We invest many hours in researching, testing, and analyzing hundreds of products so you can make the best decision when purchasing the best overdrive pedals for your guitar effects.
When choosing the best overdrive pedals it is difficult to make a ranking since the saturated sound that you end up producing depends on many factors such as the amplifier, the pickups, etc. And choosing one or the other can go more according to the tastes of each person.
In music, the term overdrive refers to the controlled sound distortion of certain instruments to give them a more characteristic loudness. What does someone look for when buying an overdrive pedal? The intention is often twofold: either to provide a gain to overdrive a distorted valve amplifier or to approximate the slightly distorted sound of an overdrive valve amplifier.
The overdrive is that effect pedal that will give you a natural and crunchy sound. Similar to Boost, it increases the volume of the signal to help the amplifier reach its sound limit and achieve distorted loudness. From the Dissection Table, we have prepared this list with the overdrive pedals that, in our opinion, stand out.
How to choose an Overdrive guitar pedal?
When looking for an overdrive pedal, the first thing you should consider is how it will work on your device. For example, let’s say you use Fender guitars (which are generally quite bright) and a Peavey Bandit.
This type of equipment would give you a fairly balanced frequency response. You want something that has a bright voice because it will help your guitar cut the mix a little better. If you are playing the rhythm, on the other hand, you want a pedal that helps you mix the mixture and fill it.
One of the most useful things when choosing an overdrive pedal is to hear how it sounds. For each pedal on this list (and beyond), there are dozens of audio demos on YouTube. Whoever is doing the demo also usually talks about the guitar and the amplifier he is using, so you can see how the overdrive pedal fits his equipment.
Another way to narrow down your selection is to look at your favorite professional guitarists and find out what overdrive pedals they are using and which is the best overdrive pedal according to your needs.
The best Overdrive pedals for guitar effects
The effects of booster, overdrive, distortion, and fuzz are different types of saturations that are applied to the signal causing the sound to be distorted. Each of these effects saturates the signal within a range and allows to achieve a unique type of sound.
Depending on what style of music you play and what sound you want to achieve, you will be more interested in one or more of these types of pedals.
However, here we show you a list of the most famous and used guitar overdrive pedals currently on the market. And each one with a detailed description so you can see which one may be right for you. There are more expensive, cheaper, but always good options.
Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer
It’s hard to talk about the best overdrive pedals without mentioning the Ibanez Tube Screamer. This iconic overdrive pedal has seen several incarnations since the late 1970s and continues to evolve.
His early association with names such as Stevie Ray Vaughan has given him a great reputation as a pedal to get warm sounds suitable for blues, pop, rock, and many other genres of a great audience. On its own, it delivers a tone that can range from mild saturations to solo sounds, but it is also magnificent to complete the sound of an already distorted amp. It is not a pedal that delivers extreme sounds or very high gain but, even so, it is widely used among metal guitarists to obtain sounds with more aggressiveness, placing it before a considerably saturated amplifier, with the volume and tone almost to the maximum and the gain at a moderate level.
It has a drive knob, a tone knob, and a level knob. The drive knob adjusts the gain, the tone knob adjusts the treble and the level knob adjusts the output volume of the pedal. The pedal is used to try to mimic the sound of a vintage valve amplifier.
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Boss BD-2 Blues Driver Guitar Effects Pedal
This is another of the best overdrive pedals to buy. Despite its name, the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver is much more than a pedal for blues. It is often mentioned next to the Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer. Considering how legendary the Tube Screamer is, that is high praise. Artists such as John Mayer, Kelly Jones of Stereophonics, and Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day have used this pedal in their live performances.
Boss pedals are famous for being able to withstand a beating for many years and keep working perfectly. The aesthetics of the pedal is subjective, but we have to mention that the Blues Driver is a very attractive pedal, with its blue color and yellow letters. If you’ve been looking at other overdrive pedals, the knobs on this one won’t surprise you: LEVEL, GAIN and TONE. The Gain knob allows you to mark the desired amount of overdrive. Adjusting the gain at approximately 30% gives it that crunchy tone like Hendrix’s.
The interaction between your guitar’s volume knob and the BD-2’s bell leaves you with fine-grained control over the amount of cracking and breaking. Turn the gain knob between 60% and 70% to get a great solo blues tone alone, but one that still allows you to articulate the chords. The Tone knob, like the previous pedals we have covered, allows you to range from very dark to extremely bright and sharp, and you’ll want to adjust it based on the guitar and amp combo you have.
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Fulltone OCD Obsessive Compulsive Drive Pedal
Several TOC factors contribute to this versatility, but the main one is the two switchable modes it has. A small switch on the top of the pedal allows you to select between LP mode (Low Peak) and HP mode (yes, you guessed it, High Peak).
Low Peak is rather a transparent reinforcement, which means that instead of sounding like an overloaded monster, it maintains the tone you have. Switching to High Peak mode offers more aggressive distortion, and this is where you can step on this pedal. You will hear a definitive jump in volume, along with an increase in the media and a little increase in high frequencies. Several users of this pedal, as well as Fulltone themselves, describe the Low Peak mode as a “Blackface or Tweed with crank” more similar to a Fender, while the High Peak mode is for a more “British” vibration (Vox and Marshall wing). This comparison also sounds quite accurate to our ears. As you can see, a lot of tonal versatility here.
There are Volume, Drive, and Tone knobs and they are very sensitive to touch. So much so that among all the fine-tuning you will do on the pedal, along with the volume and tone controls of your guitar, you can spend hours and hours dialing in a wide range of overdrive tones.
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Vertex Effects Ultraphonix Overdrive Guitar Effects
This is another of the best overdrive pedals to buy. This Vertex Effects super pedal is designed to recreate the overdrive produced by a Dumble™ Overdrive Special amplifier. An amplifier that reaches tens of thousands of dollars in the second-hand market. How? Vertex underwent a four-year R&D process, using a four-generation sample size of these Overdrive Special amplifiers from 1970 to 1990 for voice and pedal calibration. The Ultra Phonix is more than capable of providing the iconic D-style overdrive tone to any clean amplifier platform.
This is the second Vertex pedal that emulates the sound of a Dumble, after the Steel String Clean Drive based on the Steel String Singer. The Vertex Ultraphonix Overdrive has very basic controls: Volume, Filter (adjusts brightness), and Gain. It also has a mechanical True Bypass and can be powered by a 9V battery or standard Boss power supply with a negative to the center. If you are looking for the most sonically correct D-style overdrive pedal, look no further. With this 100% analog pedal, you will have exactly what you are looking for.
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Joyo JF-02 Ultimate Drive
In terms of design, you’ll notice that the Joyo Ultimate Drive is remarkably similar to the pedal you are supposed to copy, the Fulltone OCD. Where the OCD has Volume, Drive, and Tone knobs as well as a toggle switch, the Jewel has Gain, Level, and Tone, and the same small toggle switch. Despite its low price, we are pleased to report that its casing is completely metallic and feels resistant. It looks and feels a bit like an MXR pedal.
The Joyo sounds great, and it is almost shocking that it is offered at such a low price. It remains more or less true to OCD, but there are some significant differences. Notably, in the same settings, the TOC is brighter. The tone control of the Joyo Ultimate Drive gets darker long before turning to the left. Think of it as treble control.
Changing the switch from Low to High will brighten the doorbell and give it a higher touch, which sounds great if your guitar has humbuckers. Even with the gain control completely lowered, you get a clean and pleasant increase that responds well to your game dynamics. Like the OCD Drive knob, the gain is very sensitive, and marking it from zero to 10 or 11 o’clock makes a tremendous difference. The owners of the Joyo and the OCD have pointed out that although the Joyo is not as bright, it has more gain (that is, you will need to turn the gain knob on the OCD more to match the Joyo’s gain).
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Electro-Harmonix Soul Food
This is another of the best overdrive pedals to buy. Since the late 1960s, Electro-Harmonix has produced almost every imaginable and unimaginable flavor of overdrive, distortion, and fuzz. The Soul Food is a brazen attempt to offer an affordable version of one of the most mythical and hyperactive pedals ever created, the Klon Centaur. The Centaur became a legend of organic, transparent, and very detailed overdrive tones. These basic features are also found in the Soul Food of Electro-Harmonix, a pedal that, fortunately, can be achieved for a very affordable price.
The Electro-Harmonix Soul Food offers a transparent overdrive with a great touch and response. Its circuitry has increased power rails to provide abundant clearance and greater definition. It has three different types of regulators: for the volume, for the drive, and the tremble. In addition to switches on and off (on and off).
With the correct settings, Soul Food is the type of overdrive pedal that will leave you more than satisfied. A relatively transparent pedal, with plenty of free space, will generate both the dirtiest and most colorful tones. Electro Harmonix has provided a well-made and affordable alternative to the mythical Klon Centaur, and we can only recommend it.
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Boss SD-1 Super Overdrive
This is another best overdrive pedals for guitar effects from the famous company Boss. Without any doubt, Boss made a name for himself by providing the world with affordable and functioning overdrive pedals. This is true and the SD-1 is a perfect example. It is one of the most basic pedals in terms of controls and features, is affordable, and generates a sound that will make you smile involuntarily. That’s all you can expect from a pedal like that.
The SD-1 was designed more than two decades ago, however, it remains one of the most used options in the current market. If you need a standard and safe overdrive, you have a tight budget, The Boss SD-1 is one of the best options you have. Whether you use it in a clean channel or one with some gain, the quality of this pedal will remain there.
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TC Electronic MojoMojo
This is another of the best overdrive pedals to buy. The MojoMojo from TC Electronics is one of the most interesting and affordable overdrive pedals you can find. It comes mounted on a sturdy chassis and has much more than you would expect. Frankly, we are surprised that TCE has not included its TonePrint technology in this package. However, it is perfectly fine as it is. It has its standard two-band equalizer, along with level and distortion controls. Right in the middle of these controls, you’ll see a voice switch.
What this switch does is affect the mid frequencies, which allows it to be sharper or looser in that range. While it is a fairly neutral overdrive, the versatility it offers is worthy of respect. With a little imagination, you can move through one in a wide range of tones. Add a true bypass in the mix, and you will have a formidable pedal valid for everyone.
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Wampler Tom Quayle Dual Fusion
One thing you should appreciate about Wampler is his enthusiasm for approaching talented musicians and cooperating with them to design new pedals. Your Dual Fusion overdrive is the fruit of those efforts. The pedal itself is quite complex for overdrive, but that is mainly because it is a type of 2-in-1 pedal. If you look closely, you will see that there are two groups of duplicate controls on each side of the pedal.
One side is labeled Modern, while the other leans more towards the type of vintage tone. To say that the fusion of these two sounds is incredible, while the authenticity of the tone of each mode is tangible as soon as you turn on this pot.
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Behringer Overdrive Distortion OD300
Behringer’s ability to create an effect pedal at a low cost is formidable. Your pedals will always have a market, and Behringer will continue to reward that gratitude by releasing even more pedals that are incredible for their price. As overdrives are among the easiest-to-design pedals, it is not surprising that Behringer currently offers a very affordable but very capable model.
We are talking about OD300. This model represents a fusion between overdrive and distortion. The OD300 is easy to use and has a very decent range of capabilities to set the tone. This pedal wouldn’t hold a world tour, but to practice or give occasional concerts, it’s more than good. Those musicians who have a very tight budget will appreciate a solution like this.
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Conclusion
In this small list, we cover some very modern period masterpieces and pedals and with a lot of sound variety. Each pedal is equipped with a set of qualities that cover the needs of guitarists of all genres.