REVIEWED
Guitar Tech Classic Distortion GUITAR
TECH Classic
Distortion pedals often conjure up mental images of the overly fuzzy, metal boxes of hate many of us started off our playing lives with. Wasp in a jam jar, glass of pop, all of the old clichés come rolling off the tongue. These days there are heaps of expensive boutique pedals that claim to offer everything from realistic emulations of classic overdrive and fuzz pedals to the more experimental variety that sound like R2D2 being electrocuted inside a barrel full of scrap metal! While we
GUITAR TECH Classic Distortion
SRP
All prices include VAT CONT
ACT
JHS T:
W: 28 3pickup
01132 865 381
www.jhs.co.uk
£39.99 Distortion
Guitar Tech come up with a classy sounding distortion pedal that won’t send your bank balance into overdrive...
Words: Hayden Hewitt
love ‘em all, what of the low cost, useable distortion pedal, surely it can’t only be left to the redoubtable Boss DS-1 to hold the fort? Well no, not any more. Guitar Tech’s Classic Distortion pedal aims to offer good quality distortion tones for around the same price as some of us spend on a decent quality cable. Does the Classic Distortion hit the spot? Let’s find out.
Base Metal First impressions are definitely positive. The pedal is a sturdy metal unit with an outline similar to the classic MXR squat rectangle shape. On the bottom there is a rubber base attached to the metal undercarriage along with a quick release compartment. The rubber base is actually quite slippery so those of you out there with pedal boards will definitely want to break out the Velcro as soon as you get one. On the top we have level and gain knobs along with two small knobs marked “Hi” and “Lo” which give you a little more flexibility than the more traditional single tone knob. Surrounding the chunky on-off
switch is the legend “Hand crafted analog system”. Nice!
So far so good then, solid build
quality, some flexibility in tone shaping, and true bypass all for what is really a budget price. Now for the most important part of all, how does it sound? If I am honest I was fully prepared to be a little underwhelmed given this pedal’s modest price but I had to eat my words; the Classic Distortion is actually a great pedal! Instead of the nest of angry wasps you get a fat, deep tone. Yes it’s a distortion and not an overdrive so there is always that element of grit around the edges but it definitely sounds a lot more musical than mechanical. Winding the gain up to around the 12 - 1 O’clock point and taming the high end a little allows you to really grab some cool and super-smooth Vai / Satch type tones, the type of tones where the distortion still lets the guitar breath and allows its individual sonic signature to bleed through. Crank the gain past the three O’clock point and the pedal begins to hunker down and compress rather than just get dirtier (although there is a fair old amount
of filth still happening) and using a neck humbucker you can easily get a classic Gary Moore ‘hoot’ along with some wonderfully greasy lead tones. PM
SHOULD I BUY ONE?
The Classic Distortion won’t do “vintage valve amp” and it won’t do brutal, full on metal either. What it does do, and does incredibly well, is cover the gamut of meat and potatoes rock and hard rock tones that offer chunky rhythm sounds and some truly joyous lead tones to play with, too. If this pedal were double the price I would still highly recommend giving it a try but given its actual price I would recommend that you buy one even if you don’t think you need a distortion pedal right now. You will have loads of fun with this, no two ways about it.
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