Hiwatt Tube Distortion

The Hiwatt Tube Distortion is a distortion pedal from Hiwatt that puts a real vacuum tube in a stompbox. It is built around a dual-triode ECC83 (12AX7) tube running at high plate voltage, and RockBoard's PedalPedia describes it as delivering "genuine tube saturation ranging from subtle warm overdrive to high-gain crunch"¹. In other words, it is aimed at the player who wants the breakup character of a pushed tube amp on a pedalboard, from light drive on one end to a full crunch on the other.

The circuit is analog, and the pedal uses true bypass mechanical switching, which RockBoard's PedalPedia says "preserves pure instrument signal path integrity when the unit is deactivated"¹. It sits in a heavy-duty steel chassis, which RockBoard's PedalPedia says provides roadworthy shielding against external interference in live and studio settings¹.

From overdrive to high-gain crunch

The gain range is the pedal's core selling point. Hiwatt positions it as one box that covers the whole drive spectrum: back the gain off for a subtle, warm overdrive, or push it for high-gain crunch¹. That range comes from the tube itself. Because the ECC83 runs at high plate voltage rather than the starved-plate arrangement some tube pedals use, the saturation behaves more like an amplifier stage being driven hard¹.

The master volume and gain controls work together to regulate the internal signal drive levels, letting you balance overall headroom against the distortion texture¹. So you can set how hard the tube is being pushed independently of how loud the pedal is in the chain.

The controls and footswitches

The control panel breaks down into three groups:

The tone stack is tailored after traditional British tube amplifiers, which fits the Hiwatt lineage of British amp building, and RockBoard's PedalPedia says it offers precise frequency control¹.

There are two footswitches, and they are independent of each other. One is the standard effect bypass. The other engages a switchable gain boost stage, which pushes the pedal into additional saturation on top of whatever you have dialed in¹. That second switch is a familiar idea in tube distortion pedals: the Fender MTG Tube Distortion also carries a second footswitch with a boost, which Delicious Audio described at its launch as a way "to bump up your volume during solos or louder sections"². On the Hiwatt, the boost stage is about gain rather than simply level, so it changes the character of the drive, not just the loudness.

Power: 18V DC, 1000mA

The power requirement is worth pausing on, because it is unusual even among tube pedals. The Fender MTG Tube Distortion runs on a 9-volt supply with at least 290mA³, and in Sweetwater's demo of that pedal Mitch Gallagher noted it "draws about 300 milliamps of current though so you want to use a high current output"⁴. The Hiwatt asks for roughly three times that voltage and more than three times that current, which reflects the high plate voltage the ECC83 runs at. Other makers have taken a different route to the same end: Crazy Tube Circuits' Hi Power runs its tube circuit at 18V DC via an internal voltage booster, so it draws that from an ordinary 9V adaptor⁵, and Guitar World's review lists its power requirement as a 9V DC adaptor, not supplied⁶. Hiwatt instead asks you to feed the pedal 18V directly.

How it compares with other tube distortion pedals

The Hiwatt Tube Distortion sits in a small category of pedals that use a real tube as the distortion engine rather than diodes or op-amps. The Fender MTG Tube Distortion is a close comparison: it is also a true bypass tube distortion pedal³, but it uses a US-made new old stock military 6205 tube rather than an ECC83⁴¹, and it runs on 9V rather than 18V³⁴. The Fender also carries a boost on its second footswitch², so the two pedals share the two-switch layout while differing in tube type and power.

The choice between them largely comes down to how the tube is powered. Fender's approach keeps the pedal on a standard 9V supply at around 290 to 300mA³⁴, while Hiwatt's high plate voltage design demands the 18V, 1000mA supply¹. Players who already run a high-current power brick with 18V outputs can use the Hiwatt as-is; players on a basic 9V board will find the Fender easier to accommodate.

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