I have an Orange Bax Bangeetar that's popular with guys who use distortion pedals in front of a clean amp. It'll do everything from light hair to "light your hair on fire"
In the past 2 years for my high gain/distortion I've used a Freidman BE-OD, a Suhr Riot pedal, a Weebo JCM/JVM pedal, and a Revv g3. None of them are what I consider inexpensive. While they all sound pretty good when I'm playing at home, I needed something that sounded good through the PA system. We play clubs every weekend and those pedals in combination with the PA system just didnt have a good sound or tone no matter how flat or boosted we eq the mixing board. My light distortion/overdrive pedal is a Xotic BB-MB. It has great tone and just the right amount of dirt, bite and grit for low distortion applications. This past weekend I cranked the gain on it to use it instead of my Revv pedal and it sounded really good. So when I got home I ordered another one to run as a higher gain pedal. The thing is- when I'm in the room playing the BB-MB with the gain cranked it does have a lot of distortion. But I don't lose my guitar tone. When I listened to it through the PA speakers, it sounded like a massive distortion pedal, even though on stage it was more tame. I play a DSL100-h and 1960a cab loaded with Celestion Neo Creambacks, and run my pedalboard through the front end of the amp. My cab mic's are either SM57, SM57 beta, or Sennheiser flat faced cab mic. The mic selection hasn't seemed to affect the tone much.
Classic rock to 80s metal, on a clean amp, I still like the Crunch Box, does a great "cranked 2203" tone and has enough saturation/compression for lead playing. It might not be tight and saturated enough for more modern metal chugging though, in which case the BE-OD would be a great choice.
Metal Zone back in the old days... Now I use Ramble FX Marvel Drive for my "metal tones".... It's basically a SuperLead Plexi in a box, but it got plenty of dirt and grind for 80's metal....
