Best distortion pedal for Tube amp?

I have a Laney tube amp that has awesome bluesy sounds. Clean is sweet. Now for some grunt. Which pedals can get me there without sounding fuzzy. Over-drive pedals seem fuzzy at high gain, and can lose the tight crunch. I also would like a boost for my solos, but maybe this is another pedal?

I was considering:
* Boss DS-1
* Marshall Gov'ner
* Marshall Gov'ner plus

Any tips or opinions on any of these pedals? Pro's, con's? I quite like the Marshall sound for heavy stuff.

I use both a strat and a LP.

Alot of people like the DS-1, but I have one and find it really thin and brittle sounding, especially for leads. Crank the treble up past
3 o'clock and it turns into an icepick, but roll back the treble to try and fatten it up some and it stays just as thin, only a little muddier. Not very good for anything but thrashy punkish stuff, IMO, and even then I think it lacks balls. Maybe the low output humbuckers and single coils I've been using don't get the most out of it, though.
I've never tried either of the Marshall pedals. The only Marshall pedal I ever tried was the Jackhammer, and I thought a real jackhammer would have sounded better. If you're looking for a Marshall-y sound, you might want to look at the ProCo Rat and its variations. Harmonic distortion from a pedal that's been described as "a Marshall in a box". I don't have one, but I've heard nothing but good things.

It has its own characteristic sound, even with the drive down.

I couldn't have said it better. Add up all the money that you've dropped on misc. pedals (the collective "you," not intended to be personal). Is the EMG
DG20 really all that expensive? Plus, with pedals, you magnify noise. With the DG20 you eliminate it.

My early '71 fourbolt hardtail: http://www.seattle-attorney.com/strat_cu.jpg

I use a RAT in front of my Dual Recto. I had tried it a long time ago in front of some other toy amp and hated it. Finally, I reconsidered and thought, hey its a simple device, and some swear by it... So I got it and within minutes found my tone. Its the best thing I ever put in front of the
Mesa. I use it for my crazy smooth long tone Frippy solo sort of stuff. I guess its got the tone rolled to a dark setting, distortion at about 2/3 and level at a point a little hotter than it is in pure bypass mode. It blends real sweetly with my guitar and amp. I use it to get gain levels and a certain tonal quality that I would get with an Ebow, but I obviously don't need the Ebow to do it! I have a pretty good right hand mute technique that mutes all the strings not played, and leaving one to go off for a long time.
I use my Strat with Virtual Vintage and a DM twin rail 'bucker in the bridge.

I personally prefer the natural overdrive of a cranked tube amp to a clean amp with pedal distortion. If you play loud anymore than 40-50 watts will be too much headroom to achieve this without hurting yourself. If you have a 100 watt amp you can pull two of the power tubes cutting your wattag in half.

I play at 40 watts with my preamp at like 3 and my master at 9.5. If
I need more than that I kick on my MXR Microamp which boosts the signal and hits the preamp harder.

An old guitarist of mine had a vintage Orange that wouldn't overdrive.
He used a Boss Overdrive in front and it sounded great.
star.star www.starstar.ca

depends on the amp volume before you add the tube screamer. I use a Marshall
Bluesbreaker combo, and if i have the amp up on around 5 or higher then add a little bit of the overdrive on the tube screamer it sounds great. If i have the amp down low and add lots of overdrive with the tube screamer it kinda sucks. SRV always had his amp real loud and used just a little of the tube screamer, but its amazing how much it changes the sound even with not much overdrive added, provided your amp is at a higher volume.

True! I have dimarzios on one of strats, the RAT sounds fine with them. On my 57 reissue strat the RAT sounds awaful, but if i use it as a gain boost its fine, if i turn up the gain the sc's cant handle it, which is understandable seeing dist pedalswerent around when the 57 strats were made!

Absolutely! TS's aren't the best pedal ever made, but they do the trick in spades. I have 3 of them (two TS-10's and an original
TS-9--the TS-9 bought in approx 1983). I would recommend 2 tube screamers (and not just 'coz SRV used to). It really does work to set one up with the Drive around 8:00 or 9:00 O'Clock and the 2nd with the
Dive around 1:00 O'Clock. Then you can get three different sounds and cover a lot of bases.

Just a BTW, IMHO . . .. I'd also recommend a GE-7 or some other pedal with a Boost/EQ (one of the old Hyper-Fuzz pedals in the Gain setting will do as well due to it's tone controls).

I find I have to "fatten" up the raw sound of my amp to use the TS's as a mainstay rhythm sound, but an EQ of some sort will allow you to get the sound you like without the amp being tweaked as much. Just step on the GE-7 with the settings you like when the TS's are off, and then turn it off to fire up the TS's (or vice-versa of course . . you can set your amp up for use without the TS's, and the EQ for use with 'em).

I have been told that the DS-1 is great when the dist on it is turned very low, and used more as a boost.

I've got an original early TS-9 with the good chip, modified to 808 specs. It's good, as far as a pedal goes, but I'm thinking two in series would be way too noisy for me. I rarely use it, now that most of my guitars have EMG's, so I have very hot (but quiet) outputs.

The original Rat pedal is great for a fat, clean gain boost into a cranked tube amp. I think most people don't use them like this, but if you keep the distortion setting low & the output high you can get a ton of boost & it sounds really great.

Or, maybe I just got lucky with my particulart unit.

"D.R" read this in the National Enquirer :

Dunno. Never fucked it.

thats exactly what i use mine for, not actual distortion, just a gain boost for a valve amp, thats what theyr'e supposed to be used for aint it?

If all the tubescreamer is used for is to drive the tube amp, then wouldn't any old OD pedal do the trick?

I am so peaved that I sold my Tech_21 SansAmp GT-2.
That was the best sounding pedal I ever owned.

I see a Boss OD2 going real cheap in my area, is this a good 'un? I mean it's no tube screamer, but they are as rare as hens teeth in my country.

I have 6 different strats all with different pickups, and the RAT sounds thin on all of them. any of my other guitars wiht humbuckers or noiseless single coils sound great. Gilmour uses a RAT, but only for a gain boost, as does Carl Verheyen. Both those guys use hotted up noiseless single coils.

I find the RAT to be an awesome pedal, used for a agin boost or just for distortion. With the DS-1, i've found it sounds different through different amps. The RAT sounds crap with single coils, unless they are active or noiseless. Vintage fender pickups suck with the RAT.

You know, I agree with that. It's a great pedal, sure...but everytime I go to a blues jam it seems like everyone is playing a Strat into a Tube Screamer.

Here's a suggestion...if you really like the sound of your amp, try a Tech21
Comptortion. It's not a pedal to get if you're looking for something to give you something you feel your amp lacks, but it will give you a boost, plus some distortion and compression while retaining your amp's natural tone. Lots of pedals may have better-sounding distortion or overdrive, but they really change your amp's color.

yes, i have the virual vintage pk'ups, they sound great with the RAT

Yeah the marshall sound is what I am after from the pedal. Which Rat is most Marshall-esque?