MODTONE
FLEXTORTION
DISTORTION
REVIEW BY DAVID A. EVANS
STREET PRICE $79.95
It’s unfortunate that
many simple, “bread
and butter” distortion
pedals fail to attain true
greatness because they
lack that most essential
of sonic sculpting tools:
equalization. Well,
ModTone has done its
homework and aced
the test with its new
Flextortion distortion
pedal. Not only does the
Flextortion offer “supreme
distortion,” but it’s
actually a supremely useful
distortion: its EQ gives this
effect an unusually large
range of distorted tone.
From thick and heavy,
to light and tinny, from
contemporary to old-timey,
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GEAR REVIEW
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the Flextortion will cover
the gamut of possible
distorted tones.
The distortion itself has a
tight, buzzsaw-like quality,
particularly when the Gain
knob is set to around
noon. Open string chords,
and first position chords
resounded with harmonic
richness. The Flextortion’s
tone really complemented
the “rounder” output of
a neck pickup, although
a more cutting yet never
shrill sound could be
obtained with the neck
pickup. This pedal is also
loud. In testing, this writer
found anything above 9
o’clock on the Level knob
caused him to worry about
Modtone Flextortion Distortion
complaining neighbors.
Although the Flextortion
is loud, it’s not necessarily
going to be an “all-out, all
the time” sort of pedal.
ModTone rightly claims
that the Flextortion
features “medium to
extreme gain,” but in
practice, dialing in a
restrained sort of tone
wasn’t a problem. Even
better, the Flextortion
produced the sort of tone
that could cut through
a wall of noise without
trouble. Solos sounded
particularly good, as did
some basic blues-based
vamps. Perhaps best of
all, the Flextortion didn’t
highlight every little