Many people who play guitar think that in order to get optimum crunchiness in your tone, you have to get a separate distortion or overdrive pedal to get the grittiness they’re seeking.
And while I will admit that having a distortion or overdrive pedal does allow you more customization with your gain settings, the truth is that you don’t absolutely have to have a distortion pedal to do this.
There are quite a few guitar amps that have some really nice gain and distortion already built into the amp itself. The more you’re able to customize your distortion within the amp, the more you won’t need a separate pedal to achieve those same results.
In this buyer’s guide, we picked the absolute best guitar amps when it comes to the amount of grittiness and customization for your distortion needs, and as you’ll soon see, you don’t always need a distortion pedal or a tube amp to get great grit.
Table of Contents
Boss Katana KTN-50 Guitar Amp
The Boss Katana 50 Guitar Amp is a versatile amp that includes five simultaneous effects categories, ten overall tones that it can produce, and works both as a standalone amp or powered cabinet.
The Boss Tone Studio app which works well with the amp provides better control over tweaking your sounds than ever before which makes it great for playing in small venues.
This amplifier comes with bonus features like the wattage selector to lower volume when needed and a well-built construction made of durable materials.
The amp features a wide variety of presets so you can get to playing quickly on stage or in the studio – even on short notice!
- 50/25/0.5W 1x12" Guitar Combo Amplifier with 5 Amp Voicings
- Cab-emulated Headphone/Recd Output
- 4 Tone Slots
- 60 Effects
- USB
Last update on 2025-02-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Orange Amps Crush 20RT
If you’re a heavy metal or hard rock musician, the Orange Amps Crush 20RT Guitar Amplifier is the perfect practice amp for you. This amplifier has a great range of distortion options and it also sounds fantastic at both low volume and high volume.
This amplifier was designed with plenty of dirty gain, making those high notes come alive and be clear while playing at really low volumes, and the clean channel is sparkly clean for the times when distortion isn’t necessary.
Rock the house with this little monster. The Orange Crush 20RT has all the growling distortion you could want and is surprisingly portable for a serious rock machine.
It also includes a built-in reverb that sounds really cool when playing with an effect pedal like delay or looping pedals. Not only that but it has connections that allow you to connect your guitar to a PA system through the headphone jack!
- Power: 20 watt (solid state)
- 2 foot switchable channels
- Speaker: 1x8 inches Orange Voice of the World
- Controls: 3 band EQ, volume, gain, reverb
- Built in reverb
Last update on 2025-02-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Marshall Code 50 Guitar Amp
The Marshall Code 50 is a powerhouse of a guitar amplifier made for musicians who thrive on making their music heard.
The amp comes equipped with 3-band EQ, Gain, Volume, Amp, and Mod controls to help you control your sound.
A wide range of digital amp models and cabinet simulations are available to help create the perfect tone for whatever songs you’re playing.
This high-quality amplifier can be loud enough for any occasion! Or Put on your headphones before playing so you don’t wake up the neighbors with this guitar amp that has all the bells and whistles from a digital amp modeler to USB compatibility – you’ll never find yourself without a quality sound again.
- 50-watt Modeling Guitar Amplifier with 12" Speaker
- 4 Digital Power Amp Models
- 14 Digital Preamp Models
- Bluetooth Connectivity
- Speaker Emulation
Last update on 2025-02-17 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Fender Champion 100 Guitar Amp
The Fender Champion 100 Guitar Amp is a great choice if you need an amp that sounds good and fits into smaller venues.
With the sound of your gig in mind, The Champion 100 has been tuned to handle things with plenty of distortion for metal-style guitarists or more delicate tones for jazz-influenced players.
For those occasions when you would like to lay down some tracks at home, the 1/8” auxiliary input jack will let you plug in headphones so that you don’t wake up the neighborhood.
Overall, when it comes to needing some heavy built-in distortion when it comes to your amp, the Fender Champion 100 really packs a punch, both at home and in small venue settings.
- When ‘burying’ your drummer in volume is important, the 100 watts thrown out of 2 – 12” Fender special designed speakers will get your point across.
- Jam along with your favorite tracks by simply plugging your MP3 player into the Auxiliary input and you instantly become part of the band and /or practice privately with the 1/8th headphone output jack that also mutes the speaker output.
- Toggle between 100 Watts of clean or mean from the 2 channels with the kick of a footswitch during a stage or studio performance.
- Explore many very usable musical tones from the many amp classic to modern amp voicing’s and the various spacial effects such as digital reverb, chorus, delay and vibratone.
- Limited Warranty Included.1/8 inch aux input
Last update on 2025-02-18 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API