This is an excellent distortion pedal for people who want a traditional rock sound. I use it with a Fender Mustang amp and an Ibanez guitar with good humbucking pickups. It's very easy to use and rugged. If you play metal, you might want to get the HardWire TL-2 instead; that pedal delivers more distortion (an insane amount, if necessary) and more tone control, but it's also more expensive. But you can easily boost the distortion achieved by the DS-1 by using it with your amp on an overdriven setting. The DS-1 is an excellent general purpose distortion pedal. I don't know of any other that achieves this level of quality in the same price-range.