Distortion Pedals

[Ancient Astronaught]

Tones I really dig: The Sword, HoF (Death is this Communion), Mastodon, ASG, KWC, Jerry Cantrell, etc etc. Basically the heavies that are tight enough to palm mute the shit out of everything.

You need an elements It can do everything from clean boost, to low gain OD, to full on all out JCM cranked and boosted and everything in between. If your looking for a distortion pedal I haven't found any better (except for the Verellen SkyHammer preamp, but thats technically a preamp not a dirtbox). It has absolutely the best tight palm muting chug I have found, and it loves being boosted like the front end of an amp. You can nail a reasonable facsimile of all the bands you mentioned with this pedal with just a bit of tweaking. It can definitely pull off the HoF tone, Mastodon and ASG tones with ease, the others would take some playing around with but I'm sure are contained within it somewhere.

I have tried a bunch of Rat pedals and I only like them when being used in conjunction with other pedals. I've never liked them just by themselves, they just don't have the gain I'm looking for.

The HM-2 (or clone thereof) could possibly be another good contender, but unless you get a well thought out clone (like the Dunwich) its kinda a one trick pony.

[Tristan]

I didn't know some bands you listed but I took the time to listen to it and I do hear quite some different textures in there so I don't know whether it's possible to cop everything convincingly with a single box.
There's some cranked Marshall type sounds in there but also some more loose and fuzzy or twangy ones.
Some brands you could check out:
AMT, Black Arts Toneworks, Blackout Effectors (Blunderbuss, Mantra), Carl Martin, Catalinbread, Death By Audio (Apocalypse), Dr Scientist (The Elements), Earthquaker Devices, Homebrew Electronics (Big D, Full Metal Jacket), Monte Allums (OD308), Rockbox, Rothwell, Wampler, Weehbo

A RAT is probably one of those drives you can work with and like it or you don't.
For me they never work, I never get enough punch / balls / direct and dynamic sound out of them and I hate that filter knob because it never seems to be right, the gain is also never right, usually it has too much grain and gets too fizzy or too mushy for my tastes but I know other people get great tones with them so it must be me.

Just to complicate things some more, as requested.

[t-rey]

Yeah - the examples are a really wide array of tones that are done with completely different gear. Boosted Marshalls, Oranges, dirt pedals, Rectos, Bogner, etc. So I'm not really looking to replicate anything, but those are the kinds of heavy I like. I completely forgot about the Mantra - that's definitely getting added to the list.

[Ancient Astronaught]

Yeah - the examples are a really wide array of tones that are done with completely different gear. Boosted Marshalls, Oranges, dirt pedals, Rectos, Bogner, etc. So I'm not really looking to replicate anything, but those are the kinds of heavy I like. I completely forgot about the Mantra - that's definitely getting added to the list.

Mantra is low gain OD, its basically an OCD on the low gain toggle and a bax eq instead of a tone knob.

[t-rey]

Touche. Off the list.

Anybody tried the Catlinbread DLS MkIII?

[Tristan]

Whoops, my bad, thought Blackout offered a gain mod for the Mantra but apparently it's a low gain mod, oh well...

[Warpsmasher]

I found the Elements to be too gritty/staticy on the high gain settings, in my setup (super clean, mixer to powered monitors). That was before I had the Tech 21 Tri-OD, which can be used as a cab sim with no dirt. When used that way, it shaves off all the bad top end parts of high gain distortion (bees, fizz, static etc), and now that I have it I wish I still had the Elements to try with it.

Death Metal and Grunge are cool pedals that get too much bad press. I like and own both; it's better to have them around than to lose them for a measly 20 bucks or whatever.

Definitely try some AMT Legends, they are pretty much the kings of solid state distortion.

The MXR Fullbore Metal is a love it or hate it kind of pedal (I'm on the love side). I think it's probably got the most gain of any pedal ever. There's really nothing else that can match it's low end chug and thickness. I don't know if Tripps was trolling the industry or sincerely trying to crush the competition when he designed it for Dunlop, but either way I think it's a pretty awesome achievement.

[conky]

I had an Elements. It fucking ruled, but I'm an amp distortion guy so I got rid of it. It did sound great no matter how I set the controls though and sounded even better on bass. Can't go wrong with it. It isn't a distortion but I can palm mute the shit out of my riffs when I slam my amp with my Revelation.

[Harry_Manback]

Elements. Quit fucking around.

[t-rey]

Done and done. I am going to inception my wife and implant the idea that she needs to buy me and Elements for mah birthday.

[new05002]

twss

[humancertainty]

I will say that the Mantra gets plenty dirty if you dime the volume and gain. I run it after my BAT Oath but it could stand alone if you don't need to get too gnarly. And it handles the palm mutes really well.

[t-rey]

Back on the list. I've decided that I will be getting an Elements, but now I feel like I need another distortion just for variety and shit. I've never paid a ton of attention to distortion pedals....I get the feeling I've started my way down another very deep and expensive rabbit hole.

[D.o.S.]

You want that KWC toanz, you want an MXR Distortion +.

[Iommic Pope]

I have a mantra, it goes apeshit when you crank the gain, too uncontrollable for tight stuff. I bought it to add a different kind of crunch to my Marshall, but it was just too overbearing, as others have said. Having said that, they do it with a low gain switch now, and that would be useful for a really fat booster, if you used it tubescreamer like, because it does have an awesomely thick tone.
The BAT black forest gets pretty tight, but not like jerrys bogner tight, but I haven't tried it with a comp or eq yet, and I reckon that could yield brutal chugging results.
I have also had unsatisfactory experiences with the rat.
I'm off to suss out the elements as well.
Although I am wondering if there's not a way to turn that little Orange practice amp into a tb preamp pedal.....