 Zachary Vex designed the Distortron ($149 retail/street price N/A)
to sound and respond like a vintage Marshall JTM45 amplifier with
all of its controls maxed—and damned if it doesn’t. Sporting the same
distortion circuit as the hand-painted and somewhat more expensive
Box of Rock, but adding a mini-toggle Gain switch for a Tufnel-approved
saturation boost, a 3-way Subs switch that lets you optimize the low
frequencies to match your amp’s bottom end (setting 3 produces the
same subs as the Box of Rock), and highly versatile Tone and Drive
controls, the Distortron is one mean classic rock machine. True-bypass
switching and simple-but-elegant silkscreen graphics enhance the
package.
This little pedal impressed me from the first note, and no matter
how I tweaked the knobs and switches it never sounded bad. The Volume
control offers a massive boost if desired, Tone sweeps a sonically
pleasing range from dark and muffled to ultra-bright, and even incremental
changes to the Drive control result in different flavors of
plexi-inspired goodness. But what really blew me away was how the
Distortron responded to playing dynamics and adjustments to my
guitar’s volume control. Slight pressure and angle changes in picking
were immediately reflected in the sound, individual note definition
within chords was superb, and even with the Gain set to Hi and the
Drive control at three o’clock, I could go from full-on ’60s crunch to
edgy midrange grind to slightly crispy clean tones by simply rolling
back the guitar volume. If you play rock, blues, or any other style of music that would benefit
from old-school Marshall mojo—especially if you can’t afford an
original or reissue JTM45—the Distortron may be your ticket to Tone
Town. —Barry Cleveland
 KUDOS Packs a plethora of plexi-inspired tones into a pint-sized pedal.
CONCERNS None
CONTACT zvex.com
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