Vortex Sound Research

So I’ve been looking at both envelope followers and drives recently and was not aware that many have preamps that can be used for distortion. The Doepfer 119 seems promising, since I intend to play my guitar into it’s 1/4 inch input, but even the manual comments on the low quality of the module’s preamp. The Pico EF and Mutable Ears look like what I’m looking for, but are both more expensive without the external 1/4 jack input. Also cant find many examples of these modules being used as a drive online. Does anyone have any experience with these or any other efs that can be used in this way? is it worth it to just buy a separate drive? Thank you!