Stuff I would never sell:

Union Tube and Transistor More - not a clean boost - more like a magic eq with variable gain knob
Crowther Hot Cake - ppl tend to say they only like these with AC30s, but I use it for everything. I do use the hidden switches a lot
Fulltone TTE - best overdrive for any Fender amp
Garnet Herzog

God damn I've bought more overdrives than anything else at this point mainly cause I like them all, but have a hard time loving one as worthy of being the pedal on my board that spends more time switched on than any other.

Some pedals that have earned my B plus:

Fulltone Full drive 2- pretty versatile. Nice mids. The boost isn't powerful enough to add much to hotter pickups. Large footprint on the board.

Xotic AC Booster- kind of like above but no boost.

Fulltone Plimsoul- kind of unique duel drive thing. Can add a lot of gain but always pretty warm. Slightly mushy but pretty dang usable.

Keeley Dirty Little Secret- supposedly classic Marshall aspiring. Also switchable between clipping modes. Another with full, nice mids for rhythm guitar.

Earthquake Plumes- everyone seems to have one of these around, probably cause they're affordable and a legitimate upgrade to the tube screamer thing. Some nice power to boost the signal in there. My only complaint is the tone is voiced too bright. I often have the tone knob rolled pretty far left and I'm usually at noon on most pedals. I need to try the Blumes on guitar to see if it solves this problem.

Earthquaker Talons- less of a clone. Kind of a unique one that must not have caught on cause they discontinued it. It can sit in the warm, little grit world with many of the above, but if you push it further it gets a little closer to a more processed Mesa Boogie vibe. I like that it has 3 tone knobs (bass, treble and the rare mid knob), and a presence knob. I don't like that if my foot bumps the mid knob and takes it down a little it seems to be way quieter. Kind of oversensitive controls with narrow sweet spots.

I still need to spend some time with a good Rat/Rat clone.

None of these seem to beat all by far. They're all just pretty good.

Scoff at the name, but Dumble-style overdrives are great. I think part of what makes something Dumble-style is that the lows don't get lost like Tubescreamers, and there isn't any fizz like distortion pedals. I use one by Wilson Effects called the Lotus Drive, but I'm sure the Hermida Zendrive and other high quality versions are great too. Full-range, "natural" sounding overdrive that doesn't obscure the character of your guitar.

For starters...

It's gonna depend on what exactly falls into the "Overdrive..." category.

While I do get that Malmsteen and a lot of buddies here see the Ross Distortion/DOD 250/MXR Distortion+/Kowloon Walled Bunny circuit as an overdrive?

To me, that is squarely in "Distortion..." territory. Blizzard Of Ozz/Diary Of A Madman and Husker Du.

As for where I personally feel like "Overdrive..." is -

The Analogman Astro-Tone Fuzz. Seemingly based on the Sam Ash Fuzzz Boxx. A friend owns one, and we agreed that the Astro-Tone Fuzz doesn't sound a whole lot like it. That said, it might be my favorite "RAWK..." overdrive if you don't reef the fuzz control up. It has Slade/Bad Company/Motorhead totally covered. Also "Back Off On The Volume Knob..." friendly.

The Univox Uni-Drive. Jext Telez made a really ace version of it a while back. Seems like the Danelectro The Breakdown is the "Olive Garden..." version of it, but you'd have to buy from Danelectro.

The Electro-Harmonix Hot Tubes. Seems like Walsh mentioned that this was his bass overdrive in Risk/Reward.

One more for the "Tube Sound Fuzz..."/Red Llama. My brother plugged in the one I own, and asked why I was holding out on that the whole time.

Any graphic EQ that has a "Volume..." control. The MXR Kerry King ten band EQ is surprisingly solid as an overdrive.

Nobels ODR-1 - sounds perfect to me. Exactly what I want in an overdrive, retains the character of whatever guitar I’m using, doesn’t have a stupid mid hump. Has a bass cut for people who like skimmed milk.

Nico Adie wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2024 6:24 pm Nobels ODR-1 - sounds perfect to me. Exactly what I want in an overdrive, retains the character of whatever guitar I’m using, doesn’t have a stupid mid hump. Has a bass cut for people who like skimmed milk.

That reminds me...

The Earthquaker Devices Westwood is in that ballpark. Maybe not for everyone, but worth the mention.

Fredric Effects Regent 150 preamp is the always-on/backline-situations drive.
Plays nice with nearly amp and, because the amps I have lying around skew "dark" for some reason, I really rely on its treble boost. Seriously, control at 0 is the flat setting.

Would kind of like to play around again with using the KWB+ (Antisleep v1) as the always-on/backline-situations drive. But it is on my bandmate's pedalboard as his crunch/solos boost. I think I would need to involve an EQ pedal to make it work with two of my three amps though (the darker ones being a Gibson GA-5 and a Traynor TS-100). Then again I'm now also running a high-input-impedance buffer pedal before everything else (Freq Scene Clean Freq, drive slider at 0) so maybe it'd be fine.

As far as normal pedals: Klon culture is completely wack but I rather like how they sound, probably shouldn't have sold my Zoom Power Drive. I don't love but am OK with SD-1s, or even the Blues Driver. I don't like Tube Screamers because I can only get them to sound annoying and compressed.

OD-3.

My main overdrive for the past while has been a really simple mosfet thing I built for myself that's kind of like a mix of a spaceman saturn and a fairfield barbershop, two ODs I really really like. They're pretty similar pedals (two-stage FET drives), and I'd be totally happy with the stock version of either.

But also anything zvex that's built on stacked SHOs rules (BoR, 2-in-1, box of metal).

Oh yeah, the Orman Mini Booster is a great boost/ push your amp into overdrive. It's the circuit that Fulltone basically lifted for their fat boost.
https://www.muzique.com/amz/mini.htm

I used this as my main boost for EARLY, drum machine Cartographer as well as Replicator in about 2002/2003.

Also, this gain stage type, but re-voiced, is what Catalinbread uses for their amp-style pedals.

Totally worth hammering on to voice based on existing rig.