Forget hard vs soft clipping, do we like symmetrical or asymmetrical clipping?

[Supertwang]

Then you'd likely want to stick to overdrive boxes that do their clipping in the amp's feedback circuit (diodes D1, D2 for symmetrical here, easy to spot),

View attachment 1389429


and DON'T have clipping diodes going to ground (symmetrical square waves result)
Here D1, D2 go to ground :

View attachment 1389433

Generalization for sure, don't shoot me.

Here’s my generalization,……plug directly into a proper tube pre- and/or amp. And another generalization,….stay away from clipping diodes.

 

[sammy1974]

Here’s my generalization,……plug directly into a proper tube pre- and/or amp. And another generalization,….stay away from clipping diodes.

This is the stomp box forum, let us have our fun.

 

[RLangham98]

Here’s my generalization,……plug directly into a proper tube pre- and/or amp. And another generalization,….stay away from clipping diodes.

I mean it’s not like high gain amps don’t also have artificial clipping stages. Did you think that the overdrive sounds of a JCM800, a SLO-100, a 5501 and a Dual Rectifier are just the preamp tubes getting saturated? All of those have a tube thats acting as essentially a set of asymmetrical clipping diodes by virtue of being biased so cold that half of every waveform hits the cutoff.

There’s very little that solid state guitar effects do that wasn’t done first with tubes or electromechanical devices, and the bright line distinction you want to draw where silicone clipping diodes are bad and a tube that’s artificially placed into clipping is not… is an illusory one.

 

[Peegoo]

This is how I think about this stuff.

 

[RLangham98]

This is how I think about this stuff.

Everything is leading me to the conclusion that I may be firmly in camp asymmetrical!

 

[Supertwang]

I mean it’s not like high gain amps don’t also have artificial clipping stages. Did you think that the overdrive sounds of a JCM800, a SLO-100, a 5501 and a Dual Rectifier are just the preamp tubes getting saturated? All of those have a tube thats acting as essentially a set of asymmetrical clipping diodes by virtue of being biased so cold that half of every waveform hits the cutoff.

There’s very little that solid state guitar effects do that wasn’t done first with tubes or electromechanical devices, and the bright line distinction you want to draw where silicone clipping diodes are bad and a tube that’s artificially placed into clipping is not… is an illusory one.

I understand your point but I’d replace your “illusory” with “audible”. Solid state triode devices give off odd order harmonics and an overdriven tube triode gives off even order harmonics When overdriven. The whole Fender “Tone-master” SS thing is about Fender engineers making a SS amp sound and behave/feel like a tube amp. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to use a tube?

 

[Supertwang]

This is the stomp box forum, let us have our fun.

Hmmm,…I own 3-4 of them stomp boxes that’s helped along with a twin triode tube. But please do have your fun and I apologize if it seems I was preventing any fun

 

[RLangham98]

I understand your point but I’d replace your “illusory” with “audible”. Solid state triode devices give off odd order harmonics and an overdriven tube triode gives off even order harmonics When overdriven. The whole Fender “Tone-master” SS thing is about Fender engineers making a SS amp sound and behave/feel like a tube amp. Wouldn’t it just be simpler to use a tube?

Hey don't come at me about the digital stuff, I don't like it either. In fact, the Tone-Master series is something we can definitely agree on. There's no reason a digital emulation of a Twin Reverb should be almost the same price as a real Twin Reverb reissue, and the only reason I guess they're popular right now is that they're lighter and they don't need maintenance like a real one. But they should still cost a couple hundred less than the real thing. FWIW, when I can afford a good BB delay my signal chain will be 100% analog.

But I think you're drastically oversimplifying the wide world of solid state OD pedals, and also the wide world of high gain amps. My point, which I don't think you did understand, could be wrong, is that there's nothing a Boss DS-2 does that's fundamentally different from a cold clipping stage in any modern high gain tube amp. That's diode-like hard asymmetrical clipping originating from a triode tube, which will result in odd order harmonics. Didn't seem to impede that circuit's wide adoption in hard rock and metal.

And there are a lot of ways a tube amp can be designed that will result in odd-order harmonics. Lots of class AB power stages can drift into class B over time, which will have crossover distortion. Some amps come as class B inherently; not necessarily very high-end amps, but it happens. Some kinds of phase inverter stage are prone to odd order harmonics, and a lot of amp designers found that acceptable to avoid the tone suck of a cathodyne inverter.

So there's no universe in which odd-order harmonics are exclusively a solid state thing or exclusively unmusical or undesirable. They can be harsh but they're a kind of spice that's in the kitchen and called for in some recipes.

It's not the pedals. Or if it is, okay? Like, you came in here being kind of a sourpuss about something you did not have to respond to at all.

 

[LOSTVENTURE]

Sammy's square waves are giving me a headache just looking at them. Takes me back to my college days in front of the scope.

 

[RLangham98]

Sammy's square waves are giving me a headache just looking at them. Takes me back to my college days in front of the scope.

NGL I can kinda smell my EICO kit scope overheating when I look at that picture!

 

[NWinther]

I like both kinds, my old workmate and me also dabbled with rectified diode setups, or multiple diodes on each side that each could be switched on and off...
A mix of diodes and so forth.
There is alot of fun to be had with both that and filtering, parallel stuff mixed into each other and what not.

It is interesting world with loads of possibilities.
If it makes fun and useable sounds...well bring it on

 

[cousinpaul]

I like the Boss SD-1 a lot. It's similar to a Tube Screamer but it's 1MEG drive pot and strong low-cut are a bigger deal for me than the asymmetric clipping.

 

[ClashCityTele]

I guess I'm in the Asymmetrical team.
OD-1, SD-1, BD-2, OCD 1.4, Red Llama.
Although I do like Tube Screamers & Klons.

 

[J-bass&Tele]

In any overdrive there are maybe 5-6 variables I'm looking at. Asymmetrical vs symmetrical is very low on that list, if at all and unless there's a switch between the two in the same pedal, you're comparing two different pedals.

EQ profile and adjustability, amount and character of which frequencies clip, compression, noise etc. It's the whole thing that's important and how it plays with all the other stuff in one's rig and then how that rig works with that band.

Looking at forests, trees and all that.

 

[4pickupguy]

Into a clean amp, I think asymmetrical. I like for there to be a bit what I’m going to call trash on the transient then it disappears to a clean sustained sound. On its own, its bit harsh sounding. In a mix it gets heard. I have two preamps that do this really well. It takes a bit to get used to because it feels weird. Then you end up changing how you play, sorta the way a FuzzFace changes your technique.

 

[JustABluesGuy]

Into a clean amp, I think asymmetrical. I like for there to be a bit what I’m going to call trash on the transient then it disappears to a clean sustained sound. On its own, its bit harsh sounding. In a mix it gets heard. I have two preamps that do this really well. It takes a bit to get used to because it feels weird. Then you end up changing how you play, sorta the way a FuzzFace changes your technique.

Interesting, I noticed something quite similar, except I tend to run into an amp on the edge of breakup (when possible).

To me asymmetrical clipping sounds ruder, but in a good, amp like way. Maybe an amp about to release the magic tone smoke.

I didn’t start to notice I might prefer asymmetrical until I compared my Tube Screamer to my SD-1 and wondered why I preferred the SD-1 over the TS.

 

[edvard]

Asymmetrical (and soft clipping) sounds best and the effect is more audible at low-to-mid gain levels, in my opinion. At that level, the asymmetricality is still letting part of the waveform give off natural harmonics and can clean up with a bit less pick attack, and induced harmonics from the clipping haven't taken over the tone, but add character. The Tech 21 XXL distortion pedal has a "warp" control that simply sets the voltage offset of the signal going into an op-amp stage, which induces asymmetric clipping. You only notice what it's doing at low-to-mid gain settings.

At high gain, level and type of clipping stop mattering. At a certain point, there's so much amplification that the sides of your waveform are close enough to vertical that asymmetrical clipping doesn't matter, and there's not enough time for the top of the waveform to "bend" to soft clipping, so you might as well be playing with square waves.

Spoiler: Off-topic rantings about soft-clipping

I don't like hard clipping, because there's a point when the note fades and the signal dips in and out of the clipping threshold until it fades to clean, and that sounds trashy to me. Some people like it, but I prefer a smooth transition. Three things will get you into soft clipping territory:
- A purposely-built soft clipping circuit; see Figure 17 here: https://sound-au.com/project152-2.htm
- High output impedance driving a clipping-diodes-to-ground arrangement. This can be accomplished by simply putting a 10k - 100k resistor directly in front of the clipping diodes. See here: https://sound-au.com/articles/soft-clip.htm
- CMOS inverter overdrive, like the original Anderton "tube sound fuzz", EHX Hot Tubes, Way Huge Red Llama, etc.
- An inverting op-amp stage with diodes in the feedback path. A simple simulation in your favored Spice program will show you that something very different is happening in a non-inverting op-amp stage with the same arrangement. The tops of the waveform don't clip, but the sides of the waveform in between the diode thresholds get more and more vertical. This is because when the signal breaks over the diode, it represents a short, and a short in the feedback path of a non-inverting op-amp stage makes it a buffer for that microsecond. It sounds... odd to me.

I've gone down all those rabbit holes for years, and finally found my mojo a bit farther from the path: CMOS NAND/NOR gates wired for linear. When overdriven, they soft-clip like CMOS inverters, and the internal structure forces asymmetrical performance. Again, the effect is most audible and sounds best when driven to mid-gain levels, but you can drive them to square waves and still enjoy the smooth tail-out as the notes fade and the harmonics slowly fall.

 

[4pickupguy]

I have a Jam Pedals Rattler which I like but there is something about the thing that always had me substituting it with my $60 Mr Vermin (my favorite of all my Rats). I found long after I had bought it that it was symmetrical clipping. The Vermin just does the thing.

Rats sound fantastic at lower gain. I am using the drive side of my preamp more and more but I will probably always have a Rat on my board.

 

[Maguchi]

Symmetric, asymmetric, hard, soft, I likes 'em all. If it clips, it ships!