I belive it was guitars mixed with a sense of desperation to not be dropped by their label...

The distortion for them of that era would be ProCo Rats, Marshall Shreadmasters. All into Vox and Fender amps. I belive Jonny Greenwood uses the BOSS SD-1 a bit too. Thom used a few Rats in series at one point.

Ed O'Brien uses a Dual Rectifier Trem-O-Verb. I read somewhere he uses an MXR distortion pedal too.

The thing about Radiohead you have to remember is that when you have as many guitarists as they do, you end up with a lot of different distortion sounds. Even on the Bends. And who is to say they even used the same stuff they use live as they did in the studio...

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My Rig

My Shine So Hard Rig
Rig for my old band
new "solo" music

Suppose the DS1 is the best bet for the sound I am after. What version of the DS1 would be most appropriate? Keeley, Stock DS1, MIJ DS1, Analogman, Allum?

... Seen this question a lot of times.... Best pedal I used for that fuzz sound that I could plug into any dang amp and get a decent fuzzy distortion sounding heavy, ironically, was an old DOD Grunge pedal. Sounded full, had some nice bass response. The Turbo Rat is awesome for high gain sounds, and really, one of my faves, the original rat is good as well, cept not as smooth to my ears.

I had one of those Mesa Studio Preamp units, and the tone controls are like old Mesas, very different compared to a lot of amps on the market. The Sansamp will work, but it's very hard to dial in a good tone, sounds awesome, just, as a direct box, it takes a lot of tweaking to work in, and sounds neat.

If you want the original Boss tones from then, easiest way without having to try and use made in japan, serial numbers, and such like that, just find an old Boss DF-2, Distortion Feedbacker, was used in a lot of shoegaze bands of the era

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ESP Eclipse Limited (3/100) or Gibson Les Paul Standard (97) - Fulltone OCD - H.B.E. Detox EQ - Laney GH50L - 80's Ibanez AD-9 (in loop) - Randall XL 4x12
Tortex "The wedge" picks, Blue Steel strings, Line 6 Moble In, Charvel Model 6 modded to a Model 5FX.... Probly other stuff as well