Ugly Truth: Buying Your First Guitar Effect Pedal (Distortion)

Congratulations. You have discovered guitar effect pedals. But what should your first one be? There are so many choices. If you go to Musician's Buddy web store and check out the first page of effect pedals you'll see over a thousand different products. That's not even all the options out there. Most boutique and custom pedals are available only from the builders directly. But lucky for us, there are some simply categories that we can break these down into. We'll talk about what typically is someones first pedal purchase:

Overdrive/Distortion/Fuzz

This group of pedals range from pedals that are designed to boost your amp into a naturally broken up (distorted) sound to those that are heavily saturated, over-the-top type sound. These pedals are used by nearly all guitarist. Some pedals are famously associated with iconic guitarist. Stevie Ray Vaughn famously used the Ibanez Tube Screamer, Jimi Hendrex used Fuzz Face pedals. Some pedals even include artist's editions with the guitarist name actually on the pedal. Distortions sit somewhere in the middle of Overdrive and Fuzz. They tend to add a distinct voice and ample gain to your signal. There are many of all these type of pedals. It is important to try many of these pedals and to find what suits you and helps you find the sound you want to make.

What you should try first:

EHX Soul Food, Ibanez TS9, MXR Super Badass, Proco Rat, EHX Big Muff, Dunlop Fuzz Face

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