This has been the biggest selling distortion pedal since its release in 1978. I didn`t know why until I bought one and tried it the other day. It has a very rich and musical sounding distortion. I must say it`s a breath of fresh air in today`s world where the music is crap now. If you love classic rock from the 70`s turn the distortion to half-way and you will love this pedal. If you love 80`s hard rock or hair metal turn up the distortion anywhere from 3 quarters of the way up to max and you will love this pedal. Even If you love 90`s alternative rock turn up the distortion all the way and you will love this pedal and guitarists are still using it in 2014. Musically, it has enough gain to cover almost anything you would want to play accept for something like crappy black metal or some other non-musical noise. Hey, and Joe Satriani and Steve Vai use it. Enough Said