The Top 5 Overdrive Pedals You Need to Know!
Warmly recommended for testing!
4,8 / 5,0 | 
These top 5 overdrive pedals are must-haves for any pedalboard. This article is written to help you sort through the seemingly endless choice of distortion pedals. The choice is huge and it’s easy to lose track of what you want and need. We have tried to keep the selection down to a manageable size, but there should be something for everyone.
This article was originally written by Andreas Cordes for GEARNEWS.de.
Top 5 Overdrive Pedals You Need to Know
Origin Effects Revival Drive Compact
Let’s start with the most versatile of the top 5 overdrive pedals. The Revival Drive Compact from Origin Effects can do it all. The pedal sounds like a tube amp. With a natural response to plucking the strings and turning down the volume on the guitar, it can create the sonic essences of Marshall, Fender and Vox with the More/Pres control, all with great dynamics.
The reactive design simulates the interaction between amp and speaker for a realistic feel and authentic sound. The Revival Drive even captures the characteristic ‘power supply sag’ for subtle, natural compression. The existing controls give you full access to the sound, dynamics and distortion characteristics. The interactive mix control allows you to reduce the gain and add a dry signal at the same time. This is a very useful feature. I often find that the original sound, i.e. the unprocessed guitar signal, is either too strong or too weak.
The Revival Drive is also great for direct recording, as a preamp. Just set up your favourite IR in your DAW and off you go.
The pedal is made in the UK with the highest quality components inside and out. For me, it’s a “good choice” pedal and therefore belongs in the top 5 overdrive pedals. You can get the Origin Effects Revival Drive Compact here at Thomann.de* for the price of $342.00 / £315.00 / 368.00€.
Revv Tilt Overdrive
One of my all time favourite pedals – right at the top of my top 5 overdrive pedals list. Designed by Nashville guitarist Shawn Tubbs, this is a combination of an overdrive with an upstream Tilt EQ booster. First, the overdrive. It sounds and feels very good right from the start. I kind of got hooked on the sound. The Revv Tilt Overdrive delivers low to medium gain. Shawn Tubbs himself says that he had the sound of a vintage ‘non-master-volume’ amp in mind when he designed it. Whatever it is, it sounds wonderful.
Let’s move on to the booster. This is connected before the overdrive. It can be used in combination with the Overdrive or on its own. The tilt EQ determines the frequency at which the boost is applied. The spectrum ranges from fat, low-mid tones to cutting highs that work more like a presence control.
The flexibility allows you to use the Booster to create a Tube Screamer-like midrange boost or to add those biting Marshall highs to your overdrive. You can hear what I mean in the video below. The Revv Tilt Overdrive is recommended for testing and can be ordered here at Thomann.de* for $269.00 / £243.00 / 289.00€.
JHS Morning Glory
The JHS Morning Glory brings the sound of a Marshall Bluesbreaker to your pedalboard. The Bluesbreaker is responsible for this bread and butter sound. In other words, an overdrive anyone can use. Absolute clarity of distortion structure. You can hear every single string when playing chords. String separation is exemplary. But if you like a slightly distorted amp, where you can control the intensity of the distortion with your picking, this pedal will make you smile.
The pedal also has a switchable Red Mode, which can produce mid-gain sounds and does so with flying colours. A definite candidate for the top 5 overdrive pedals. The JHS Morning Glory costs $211.00 / £195.00 / 229.00€ and can be ordered here at Thomann.de*.
Warm Audio Centavo
A clone belongs on every pedalboard, and therefore in my top 5 overdrive pedals.
The Warm Audio Centavo is a faithful reproduction of the Centaur clone. However, the Centavo is affordable and virtually indistinguishable from the original. Full low- to mid-gain overdrive with pronounced low mids. Less growly and woody than a Tube Screamer, but juicier with plenty of sustain. It can be used to thicken a Stratocaster nicely. The Centavo really comes into its own when used with an already distorted amp. There are also plenty of voices that use it as the basis for an upstream distortion.
It is also very popular as a solo boost. This way you can really push yourself to the fore during a solo.
The Warm Audio Centavo also has a MOD mode with a fat bass boost, useful for thin-sounding amps or guitars. All the more reason to put it in the top 5. The Warm Audio Centavo is currently available as a special edition here at Thomann.de* for $168.00 / £152.00 / 179.00€ .
MXR GT-OD
The oldest and most unassuming of all overdrive pedals. The MXR GT-OD is green and produces the green sound of a tube screamer. In my opinion, it does it a little better. The GT-OD sounds a little less mid-range than the TS. The sound has more body. Wonderful sustain with a very smooth character.
The MXR GT-OD is the perfect solution for cutting through a loud band and making yourself heard as a soloist, and for me it’s a better alternative to the classic tube screamer. The price is nice too. You can get the MXR GT-OD for $130.00 / £117.00 / 139.00€ here at Thomann.de*. That’s why the MXR GT-OD gets a safe place in the top 5 overdrive pedals.
What are your top 5 overdrive pedals?
I know there are many more overdrive pedals that could be included in this top category. Of course, it’s always a matter of personal taste. I’ve owned and played countless overdrive pedals and gotten rid of some after a while. Others, however, always find their way back onto my pedalboard. These are my top 5 overdrive pedals. Which are your favourites and why? Let us know in the comments.
Read more about overdrive pedals on Gearnews
*Please note: This Top 5 Overdrive Pedals article contains widgets and affiliate links that help us pay for this site. Don’t worry: the price for you will always be the same! If you buy something through these links, we will receive a small commission. Thank you for your support!
This might also interest you
3 responses to “The Top 5 Overdrive Pedals You Need to Know!”
1. Keeley Java or Analog Man Beano Boost with the three way mode switch. Both offer three perfectly tuned versions of the classic Range Master. From bright and cutting, to rich vocal midrange, to vintage Sabbath approved pseudo fuzz overdrive.
Original or “Classic” SansAmp. Whether or not you want a well EQ’d cleanish boost, light OD, or heavy OD odds are you can find it in this box. The buffer is Studio quality, it can be used direct or for late night headphone playing. And used as an Boost or OD in the “Rhythm” setting it provides a rich tube like tone that fattens up your sound like a deep fried Mars Bar.it also works great for both bass and guitar providing thickness that doesn’t bury your sound in mud.
Dunlop EP Boost. I love the sound of a cranked preamp on a vintage styled tube tape echo unit. it adds a sweetened glassy brilliance to your tone that never gets too harsh or brittle sounding. For reference I have a Full Tone Tube Tape Echo units that is my dream peice of gear for that tone, but have to admit an EP Boost into my Pigtronix Echolution 2D gets me 85-90% of the way there are way lest cost. The EP boost is a highly recommended sleeper pick.
MXR Fat Sugar. First I want to say I am not a Klon lover. Not anything against the pedal, but it just is not the sound I am going for. That said I really love this version of MXR’s take on the Klon. It’s tone has nice grit, a good toothy bite, and just the perfect amount of lows to not get flabby when your amp is cranked and using this box as your more button. It doesn’t obliterate your core tone, and adds to it in a perfectly balanced way.
Another sleeper. The old DOD Juice Box. If you’re noticing a trend, yes I love boosts and OD’s that have a nice glassy tube like dynamic bite to their tone, and this box delivers it in spades. The core OD tone brings to mind Jimi Hendrix and John Fruscianti’s just past the edge or breakup tones, and you can add in a little or a lot of compression to alter the dynamic swing of that core tone to emulate the sound of cranking a non-master Marshall to the point of powerful saturation and compression without loosing that beautiful glassy crunch.
Of the five really 3 of them really work best as a seasoning to an already cranked tube amp tone such as a vintage Hiwatt, Marshall, or Vox versus getting great low volume OD tones that simulate a cranked tube amp. The two outliers are first the SansAmp which is great both into a cranked amp, and for getting convincing cranked amp tones out of a tube amp at low volumes or even an SS amp. Second the Juicebox which thanks to its built in simple compressor circuit can get some of that cranked amp tone at lower volumes.
lol, I am blaming half or more of those typos above on spell check..
OCD by Fulltone is my go to for sustain and leads.
Klon Centaur is my heavy rhythm choice and for most blues stuff.
Exotic EP boost for a clean boost.