Subdecay Blackstar Distortion

The Subdecay Blackstar Distortion is a high gain distortion pedal from Subdecay, built for players who have run out of gain on their usual drive pedals. Premier Guitar introduced it as "a high gain distortion pedal for anyone who's ever driven their drive knob to the limit and wanted more"¹. It is a compact single-footswitch box, and at its list price of $159 as of the March 2021 review, it sits in the mainstream range for a boutique distortion pedal¹.

What it does

The pedal carries four knobs: volume, tone and two drive knobs¹. The two drive controls are what set it apart from a standard distortion pedal. The bottom drive knob controls low frequency response before the gain stage, which lets a player decide how much low end feeds into the distortion itself¹. That is a useful distinction for high gain sounds, where piling gain onto a full low end can turn to mud: trimming the bass pre-gain tightens the distortion while the tone knob shapes what comes out the other side.

Premier Guitar's reviewer found the pedal unusually flexible for its size: "The range of tone colors I was able to squeeze out of this little box was truly impressive"¹.

On the board

A few practical points from the review:

• The footswitch is accompanied by a bright blue LED indicator, which the reviewer called a nice touch because it is easy to see even in direct sunlight¹.
• With volume, tone and two drive knobs, the control layout stays simple enough for a first pedalboard while offering more shaping than a three-knob distortion¹.

For players comparing it with other distortion options, the two-drive arrangement puts it closer in spirit to pedals that separate gain shaping from output shaping, rather than the single-drive designs common on simpler distortion boxes. If you want to see how other makers approach the same job, the Distortion Pedals page collects the type as a whole.

Videos

Click to load

Click to load

Click to load