Let's say your amp doesn't have enough gain to your liking. What kind of pedal would you get to get more gain?

Colorless gain would be The Seymour Duncan Booster SFX-1. Colored gain would be like a Ibanez TS-9 or Maxon OD808, or a Tonebone Classic Bone. If it's still not 'gainy' enough you might be looking for more of a distortion pedal.

Sorry. "Colorless" and "colored?" What do you mean by that?

Also, with distortion pedals, are you supposed to not use the amp's distortion if you are using one of those? I'm still a noob with gear, but I always hear that people just don't even use the distortion on their amp if they're using a distortion pedal. I think it'd be a waste to spend 2k on an amp head and not even use the distortion on it...

Never mix the amp distortion and a pedal unless you just want insane amounts of feedback and unwanted noise. For some massive gain try the Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff its kickass. Analog and true bypass.

Colorless means, not changing the sound you have. It's a transparent signal. Colored means it will add it's own sound (or color) to the sound you have.

There is no distortion on amps, only gain. There's a difference between gain and distortion. Gain is over driving the circuit, op amp, transformer or tube so that the signal is saturated or over worked. Distortion takes a signal and well... distorts it. It takes the signal and manipulates it, not over working the signal but changing the signal.

What the SFX-1 does, (I think) is lower the impedance of the guitar signal. Nothing is over driven in the pedal, and the signal is pure there by making it transparent or see through, (colorless.) But the end result is a louder signal. This will then over drive your amp even more, so the amp gain will be intensified.

I appreciate the response. Makes sense, now.

Boss Heavy Metal (HM-2) or Metal Zone, or a Digitech Metal Master are both good through a clean channel or power amp. The SFX-1 is a good call though, that should do it while retaining your amp's tone.