Distortion
 

The distortion on my amp (a 73' Vintage Fender Super Twin Reverb) sucks. I use a Gibson ES-355 with it. Besides the distortion the amp is awesome.

I have gone out and tried a bunch of pedals but none of them really suit my style. :(

Big fan of heavy and classic rock. I play many songs by Rush, Zepp, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Wolfmother, Priestess, The Beatles, Jet, Beck, The Clash, and Van Halen.

What pedal(s) would you recommend I should try next? (under 200$)

What pedals have you tried and not liked?

Well a Fender Twin was never meant for ultra high gain work. It's a blues amp.

He figured that out already. ;)

We need to know what he's used and not liked in order to have something to compare to when making suggestions.
And by that, I mean pedals to get the distortion he's looking for.
If he's trying to get a stack sound with stack decibels, then yes, his amp should be taken out of the loop.

:D

I know, I know but do you know how many guitarists would sell their 1st born child for a 73' super twin !?!? slap a Big Muff on the SOB and go cry at someone else, kid.

Keep the amp!!!!! By all means. Have you tried an Electro-harmonix Big Muff?

Fast, are you just looking for something to practice at home with?
I'd follow Satchmo's advice and just get a good pedal to go with it.

Go for the Big Muff man!
Awesome pedal..

Big Muff, Hot Cake, or any Zvex distortion pedal.

But, if your up for spending a little more money, I'd recommend getting the Lovepedal Kanji Eternity Overdrive to pair up with another distortion pedal (it can even be a cheap one like the Boss DS1). I pair mine up with an MI Audio crunchbox distortion pedal (pretty nice sounding pedal, not the best, but I got it for a good price). COT 50 might actually be your best choice in regards to a boost pedal.

Proguitarshop has some great pedal demonstration videos: proguitarshop.com

peace,
-nick

does the amp have any knobs that specifically say "gain" and "distortion"? If it does it's probably from when they started putting those presets on amps.

I've got an old fender vibrolux that I play my muff pedal and fuzzface through and it sounds pretty awesome. If you wanna play anything post-maiden though it's probably not the right amp for you. I'm sure theres enough pedals out there to make it more to your liking.

I'm thinking of those boss pedals with like a million different presets that cost about $400. I don't know what they're called.Any kind of pedal that says "metal" on it.
....electro-harmonix pedals tend to sound more old-school. any of that line 6 garbage would work too.

Speaking from experience, using pedals for distortion is never going to sound as good as an amp with a nice dirty gain channel. That said, the better the amp sounds, the better the pedal will sound.

Here's a few pedals to try out:

Electro-Harmonix "Big Muff Pi" - Click here
- The link should show you all of the "big muff" pedals available. I'm not a huge fan of E-H stuff, especially their tubes, but I've got a friend who has the Russian version of this pedal and it's surprisingly versatile. They even make a "Metal Muff" if the original doesn't quite do it for you.

Ibanez "TS9/TS9DX/TS808 Tube Screamer" - Click here
- This is more of a boost pedal than anything. It can give you a little overdrive if you run in through your clean channel, and it'll make your distortion a little meaner. This may be geared more towards slightly higher gain amps that just need a boost to put them over the top, but it's something you can test out.

Vox "Satchurator" - Click here
- According to Guitar World magazine, it's "Joe's sound in a box". It's an alternative to the big muff essentially, probably creating enough distortion on it's own to suit your playing style based on the bands you listed. This one I haven't actually played with myself but I've heard it plenty of times. Search it on youtube for soundclips.

Pro Co "RAT" - Click here
- The RAT has kind of an 80's feel to it, but it's decently versatile. Again, I haven't had much experience with this pedal. I've used one a couple of times, and what I've heard I liked.

Digitech "DF-7 Distortion Factory" - Click here
I'm not a huge fan of Digitech pedals, but when the only amp I had was a POS solid state Crate combo, it did the job pretty well for my metal band. It models 7 different pedals a couple of which I have listed above (Pro Co RAT, Ibanez TS9). Three of the knobs are double stacked, giving you a lot of variation in tone. Decent pedal for a Digitech. You'll definitely be able to find a sound you like with this one.