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The Distortion station from AMT electronics is perhaps my favorite and most versitle transistor based distortions around. The unit can be powerd fron a nine volt battery or from an AC adapter.The unit has one quarter inch input and one quarter inch output. There are rotary knobs for controlling level, low, high, and gain. There are also three independent three way switches that select amp type, modification, and mic simulated placements. American, British, and Tweed are the three amp types available. The modifications available include Clean, High gain, and Hot wired. The three mic placements are Classic, Center, and Off-axis. These switches combined with the highly interactive tone controls create a tone tweakers dream come true. The pedal is fully analog so you are working with real sounds and not struggling to make fake sounds behave as real ones like with some digital models.

UTILIZATION

As with my other early AMT purchase there was no documentation provided in the box however the AMT site does contain great detail about their product line. A manual would have been nice with this pedal though because of all the variations available. As far as tone creation is conserned there are almost too many ways to shape the output. Take time and learn how each of the switches interact with each other and then how the basic four knobs vary those options. Rest easy though because in general it is easy to create totally awesome sounds. The pedal ranges for subtle to outrageous and everywhere in between. Do not let the lack of a mid control imply this pedal can not do metal. By using the switches properly and boosting the low and mid you can get an insane amount of metal distortion suitable for the heaviest or fastest riffage needed.

SOUNDS

I have had a pleasent experience using this pedal with my entire guitar collection ranging from Gilmour to Yngwie to some of my death machines. While I do own a vast collection of pedals this one covers the most ground by far. It can be fairly warm considering it is transistor based and scream with out being overly harsh, unless harsh is what you are shooting for. My favorite use for this pedal though is for Metal, all types and varieties. To me it is my go to distortion box for placing in front of an amps clean channel. No matter what you are going for though be assured that the pedal is clear and capable of loads of saturation without some unpleasant results I have heardin other pedals. Also unlike most Metal based pedals this can do hard rock to acid rock to blues to sqweak and sqwuak regae tones.

OVERALL OPINION

There is nothing about this pedal I do not like and the only thing I could find to improve on it would be a fourth switch to engage a tube, but I have tube based units and more things could ruin what I consider to be one of the most valuable pedals in my collection. Definitaly a desert island unit if you get my drift. This pedal may seem a touch higher in price than comparable units but its versitility more than justifies its cost. I ordered this pedal site unseen after hearing many sound clips, yes I know they can be deceiving at times but this time the chance paid off. At the time of purchace AMT units were very hard to obtain and I am forever thankful that I did not stop the pursuit of this pedal. I am always previewing pedals but this purchace raised the bar on what I accept as a good unit. I would definitaly do what I had to do to replace it if it were gone but it is well built and hopefully it will always be there for me.