The Family Tree of Distortion

[Justinvs]

Lately I've been looking around at various OD/distortion pedals, all of it over the internet, and if the sources can be trusted - which I'm really beginning to doubt - the majority of overdrive pedals are based on the venerable TS, distortion based on the DS-1, and the origin of Fuzz is lost in the cannabis mists of time somewhere between Les Paul and Jimi Hendrix.

Please tell me this ain't so! It takes all of the fun out of GASsing if I know they're nothing more than hot-rodded versions of pedals I've owned since the 80s!

Justin

[Tonemonkey]

Originally Posted by Justinvs

Please tell me this ain't so! It takes all of the fun out of GASsing if I know they're nothing more than hot-rodded versions of pedals I've owned since the 80s!

Justin

It ain't so. Out there is a pedal that will give you sound you always dreamed of owning, if you think you already have that tone, this pedal will make it better........its out there, keep looking, good luck.

[frankie5fingers]

There are probably 1,000 threads on this and varying degrees of this, subject. That said, why not another? IME, there are three basic OD cicuits; Tube Screamer, Bluesbreaker, Rat and any/all subesequent designs use one or a combination of those in some form. That, along with varying degrees or selectability of clipping, e.g. soft, med, hard. Here's where the debate begins...Is the design true to the original. is it a starting point which was then modified, is it a clone, is the original perfect as it was, dies the new one have a old stock transistor, and so on. The tones from way back when were made with one of those three, occasionally with the addition of treble boost (like a Rangemaster), or a vibe (like Unicord) or played through the EQ section (with or without the delay) of an Echoplex. If you want to recreate those tones, the pedals that lay claim to the heritage of those effects is a great place to start. Which one is purely a matter of your ear and personal taste and quite frankly, the clips available are all pretty unreliable sources of " the true experience". As someone who has bought many (many) dozens of pedals over the years, can offer just a couple of suggestions? Try them in person. Buy from someone with a return policy. Buy something of high quality, from a builder who has a history and track record. Finally, if you find one that helps get you closer to the sound in your head, don't be swayed because it isn't the flavor of the day. If you like it, what I think is irrelevant.

[Tele-Monster]

11 Gauge will be here soon to set us straight.

[Justinvs]

Originally Posted by frankie5fingers

There are probable 1,000 threads on this and varying degrees of this, subject. That said, why not another? IME, there are three basic OD cicuits; Tube Screamer, Bluesbreaker, Rat and any/all subesequent designs use one or a combination of those in some form. That, along with varying degrees or selectability of clipping, e.g. soft, med, hard. Here's where the debate begins...Is the design true to the original. is it a starting point which was then modified, is it a clone, is the original perfect as it was, dies the new one have a old stock transistor, and so on. The tones from way back when were made with one of those three, occasionally with the addition of treble boost (like a Rangemaster), or a vibe (like Unicord) or played through the EQ section (with or without the delay) of an Echoplex. If you want to recreate those tones, the pedals that lay claim to the heritage of those effects is a great place to start. Which one is purely a matter of your ear and personal taste and quite frankly, the clips available are all pretty unreliable sources of " the true experience". As someone who has bought many (many) dozens of pedals over the years, can offer just a couple of suggestions? Try them in person. Buy from someone with a return policy. Buy something of high quality, from a builder who has a history and track record. Finally, if you find one that helps get you closer to the sound in your head, don't be swayed because it isn't the flavor of the day. If you like it, what I think is irrelevant.

Bluesbreaker is a pedal I've never encountered, not that that takes much. It's funny. Back in the early 80's when I first really got into guitar I picked up quite a few pedals, mostly Boss, Ibanez or cheap knock-offs of those. Then I would up playing bass in various bands for 20 years and when I came back to guitar a few years ago I felt like Rip Van Winkle waking up and finding the world changed. There were so many overdrive and distortion pedals, most of which I still never seen in real life, that the sheer number of them stunned me.

Tells you hold I am, I remember when the first Rats were the new kids on the block. Unless you were New Kids On The Block, and I don't have a clue what pedals they used! <G>

Justin

[frankie5fingers]

There are a few Bluesbreaker pedals out there. One really nice one (I like it anyway) is the JHS Morning Glory - a very pleasing JTM45-like sound, a pretty nice crunchy Bluesbreaker sound, and a switch to roll off some of the highs in a bright amp. I use it with a tweed for some nice saggy, hybrid tones. Of course there's the Marshall BB pedal too. Don't know much about it, but I'm sure it's worth a listen. Another guy that has a wide range of ODs with his own take on them is Chad at CMATmods. That's all my opinion though and I stick with my original statement...play 'em in person, through an amp like yours, or deal with somebody who doesn't mind if you try and return. There are some reputable on line retailers who have a good return policy, but personally I want to try a few before I leave with one.
It's funny though, like you Justin, I started playing a long time ago too (mid 60s) but I don't see things have changed all that much. There are still plenty of folks who make good products, plenty that don't, plenty that sell snake oil and even more who point and laugh when the cork doesn't smell quite right. It's all good.

[chrisgblues]

There are only "so many ways" to clip a signal. Other than those differences in clipping types, the eq (and placement thereof) is the other variable. JMHO.

[Pinball_Wizard]

Well you've got; Fuzz, Treble Booster, Tube Screamers, Rats, DS-1s, Boss OD-3, Timmy. Amp distortion.

Some were made to be mated with amp distortion: Treble Boosters, Tube Screamers.

Some were designed to be on their own two feet, fuzz and rats.

But when it all comes down to it, it's your personal taste that matters and these are all flavors. Find the one you like.
I once modded a DS-1 to dial in an early Alice Cooper lead guitar tone, and an SD-1 to be Brian May-esque. Either one I still ended up moving on.

I have a fuzz I love, a rat variation I love, and a Boss OS-2 at the moment. I gave away or sold all my other dirtboxes.

[leonard d rock]

and if you still can't find the sound in your head or ear, buy the one that is the closest to it and mod the hell out of it. my first pedal was the boss hm-2, and after a while i stopped playing it since it was heavy, but the 2 knob eq on that pedal was really good. so for several years, i've been playing an sd-1 and a ds-1. but i recently found and tried mod for the hm-2 that to me sounds like what i was trying to achieve with the sd-1 and the ds-1 together, so the modded hm-2 is back on the board.

[11 Gauge]

Originally Posted by Tele-Monster

11 Gauge will be here soon to set us straight.

It may not be the most interesting research, but if you go back to the earliest offered pedals, you can kind of decipher how this "tree" is made up...

If you want to go back to the earliest fuzzes, it's actually pretty easy to decipher that they (Vox, Gibson/Maestro/Arbiter/etc.) took VERY common basic preamp circuits and adapted them for use with a 9VDC battery in a portable setup. There was little to no engineering for the circuit in any real sense.

You can jump ahead a little bit to the Tubescreamer, but by that time, there were other pedals that already had "op amp" chips in them that took the place of transistors that were in the old 60's and early 70's effects. The same basic chip was in the DOD OD250, MXR Dist+, the Boss OD-1, the ProCo Rat, the Boss DS-1, and others.

To achieve a "voltage gain" with an op amp, there's not really many different variations on how to do that. So it would make it REALLY easy to oversimplify things and say that anything with an op amp is a variation of a Tubescreamer.

All of this said, it is far easier for a pedal "designer" to take something that has proven to be popular and just duplicate it with a mere handful of alterations.

What is interesting is that now there are tons of "variations" of the non-TS stuff, like all of the Marshall pedals.

There are also the "newer breed" dirt pedals that are based off of a modular approach of Jack Orman's minibooster. The first big one was the Brown Sound In A Box II. Since then, it has been copied by Vex, who replaced the minibooster transistors with a different type. And Catalinbread has produced an entire line of "amp emulation" pedals that all use multiple minibooster modules.

The Big Muff was original at the time, as Mike Matthews paid someone to design it. Since then, some builders have kept it as a foundation for a fuzz, while others like Cornish or BJFE/Mad Professor have modified it to make it into more of a sustaining distortion device.

But ALL dirt boxes typically use one or a combination of the following:

- bipolar transistors - old fuzzes, the Big Muff, some Boss pedals, etc. take this route. "BJT's" can be either germanium or silicon.

- op amps - these are integrated circuits that contain a BIG COMBINATION of transistors, resistors, and diodes to make an almost COMPLETE preamp stage. In the case of a Tubescreamer, it is a DUAL op amp - 2 in 1 chip (the Rat, D+, etc. use a single op amp chip). The vast majority of pedals have adopted the op amp, because it vastly SIMPLIFIES the circuitry, lowers the noise floor, the chips have good gain factors, etc. Op amp based audio circuits basically have the promise of very good, stable, CONSISTENT performance.

- field effect transistors (FET's) - these can be either jFET or mosFET. They have much higher input impedances than BJT's, and the "field effect" allows for much better performance. jFET's are typically favored for their "amp like" characteristics, but the gain is very low, so they have to be set up a certain way to get sufficient gain. This is where the minibooster comes in - it "stacks" a pair of jFET's in a push-pull configuration that allows for really good gain, AND it's self biasing (a necessity for mass production).

...mosFET's have much more gain than jFET's, but can sound muddy and dark for that reason. The "mos" stands for "metal oxide silicon," and requires that SUPER THIN layers of it be created in order to make a transistor out of it. This means that mosFET's are fragile in comparison, so they require "protection" in the circuit to keep them from frying. Early Vex SHO's didn't have it, and were notorious for having the transistor blow out.

...That is about it. Pedals like the Tube Sound Fuzz and original EHX Hot Tubes use something called a "CMOS logic inverter" chip that was never intended for audio purposes. But it has found its way into the Blackstone Mosfet OD, the Emma Reezafratzitz, and Tripps copied the TSF when he made the WHE Red Llama.

So the "tree" doesn't really have a trunk and branches in the standard sense, but from a technical standpoint it does.

[Justinvs]

Thanks for all the info, .011! Much obliged.

Justin

[looney77]

It ain't so. Out there is a pedal that will give you sound you always dreamed of owning, if you think you already have that tone, this pedal will make it better........its out there, keep looking, good luck.

[/QUOTE]

You are the voice I've been hearing in my sleep. Dirty, very dirty. I love it though.

[camatillo]

11 Guage, where does the OCD Plimsoul fit into this tree? I have one and really like it but was wondering what type of circuit and solid state devices it utilizes. Thank you before hand for your input. ~~~ Jim

[jjkrause84]

What about LED clipping?

(C'mon 111 Gauge....share the wealth of knowledge some more! )

[11 Gauge]

Originally Posted by camatillo

11 Guage, where does the OCD Plimsoul fit into this tree? I have one and really like it but was wondering what type of circuit and solid state devices it utilizes. Thank you before hand for your input. ~~~ Jim

Tree for that one:

DOD OD 250
Voodoo Labs Overdrive
Fulltone OCD
Fulltone Plimsoul

...But since it has LED clippers added, it also follows a bit of this tree:

ProCo Turbo Rat
Marshall Guv'nor (V1)
Any DS-1 with LED clipper mod (like Keeley SEM)
Fulltone Plimsoul

The first gets most of the circuitry right, though. The second mainly address the LED clipping diodes

[11 Gauge]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

What about LED clipping?

(C'mon 111 Gauge....share the wealth of knowledge some more! )

AFAIK, the ProCo Turbo Rat was the first, with the Marshall Guv'nor (V1) as the second.

That said, Boss used LED's in at least one of theirs IIRC, but it wasn't until around the same time, maybe later.

And of course the TS9DX has a LED clipper mode, but nothing like a Guv or Rat. But it does predate the CJOD by awhile, IIRC.

...I really don't know the exact pedals, because many builders at least experimented with them as an option for a very long time. I was playing with them before I knew they were in pedals other than the Turbo Rat (I used to put them in Big Muffs).

[Joefish]

Thank you Mr. 11 Gauge!

[Agitator]

Speaking of OD history... I saw this quote in a description of a Danelectro pedal recently:

"History was made in 1975 when a mom and pop store in California commissioned the production of just 200 of what is perhaps the best overdrive effect ever. Unlike any other unit, that pedal authentically simulated the breakup that occurs when a tube amp is run at full volume."

What are they talking about?

[czech-one-2]

Originally Posted by 11 Gauge

That said, Boss used LED's in at least one of theirs IIRC, but it wasn't until around the same time, maybe later.

Yep, in my favorite Boss pedal, the SD-2!

[Chiogtr4x]

Originally Posted by Agitator

Speaking of OD history... I saw this quote in a description of a Danelectro pedal recently:

"History was made in 1975 when a mom and pop store in California commissioned the production of just 200 of what is perhaps the best overdrive effect ever. Unlike any other unit, that pedal authentically simulated the breakup that occurs when a tube amp is run at full volume."

What are they talking about?

OK, I remember this press text when Dano put this out- It was (is) in reference to the introduction of their FAB Series "Overdrive" (metallic grey pedal, still in production) as a repro (or clone) of the '70's "Nadine" or "Nadyne" (I think that's the name) pedal referenced; but I don't know anything else- I think I looked it up at some effects database, but never found out much

I have the red FAB Distortion (but have never tried the Overdrive) which was released at the same time, and the mag reviews I read indicated that the "Distortion" was more versatile and was more of an OD>distortion, whereas the "Overdrive" is supposed to have a darker very saturated but cool sounding distortion...The pedal is still only $15 or so, I don't know why I have never just tried one out!