PSK Review: DST-3 Distortion

History: As a brief summary... I have been playing guitar for around 3 years now. I play 80's-style hard-rock/heavy metal, mainly do shredding and rhythm riffs. Musical tastes? Van Halen, Vai, Satch, etc. etc. etc.

Purchase: Well, the aquisition of this pedal was down to the fact that, 2 years ago, my band and I had our very first gig... and, having then only been playing guitar for a year, I didn't have an amp with a footswitch to change between clean and overdriven/distorted tones... so this put me in a bit of an emergency! I was reccomended the PSK Distortion pedal by a friend. I bought it from Varsity Music in Edinburgh for £40 - a little expensive for a no-name pedal. However, I also got a free 10ft. guitar lead along with it. I should think so too, at that price!!!

What I Like About This PSK DST-3 Distortion: Put simply, it does what it says on the tin. It's a distortion pedal; don't expect a smooth overdrive like a Soldano SLO-100. But it's good. The controls are basic - Volume, Tone and Distortion. Basically like a Boss DS-1. The tone control is rather useful and can make you sound dark and smooth or noisy and harsh. There is also plenty of distortion available should you happen to be a metalhead. The pedal also seems well constructed. The colour scheme looks like it's been warped from the mid-1980's - no bad thing, I'm an 80's reject myself...

What I Do NOT Like About The PSK DST-3 Distortion: Well, there isn't much to gripe about. The control knobs seem to work loose from their spindles, but this is no big deal. Also, this pedal has a more razor-like, edgy distortion, and seems to have a slight mid-scooped sound - I prefer a sound with plenty of middle, which is generally why I've moved away from using this pedal. Perfect for metal though. The pedal is fine for use with single-coil-pickup guitars, however, it doesn't work well with humbuckers - a little annoying since I bought an Ibanez RG recently!

PSK DST-3 Distortion Quality Rating: To sum up - very good. Like I say the knobs have a tendancy to work loose but apart from that you could fling the pedal from 3000 feet up and it wouldn't even have a scratch on it.

Review Summary: The bottom line - this is a good pedal if you're into modern metal, grunge or lo-fi garage sounds. But it's not a device I would call "toneful" - although it doesn't sound bad. I have stopped using this since I got a Marshall AVT50 amp which has a great overdrive channel and has a footswitch, although just in case I have the PSK as a backup. I occasionally use it at home. One tip though - if you live in Edinburgh, UK, DON'T buy anything from Varsity Music. They are rip-off merchants.

Rating of this PSK product: 3

This PSK DST-3 Distortion Guitar Effects Review Submitted By: Heavy Metal Hero

Review Date: 2006-03-31