Modern overdrive pedals strive to find the perfect balance of breakup and clarity, while generally trying to avoid changing the tone or the voice of either your amp or your guitar. If you’re looking to tap into the very soul of rock music, consider improving your rig with a selection from our list of the best overdrive pedals.
Let’s get this one out of the way first thing. Depending on your outlook, it may be either fortunate or unfortunate that it’s virtually impossible to have a discussion about overdrive that doesn’t touch on the Tube Screamer.
It’s been copied hundreds of times, in both the TS9 chip configuration seen here and the original-design TS808 chip version. Technically, the only difference between the two was supposed to be output, but the TS9 came later and suffered from indiscretion when it came to selecting the amplifier chips, leading to even more disagreement amongst the devout.
All that aside, the Tube Screamer is a mid-boosting overdrive that produces a somewhat thin, relatively transparent tone that was popular for power blues players beginning in the late 70s. Many, many players have used it, and that almost certainly includes one of your favorite musicians.
Of course, what’s available new these days is a reissue, and with its higher output and now made with quality controlled parts, the TS9 is likely the choice for modern players. It doesn’t have nearly as much gain on tap as most other overdrives, so you’ll want to go with this if you only need a little bump or tonal variation. You get knobs for Drive, Tone, and Level.
Among the best of the Klon-alikes is this J Rockett design, the Archer IKON, which shrinks the original footprint considerably while allegedly containing a part-for-part remake of the original Centaur. The key to this pedal is the internal charge pump that increases the input voltage of 9v to 18v, creating unsurpassed headroom that allows it to be stacked with other pedals.
This pedal is excellent for giving your tone that certain something — and for a lot less than a used Centaur. If what you want in your overdrive can’t be described, look here.
For a less compressed and cooler tone, there is also the silver Archer.
If the large footprint pedals on this list have got you down, but you still lust after the ethereal quality of the Centaur, you’re in luck. Wampler have taken it upon themselves to somehow cram everything magical and transcendent about a Klon recreation into a pedalboard-friendly package. This is a pretty ideal situation, too, since pedals like the Centaur are meant to be turned on and stay on, quietly doing their part without a lot of fuss.
As its famous predecessor, this comes with three knobs, one each for Gain, Treble, and Level. If you understand what the Centaur is about, you understand the Tumnus. The major advantage here (besides price) is the smaller footprint. The J Rockett seems to have a bit more gain on tap, but if all you need is that shining finishing touch, this is an excellent option.
There’s also the Tumnus Deluxe if you love the sound but want more control over the EQ.
Greer makes a few drives worth your consideration, including the Tomahawk Deluxe Drive, The Southland Harmonic Overdrive, and the Elliot Little Samson. All of these hang around the medium to crunchy area of things. The Lightspeed, however, is the very natural, very mild drive from Greer, meant to do the “transparent” thing a little differently than pedals that have come before it.
This is a three-knob unit featuring Loudness, Drive, and Freq controls. The Freq is basically a tone, rolling in some upper mids when you want them. The clipping is smooth, as you would expect from something meant to just bestow the lightest amount of drive to your signal. It’s basically a dirty booster, but part of the newer generation of them, with its own distinct vibe. Use this as your first gain stage for a rich tone that responds well to pick attack.
Continuing with the trend of transparency (whatever that actually means), the new option from EarthQuaker is the Westwood, a light-to-medium drive in the tradition of several of the others on this list. What sets it apart, though, is a relatively unique control set.
Those controls include Level, Drive, Bass, and Treble. As stated, the Drive knob ranges from very light for a just little bit extra to medium breakup. The Level knob has a lot of output available to it, which is something EQD pedals tend to excel at. If you want to drive your amp hard, grab yourself an EQD drive; the Level range on this should easily exceed other options on this list.
The Bass and Treble controls are active, which means you cut below noon and boost above. The Bass affects frequencies around 80Hz, while the Treble around 2kHz. Otherwise, it’s true bypass with silent, relay-based switching.
On the other hand, if you’d rather have fewer knobs, EQD will let you get down to brass tacks with the Speaker Cranker. It looks like a booster, but it isn’t. It has one knob: More. That’s pretty much all you need to know, except that you can add More to other pedals in addition to amplifiers. Either option is perfect for gain stacking into higher-gain drives later in your chain.
This unit has been popping up everywhere of late. As the footprint might suggest, the basic circuit and feel is that of a Klon, but Bondi have updated it considerably, making it even more usable.
Controls include Level, Gain, Bass, and Treble. Like the Westwood, the tone controls are active and let you cut or boost each by 15dB. As the gain is increased, so is the ratio of driven tone to clean tone, which works not unlike the Saturate knob on my favorite distortion, the Malekko Sloika. There’s a toggle switch that allows you to choose your gain character between a compressed sound with a midrange push (think Tube Screamer) or a transparent tone (the Klon). It has the internal 9v to 18v power rail for that special clean headroom feel.
It’s a very good pedal worth considering. They’ve recently come out with the Breakers Overdrive, which started life as an update to their now-retired Del Mar and sports many of the same features as the Sick As. It’s a little more pedalboard friendly, too, if you’re into that sort of thing.
In building a high-quality overdrive, people seek to create a circuit that adds dirt without sacrificing anything else about the tone. That usually means a modest reduction in drive capabilities, but for some, that trade-off is worth it. It’s in that spirit that the Morning Glory was born. It was built to enhance and promote a guitar’s voice without noticeable changes in dynamics or EQ curve.
Controls on the Morning Glory include Volume, Tone, Drive, and a switch for Gain. On the side, you also have a Hi-Cut switch, which is useful for chiming amps or at higher drive settings. You can attach a separate foot switch into the Remote Gain port to have the boost activated while playing. Essentially, this pedal is meant to specifically enhance the sound of a guitar you love, and all the controls are meant to be used to that end. This is more of a set-it-and-forget-it pedal.
Unlike some of the others on this list that can provide a wealth of options, consider this your quiet ally, providing the holy grail of tone enhancement: transparent gain.
Caroline has been making quite a name for itself of late, appearing on an increasing number of pedalboards. They strike an interesting balance between the new-wave, boutique pedal makers coming up with interesting noises and delivering on time-honored sounds. In creating the Haymaker, they explicitly tried not to copy the well-known counterparts mentioned elsewhere in this article, but instead created something wide-ranging with excellent versatility.
This pedal’s story begins within the Kilobyte Lo Fi Delay Caroline makes, after repeated requests to make a standalone unit. They’ve done that, but also given you access to far more. Controls include Volume, Punch, Highs, and Shape. Punch sets the gain level, Shape the frequency response, and Highs attenuates the treble.
The three-mode A/B/C switch controls the asymmetrical clipping network Mode A is a soft-clipped, traditional overdrive. Mode B removes the clipping diodes so you’re driving the chip itself. Mode C is hard-clipped, moving into distortion or fuzz territory, depending on the other settings. There’s a secret wet/dry trimpot on the inside of the pedal that allows you to emulate the Kilobyte sound that inspired the pedal to begin with.
Even Caroline has this to say about their creation, from their blog: “Long story short – if you’re not sure which Caroline drive pedal to get, you should probably get this one, because instead of trying to make an overdrive pedal, we’ve decided to make all the overdrive pedals we would make.”
Fairfield Circuitry makes some interesting variations on pedal industry staples, all packaged in unassuming steel boxes. The Barbershop certainly fits that description, combining an interesting control set that sets it apart from more traditional offerings.
The Volume and Control knobs work as you might expect, both with a wide operating range and room for plenty of boost. The Tone switch at the top is a high-cut. Middle is no cut, right is a subtle high-end rolloff, and left is a sharp high cut for darker tones. Sag controls the voltage through the pedal so you can achieve the vaunted “brown sound”. Fully clockwise is full voltage, and as you decrease it, you reduce the power.
In a world of overdrives with internal voltage doublers, this takes the opposite approach where the control is in your hands. As a lovely final detail, the JFET transistors are handmade to perfectly match spec.
While most of the other pedals on this list are meant to come first in your chain, this pedal would be just the sort of thing you’d want to use as your second stage. This is specifically designed to be that medium gain drive, hit by a booster or one of the lighter drives above, possessing a custom circuit that really doesn’t derive from any one tradition.
Controls are as you’d expect: Volume, Gain, and Tone. Like the Lightspeed, it’s very sensitive to picking dynamics, so you might consider pairing the two of them. While the Klon-type drives have an internal voltage rail, this pedal can be run at 18 volts to optionally achieve that higher headroom. Otherwise, it’s all the things you’d expect in a modern pedal: Switchcraft jacks, relay-based true bypass switch, and assembled by hand in the U.S.
Way back before they became huge, I saw Phantogram in a tiny venue on the seacoast of New Hampshire. When I approached guitarist Josh Carter after the show, I noticed he was using the older version of this pedal, the Visual Sound Route 66 V1. It was perfect for the gritty pop they were making at the time, providing just enough texture for his lines.
This is actually a combination overdrive compression. The two sides are swappable using a patch cable, which means you can loop them in any order if you’re using a switching system. Each side can be set to true bypass or buffered independently of one another with internal switches. With help from top-mounted jacks, this takes up less space than two individual pedals would. The V3’s drive side is courtesy of the Reverend Drivetrain, in case you wanted to get your hands on one of those and never could.
Controls on this include Drive, Treble, Bass, Volume, and Clean Mix for the Drive side. There’s an A-B switch for choosing two voices of drive; from the OCD-esque open and uncompressed to a TS-style saturated sound. On the Comp side, you get Compression, Tone, Volume, and Clean Mix. Switches allow you to bypass the Tone knob and activate a Gate. The key to this is really the Clean Blend knobs. You’ll see that again on the Klon-type pedals and the Voodoo Lab options later on this list, in part because drive with limited coloration is what makes an overdrive great.
A fine toolbox of options that’s benefitted over the years from industry collaboration.
If the rarified air of Klon worship is giving you a nosebleed, let’s come back down to something more egalitarian. Of course that means a Boss pedal. The old reliable pedal of the working man, this is a no-nonsense overdrive meant to provide industry-standard gain with a healthy dose of midrange.
Controls on this unit are Level, Tone, and Drive, giving you simple, direct access to the necessary tones. The sweet spot on this is about 3/4 drive, where you’re well into breakup territory, but not maxed out. Your pickups will benefit from the boost, but you’re not in danger of coloring anything too much. Of course, the best part of this one is the price. If you overspent on your amp, you can still drive it with what little cash you have left in the bank. Add some grit for short money.
In a similar vein, the BD-2 Blues Driver is about double the price, largely because it’s more popular. The gain range on the BD-2 is a bit higher, so this edges closer to distortion in many players’ minds. It’s a classic, and you’d do well to have a listen to both before making your final decision.
If you desire high-end parts like you find in many boutique offerings, both the Super Overdrive and Blues Driver come in Waza Craft versions, too.
Using a similar circuit to an 808 Tube Screamer, the Sparkle Drive gives you that midrange-y grit everyone seems to like. By including a Clean knob, you can also directly control the amount of dry guitar signal reaching the amp, producing a nice combination of grit and straight ahead tone.
The other controls are Gain, Tone, and Volume, as with any other drive pedal. When you mix in the Clean, you get the unvarnished sound of your guitar, merely boosted to match the level of the drive side. The gain on this one is somewhat limited, as with the Tube Screamer, but if all you need is a little breakup, this is a good choice.
Compare and contrast this with the Klon types and the Route 66. You could save a little money with this option. Slightly underrated and overlooked, in my opinion.
Priced exactly the same as the Boss above, this option from TC Electronic will get you into a quality overdrive for less than 1/3 the price of a few of the others on this list. And hey, Paul Gilbert uses it every night, so they must have done something right with it.
The MojoMojo takes after the Dark Matter we included on our distortion pedals list in layout and controls. You’ve got Drive, Level, Bass, and Treble. The tone knobs are active, like the pricier Westwood and Sick As, and it does the whole internal voltage increase thing for more headroom, but rather than to just 18v, TC call it “3-4 times the amount of typical drive pedals”. The result is that this isn’t very compressed at all if you don’t want it to be. The toggle switch gives you the option of the full, natural signal, or a bass roll-off.
Sure, you don’t get the warm-fuzzies from domestic production by hand, but if you only have a single Ulysses S. Grant to spare, you could do a lot worse than this option.