Drive

The drive family is the largest in the taxonomy, and for good reason: fuzz, overdrive, distortion, boost and preamp pedals are five different ways of adding gain and reshaping a waveform, from the mildest edge-of-breakup boost to a heavily clipped fuzz. What separates them is less a hard technical line than a spectrum of how much gain is added and how aggressively the waveform is clipped, with boost sitting apart as a pedal that can add level without necessarily adding distortion at all.

The types in this family

• Fuzz (rank 60): The drive block runs fuzz → overdrive → distortion → boost → preamp. Fuzz leads it: its input stage is the one that most wants to see the guitar’s pickups.
• Overdrive (rank 62): In the drive block an overdrive follows the fuzz and precedes the distortion, adding gain to a signal that already has its character.
• Distortion (rank 64): Distortion follows the lower-gain stages in the drive block, so it clips a signal that is already shaped rather than a bare one.
• Boost (rank 66): A boost after the gain stages is a level lift into the amp rather than a gain shape. In front of them it is a different pedal entirely — see the boost-first alternative.
• Preamp (rank 68): A preamp is the last gain stage: it sets the level and the voicing the amp or the desk actually receives.

Where it sits in the chain, and why

Within the drive block itself there is a conventional internal order: fuzz first, since many fuzz circuits want to see the guitar’s own pickups directly; then overdrive; then distortion, stacking onto a signal that already has some character; then boost, which after the other gain stages acts as a clean level lift into the amp rather than a second gain stage; and preamp last, setting the final level and voicing the amp or the desk actually receives. Moving a boost or a compressor in front of this block instead of after it is one of the most common deliberate variations a player makes, changing how hard the following gain stage is driven rather than simply how loud the output is.

Power notes

Simple analog drive pedals — many fuzzes and overdrives among them — are often modest, low-draw circuits that share power comfortably with other simple pedals. Preamp pedals and some higher-gain distortion designs can draw noticeably more, particularly where the circuit is doing more work than a single clipping stage. As with the whole family, this is a pattern to expect, not a number to plan a supply around without checking the actual pedal.

General guidance for the family, never a specification for any individual pedal — always confirm voltage, polarity, current draw and isolation from the maker’s own documentation before wiring a real board.

Every rank and reason above is quoted straight from pedal-chain-planner.js's PEDAL_TYPES — the same taxonomy this site's chain planner runs and docs/gearwarrior-pedals-contract.md documents. No second table.