals and brands I'm most familiar with and have used to some extent, and they all just happened to be analog.

So no, analog is not a must. 

However, when you're trying to get higher gain levels, the analog distortion pedals seem to do a much better job of maintaining note definition and integrity while still giving you that smooth and heavy layer of distortion you're looking for. 

What's the difference between gain and distortion?

In the context of pedals and preamps, gain is a category of effect and not necessarily a specific type of pedal. Gain-adjusting pedals can be as simple as a booster, just because it adjusts input volume before your signal gets to a power amp. The same is true of the gain or volume control on your amplifier's preamp stage.

Read more: Preamp VS power amp

Distortion is a type of gain, which runs up volume really high and then caps it off. As the title of this piece would suggest, "high gain" gets you a lot of distortion.

But all fuzz, overdrive, distortion, and booster pedals are a type of gain effect.

Are high-gain distortion pedals always more expensive?

Much of the reason for these pedals being on the more expensive side is the analog circuits and the boutique brands, which we've already mentioned. Diezel and Empress effects are almost always fairly expensive, and the Boss Waza Craft series is not far behind.

Alternatives, especially those that aren't analog are definitely cheaper. Digital signal processors (DSPs) are far cheaper to implement than physical analog circuits.

But again, I'd caution against cutting too much cost when dealing with high levels of saturation in your distortion.

You can get away with it in booster and overdrive pedals.

But high-gain distortion pedals are tricky, and can easily be done poorly. Case in point, the original Boss Metal Zone.

Conclusion

The recipe here is the following:

• Don't cheap out
• Go analog if you can
• Stick to the Waza Craft series or boutique brands
• Priorities features that matter most to you

When you're looking for higher-levels of gain, high-end amps and pedals are just far better equipped to deliver said levels. 

But if you have questions about the pedals we've listed, our inclusion process, or you just want to share your experience, drop those in the comments section below and we'll have a discussion.

See you there.

Related Articles