Boss DS-1 vs ProCo Rat 2 vs EHX Big Muff 2 Tone Wicker | Which is best?! Distortion pedal shootout

Today we’re comparing three icons of the distortion pedal world: it’s the Boss DS-1 up against the ProCo Rat 2 and the brand new Electro-Harmonix Big Muff 2 w/Tone Wicker fuzz sustainer… but which comes out on top?! ----- At Thomann: https://www.thomann.de/intl/thlpg_ro6... At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/YV247J ----- The Boss DS-1 first came out in 1978, and I might be nearly 50 years late to the party, but I just bought my first one – used, for €40. Not bad for a legendary distortion pedal! The DS-1 has sold over 1.5 million units over the years, and hey, if it's good enough for Kurt Cobain, John Frusciante, and Steve Vai, then it’s good enough for me! It's a super simple pedal too: the standard Boss ‘built like a tank’ indestructible enclosure with chunky footswitch, and Level, Tone and Distortion knobs. That’s it! For around $70/€75 new in 2026, it’s still an absolute no-brainer. You know me, though. The first thing I want to do with a new/old overdrive, distortion or fuzz purchase is try it out against the others I’ve already got to see if my money has been spent wisely! To that end, today we’re running the DS-1 up against my other 1978 favorite – the ProCo Rat – and my newest distortion buy: the EHX Big Muff 2 Tone Wicker model. The Rat has been a go-to dirtbox for me for years now, and I believe every guitarist should own (or at least try) a ProCo Rat 2. Like the DS-1, it’s built like a tank and can be had for way under $100/€100. It also has just the three controls: here, they’re Distortion, Filter and Volume. The Rat is a supremely versatile pedal, offering everything from a nifty clean boost to lower gain overdrive tones, thick Marshall stack-like drive, heavy, riff-ready distortion and even some pretty gnarly fuzz as you edge the Distortion knob up past three o’ clock. The Big Muff 2, of course, is fuzz all the way – but it’s a distortion sustainer at heart and, like the Rat, often cited as a great alternative to a DS-1. The “lost dual op-amp” Big Muff 2 circuit was rediscovered by JHS Pedals' Josh Scott and friends and released in 2025 in a limited, big box version, but we’ve since seen a Big Muff 2 Nano, and now this: the Tone Wicker version. Big Muffs can be dark and moody things, and as they’re mid scooped, you can get lost in a band mix easily when turning one on. The Tone Wicker eliminates these problems with two mini switches: Tone and Wicker. With the Tone switch On, the tone stack in the pedal is active. When it’s Off, you deactivate the tone stack, which gives you a much fuller, less scooped distortion fuzz sound with a distinctly different tonal character. The Wicker switch is a three-way. Set to Off, it does nothing, but switch it to Half or Full to activate more top end clarity in your tone. It’s like a high end filter that lets through more high frequencies, and the more of those you have, the more you’re going to cut through a band mix. The Big Muff 2 Tone Wicker model will set you back around $139/€129, so it’s more expensive than the DS-1 and the Rat, but it does – in theory – offer you plenty more tone tweaking options. With that said, let’s put this to the test! Here, we’re doing some extensive tonal tweaking as I run a nice hard rock loop – played with the bridge humbucker of my Epiphone Les Paul – into the three pedals and the front end of my Hughes & Kettner AmpMan amplifier so we really get to hear to true versatility of these distortion icons. Enjoy the various tones, then, and let me know which you think sounds best in the comments! Here are some links to the various parts of the video: 00:00 Intro and what we’re doing today 01:06 Boss DS-1 specs and info 01:43 Big Muff 2 Tone Wicker specs and info 03:23 ProCo Rat Nano specs and info 04:27 Today’s rig and plan 05:33 THE LOOP (Clean Channel on amp) 09:55 Crunch Channel on amp 14:06 My thoughts on the DS-1 16:07 Why I love the ProCo Rat so much 16:49 Big Muff 2 thoughts 17:34 Which pedal did I think was best? Here’s the wonderful ‪@ThatPedalShow‬ DS-1 episode:    • You're Using Your Boss DS-1 All Wrong! [No...   My setup here was as follows: I ran the three pedals into the front end of my Hughes & Kettner AmpMan Classic pedal amp, then went from the Red Box DI straight into my Zoom H6 recorder. That’s it. No post-processing on the sounds was done. Here’s some links to those bits of gear: --- At Thomann: https://thmn.to/thocf/jkhog8l06m At Sweetwater: https://sweetwater.sjv.io/LXqdE0 --- Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe. #Distortion #DistortionPedal #BossDS1 #BossPedal #ProCo #RatPedal #ProCoRat #Rat2 #Fuzz #BigMuff #EHX #ElectroHarmonix #RichWordsMusic Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much! ‪@EHX‬ ‪@BOSSinfoglobal‬