The pedals you've mentioned represent different catagories: overdrive, distrotion, etc. The DS-1 is popular around here due to it's use my you know who...but I personally could never warm up to it's sound. For general purpose distortion, I like something fairly tight and natural sounding, like these...
Old Proco Rat
Old Marshall Drivemaster & Shredmaster
ToneBone Hot British (big $$ and highly flexible)
For a more subtle overdrive, a modded TS-9 is a pretty good industry standard, but I like the Fulltone FDII and the Reverend Drivetrain. The Boss SD-1 is a good overdrive too, and is fairly cheap.
Can't really comment on mega-distortion pedals, but if you get something like the above, you can experiment with a dirty tone on the amp, and a slightly overdriven boost from a pedal to get a heavier sound.
Lots of other good choices out there...try to find something used and give it a shot...then resell and move on to something else. All the best in your tone-quest!
Greg
Old Proco Rat
Old Marshall Drivemaster & Shredmaster
ToneBone Hot British (big $$ and highly flexible)
For a more subtle overdrive, a modded TS-9 is a pretty good industry standard, but I like the Fulltone FDII and the Reverend Drivetrain. The Boss SD-1 is a good overdrive too, and is fairly cheap.
Can't really comment on mega-distortion pedals, but if you get something like the above, you can experiment with a dirty tone on the amp, and a slightly overdriven boost from a pedal to get a heavier sound.
Lots of other good choices out there...try to find something used and give it a shot...then resell and move on to something else. All the best in your tone-quest!
Greg
