Daredevil Red Light District Distortion

The Red Light District feels and behaves pretty differently with Fender-style single-coils. It sounded great with Stratocaster and Jaguar pickups, but, perhaps predictably, you can expect to run into more white noise and feedback situations with single-coils at high gain levels. Even so, the Red light District can sound fantastic in these more radical, treble-heavy settings. And a Jaguar with my Twin Reverb—with the Red Light District’s gain sitting at 1 o’clock, lo-gain engaged, and the scoop off—produced searing Roland S. Howard tones. Even here, the Red Light District was responsive and dynamic, exhibiting slight breakup that got much more pronounced when I really dug into the strings.

The Verdict
It’s little surprise that Red Light District can satiate the needs of most high-gain-oriented players—particularly head bangers that tend to nod their skulls to slower, more Sabbath-oid grooves where rich, classic high-gain sounds shine. But the Red Light District also excels in low-gain applications that you might otherwise call “overdrive.” It works best with amplifiers with high headroom. And though the effective mid-scoop-based EQ might be limited for some players, the range of tones you can summon from the control set make the $189 price tag seem very fair.