Fender MTG Tube Distortion Pedal Reviews

I love Egnator amps, but they break often it seems, I love fender amps as well, and I was excited to see a new line of pedals from them. This product is the best of both worlds, I've used it with my fender and Egnator Amps, and if you're looking for an Americana, Rock 'n' roll type of sound, look no further! Also sounds great with solid state amps as well.

I havent had this pedal for long, in fact it showed up today and only had a couple hours to play with it before leaving for work, but so far this thing is absolutely amazing! I own 2 amps. One is a Egnater Tweaker 40 Combo, and the other is a Roland Jazz Chorus 40. The Tweaker 40 has never sounded all that great to my ears, especially for the types of clean tones i mainly like to play with, so i primary use my Jazz Chorus. I absolutely love the clean tone of the Jazz Chorus, but sometimes i want to get a good edge of break up type of tone and even a good full tube distortion, but the Jazz Chorus can't achieve it, (nor does it try. Clean is all it does) and the Tweaker 40 doesnt cut it for me either, so I decided to try the Fender MTG Tube Distortion to add some tube flavor to my Jazz Chorus, and it works perfectly for what im looking for. It sounds phenomenal from clean with a hint of tube color, to edge of break up, to a warm overdrive, to full blown distortion. It does it all, and does it very well. The EQ section is very powerful for tone shaping, and the boost feature really brings it home in my opinion. It allows u to set a second gain stage while maintaining unity volume, so i can have a setting for edge of break up, and then engage the boost and have a warm, thick tube overdrive. Its like having 2 channels, or u can use it as a normal boost or clean boost. Its just simply amazing and Fender and Bruce Egnater did a phenomenal job designing this gorgeous pedal. I couldnt be happier with it and its exceeded far past my expectations. It does take a high mA draw, but if u have a good power supply then it shouldnt be a problem at all. If your someone looking to add an amazing tube characteristic to your solid state amp then look no further. (If your looking at my pics, i know the cable management is nightmarish.

Own a lot of gear which includes pedals. This particular pedal allows me to dial in tube drive similar to that of an amp set on 9-10 without it going over 4.

This way i get the dirty tone I want without being so loud tgst the bartender kill my power.

Of course, AJ as always help me with my pedsl choice - thanks for your help. AJ

I was skeptical because so many pedals sound compressed and sizzley. This one gives that woody open cab tube driven scream I've been searching for. It actually does what it is advertised to do. You can also get heavy/chunky crunch out of it with EQ and boost, although there are lots of pedals that do that extremely well. This one shines in the classic rock arena like no other pedal I've tried. The boost is handy when you run out of volume on the guitar. Yeah you have to plug in the DC power supply, but hey no batteries to change! One nit-pick is I wish the position of the bypass and boost foot buttons were switched around. I find myself accidentally hitting both occasionally. Other than that this is now my go-to pedal and the TS8 is relegated to back-up. Blue lights are pretty cool too!

I am thoroughly pleased with the MTG Distortion pedal. Big fan of Fender pedals anyway, but this one is really a great choice. Really nice dealing through Sweetwater also. Great customer service and lighting-fast delivery. 5-Stars all around!

Purchased this Pedal through advice from my Sales Engineer Delvin Wolfe! All I can say is "WOW"!!!!
This is one of the BEST Overdrive/Distortion Pedals I've used in my 55yrs of performing! I can get anything from Sweet Blues to Heavy Metal (if I played Heavy Metal). I have an Old Vox Cooltron Double Overdrive working on the same principal, a Real Tube in the Box and this puts it to shame!! The addition of the Boost with Level control is GREAT also! Allows you to set your Boost just over your Drive sound, perfect for Lead Licks!!! I would recommend this to anyone playing any style of Music where an Overdrive is required! The only down side, and this is minor, you pay $... for this pedal and get CHEAP RUBBER FEET THAT DON'T STICK! SOME DIDN'T EVEN HAVE STICKY BACKING! If you're putting it on a Board, NO PROBLEM but at this time I don't. A BIG SHOUT OUT TO Delvin Wolfe my Sales Engineer!! Ordered this and a Guitar Case and a few Cords on a Wed. afternoon just after 2p and got it ALL Thurs. afternoon by FedEx!! Thanks Delvin, GREAT Job!! As I've said before, Sweetwater is the ONLY place to get Professional Equipment at a Great Price and they follow it all with Great Tech Support! Thanks Guys, please keep up the Good Work!

By far the best distortion pedal I"ve ever owned, and I love the boost option for going from a mild overdrive rhythm to an over the top lead tone.

I am loving this pedal already! I"ve been searching for a pedal like this for quite some time. Sure there are other tube based pedals but in some form or another they don"t quite seem as well thought out as this one is. With the boost option you can essentially set a second channel on your one pedal. This saves on space and it just works really well. The distortion is smooth and very tube amp-like which you would expect. You can use your dynamics well to manipulate your tone and drive. Touch sensitivity is very good. Basically this feels like a good preamp but without the eq curve of a preamp. I believe this pedal is meant to run into your normal amp input not your power amp return like an actual preamp pedal would. I use fairly heavy delay or reverb (strymon timeline and big sky) for most songs and I have been wanting to get my tube breakup happening before running into my modulation effects and I prefer not to use my fx loop so having a pedal that gives me authentic overdriven tube tone before hitting my mod fx is exactly what I was wanting. It aids in simplifying my setup. It"s 9v dc 290ma power consumption is easy to solve as well. Works with my current power supply without any issue. I think fender is really onto something with this newer line of pedals. Great tones, high quality and good value for money. This is my first Fender pedal ever but it definitely won"t be my last.

Holy Cow my friends!!
Hands Down the ultimate blues / classic rock / southern rock / rockabilly pedal and the only pedal you will ever need on the clean channel of a Fender (or your preferred) tube amp. I put this in front of my original 65 Fender Princeton Reverb and had the volume on about 2.5 and most of the knobs at noon on the pedal except rolled the tight down to about 1/4 with my Gibson Joe Bonamassa Skinnerburst Custom Shop R9 and I was in musical heaven man!!

All Right Now by Free - spot on
Rolled the gain up to about 60% and was playing "Drams I"ll Never See" by Molly Hatchet
Rolled the gain back down to about 1/3 or so and was spot on for Shania Twain"s "Holding on to Love to Save my Life"
Went back to noon on the gain and played my rockier version of Chris Stapletons "Midnight Train to Memphis "

All songs In my upcoming set lists for the next 2 shows we play!!

I can only imagine that this will also sound amazing on the clean channels of both my 2x12 and 4x10 Fender Hot Rod DeVilles with the alnico speakers. Hands down the ultimate pedal for players that play the same music as me!! Get yourself one while you can!!

I have tried this in the effects loop of a Quilter MicroPro and also in front of a Fender Custom Vibrolux (modded to Vibroverb Specs). It is great for obtaining amp drive-like sounds at reasonable volumes and, with a little fiddling, can be set to avoid coloring the overall tone too much. It is responsive to touch and guitar volume, as one would expect. Users of low-power (.5-5 watts) amps will probably get less from this (I tried it in front of a Champ-style amp, as well and it didn't add much in this application, to my ears) than users of SS or higher-powered tube amps, but this is a keeper for me - especially when I want to use a "bigger" sounding amp at household levels.

I have been playing acoustic for years, but finally got into pedals. I was looking for something to add some crunch, and this pedal is perfect. With a parlor guitar and mellow strings, it's almost like a jazz guitar, but warmer. With the compressor, you get a clear acoustic sound with some warmth in the background. Without, you can get straight, dirty blues.

The controls are awesome, and the range of sound is just great. Judging by the range of the "level" controls. I am not surprised it's sold as a pre-amp, too. I'm sure you could plug headphones into the out and have good sound. I haven't tried running it in the effects loop, but it works just great in my input loop at low level.

Avoid if you need a super tight, metal sound. Don't buy anything else if you want to hear why people put tubes on a pedestal.

This a delightful pedal to warm up your sound. It is not a real high gain unit, if you want that go for the LA version.
Even cranked it is not over the top.

I use it in the general setting for clean warm boost with a little bit of dirt , then use the boost for solo work. It is perfect for my application .

I've been using a Radial Trimode (12 ax7) for years and this comes very close to that out of prod unit.

Very pleased .

Love the tone.
Tight control has only slight effect.
The supplied rubber feet are useless because they won't stick.
Attractive and useful knob lights.
Pricey but worth the sound quality.

This pedal is insane. It is incredibly versatile, being designed with Bruce Egnater that doesn't really surprise me though. It just so happens that I am running it through an Egnater Rebel 20 and this combination is to die for. Typically I play metal music and if that is also you're thing, you're looking in the wrong area. But if you want pure and beautiful tone, look no further.

Nice pedal with classic od/dist tone and drive. Still trying it on different amps.

Excellent Pedal! I haven't done a review for quite some time, but wanted to chime in for this wonderful box!
The "feel" of this is fantastic, and the sound is quite realistic in terms of a tube amp
sound/overdrive/distortion.

It's a high quality/build pedal at a reasonable price. I'd get one if I were you!