If you’re an electric guitar player no doubt you’ve looked at finding some guitar effects.  You’ve got a couple of choices, use virtual effects that run on a computer, use a multi effects box or use some guitar effects pedals.  You can find guitar multi effects pedals or single effects pedals.  Whichever one you use is up to you some people like the multi effects because you can set up different effects patches and change them easily.  Others like the simplicity of guitar effect pedals.  Some people also think that the pedals have a better sound than multi effects boxes.  Still, both types are used by professionals of all kinds.  I’m more of a pedal kind of guy, I don’t know why, they just seem to have a more “organic” sound to me.  It’s hard to quantify which is better, it’s all just a matter of preference.  It’s also hard to quantify which is the best guitar effects pedals, again it’s a matter of personal preference.  Still you can look around on various sites and see which is the best selling.  The Boss line seems to be the best guitar effects pedal in most areas, at least they’re the best selling and everybody has at least one in their guitar effects pedal board.

Boss DS-1 Distortion Pedal is the most popular of the Boss distortion pedal line. it’s been used from everybody of Kurt Cobain who used it in his stage rig in 1992 (Although he used the DS-2 by 1994) of Nirvana to Joe Satriani.  It’s so simple like a lot of the Boss pedals, it’s got tone, level, and distortion knobs, that’s it.

The Pro Co RAT2 Distortion Pedal is another popular distortion pedal from twin sound to English crunch.  Just three knobs and glow in the dark graphics so you can see what you’re looking at.

Distortion pedals are a personal matter of taste and musical style, so every pedal isn’t going to be good for everybody.  Some sites will allow you to listen to a pedal, they’ve got Mp3s you can download and see what they sound like.  That gives you an idea of what the effects pedal sounds like before you buy it.  Musicians Friend has sound clips for a lot of its effects pedals.

Now, the effects pedal probably isn’t the first one you should buy, reason being is because you’ve probably already got an amp, and it should have distortion.  If you’ve got a small practice amp, then you probably won’t get great distortion, and it’s hard to get an in between distortion, but at least it’s there.  So, if you’re a starving guitarist (aren’t we all?) then fist you should buy something that you don’t already have.  I’m not saying don’t buy it right away, if you can afford it, ’cause you can get a better sound, but when saving money, it doesn’t make sense to buy something you already have.  Besides you if you had a lot of money you could’ve just bought a bigger amp instead of buying a tiny amp and then buying a distortion pedal.