MusicRadar Verdict
A reasonably priced and versatile source of familiar distortion.
Pros
- +
Rich distortion tones. Connection options.
Cons
- -
Not a lot.
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
The three-knob Fret-King Distortion XXX has a rich, thick distortion voice and seems to be very much in the vein of a Pro Co RAT.
"If you're going to design a distortion pedal then it should distort but still with tone"
We all have our own tastes when it comes to distortion pedals, and while they're designed to do a similar job, each has its own 'voice'. The man behind Fret-King, Trevor Wilkinson's opinion is that all distortion pedals are pretty much based on the same circuitry, but it's the different values of capacitors, resistors, pots et al that can give each a distinctive voice - and if you're going to design a distortion pedal then it should distort but still with tone.
Whether you're thrashing out chords, riffing or looking for some harmonically rich sustain for solos, a combination of the Distortion XXX's gain and level knobs will let you call up plenty of different shades of distortion that could do the business for numerous music genres right through to full-on metal, all with a tone knob that offers a wide range so you can focus on just the right frequency band.
“She didn't move from the sofa and she sang two takes of Rolling in the Deep and that's what we used”: Adele, Daft Punk and Taylor Swift are among our picks for the best recorded albums of the 21st century
“Do you want to play tonight, kid?”: How a nine year-old guitar prodigy ended up jamming with Carlos Santana
"There was water dripping onto the gear and we got interrupted by a cave diver": How Mandy, Indiana recorded their debut album in caves, crypts and shopping malls
