Dear Musicians,

I need your advice. I'd like to buy a tube pedal effect for playing Rock music. I've been wondering which are the most suitable pedal effects for that kind of music the Radial's tube destortion pedals or the Electro Harmonics' English Muff'n, Big Muff PI or Hot Tubes ??? I checked the MP3 samples on both companies web sites and it seems to me that the Radial ones have more Metal edge sound. Is that true? I'm not able to check them at a shop so I have to made my decision before getting it. Please give me your advice and comments. Thanks in advance.

Best,
Milen

Welcome to the site. I'm not familiar with the Hot Tubes pedal myself, but of the other three, I would say you can get the tone you are looking for out of any of them, really. The problem with distortion pedals isn't usually getting a full-on mondo crunch like metal works best with, it's more often getting a mild overdrive for blusey stuff without them sounding thin or constipated. SO I'd say take your pick. The solid state stuff can be edgier sounding, so you might be happier with the regular Big Muff Pi , or a Visual Sound Jeckyl & Hyde pedal than you think, and it will cost less too. You ought to be able to pick a solid state Muff up on ebay for less than $50, and the Visual Sound J & H ought to go used for around $100.
If you wanna spend the money on a tube pedal, more power to ya, and I think any of them will get you a cool metal tone. But you might as happy or happier with a solid state pdeal for less.