Tube Screamer-Warm clipping How to ?

[samhay]

I think that calling it simple soft clipping is a touch misleading. At high input signal levels a sine wave may look pleasingly rounded, but remember that the opamp's gain snaps from over x100 (with the drive control maxed) to x1 over a very small range of output. In a recent thread on the subject someone (I can't remember who, sorry) likened it to crossover distortion and yeah, it's a pair of very sharp kinks in the transfer function.

Right. So if you want 'soft' clipping with this approach, then you may want to add a series resistor like Merlin suggested and/or keep the gain down and stack multiple gain stages.

[Bill Mountain]

I look at overdrives from the eyes/ears of a bass player.  A TS on it's own is not warm sounding.  Most great overdrives are less than stellar by themselves.  It's when that pedal is overdriving an awesome amp that it starts to sound warm.  Since most bassist aren't overdriving EL34's then what come out of the pedal needs to be the complete tonal package and the best way to achieve warmth without power tubes is heavy filtering.  In the raw most clipping souns the same.  It's the way the pedal deals with the high frequencies generated by clipping that makes it sound warm.

[HOTTUBES]

For whatever reason this seems to work with my build . i have tryed just about every possible config of diodes
and even j201 as clippers , but i still keep coming back to this as being the most amp like tone imo . I can still max
out the gain & volume knobs and it still sounds clean & tight !
Also one thing to keep in mind , i'm using this OD to push my Marshall's dirty channel ( jcm800 like crunch , then add the OD !! )
Super higain fun !

You can sub out the 1N4001's here for 4148's and it sounds bad ass as well !!

D1 - 1N4001
D2 - 1N4001+1N34A
D3 - 1n34A


Thanks for everyone's responses !!

[Bill Mountain]

For whatever reason this seems to work with my build . i have tryed just about every possible config of diodes
and even j201 as clippers , but i still keep coming back to this as being the most amp like tone imo . I can still max
out the gain & volume knobs and it still sounds clean & tight !
Also one thing to keep in mind , i'm using this OD to push my Marshall's dirty channel ( jcm800 like crunch , then add the OD !! )
Super higain fun !

You can sub out the 1N4001's here for 4148's and it sounds bad ass as well !!

D1 - 1N4001
D2 - 1N4001+1N34A
D3 - 1n34A


Thanks for everyone's responses !!

How do you hook up these diodes?

[duck_arse]

here is a redrawn circuit from eti. dial in your own diode softness.

[HOTTUBES]

For whatever reason this seems to work with my build . i have tryed just about every possible config of diodes
and even j201 as clippers , but i still keep coming back to this as being the most amp like tone imo . I can still max
out the gain & volume knobs and it still sounds clean & tight !
Also one thing to keep in mind , i'm using this OD to push my Marshall's dirty channel ( jcm800 like crunch , then add the OD !! )
Super higain fun !

You can sub out the 1N4001's here for 4148's and it sounds bad ass as well !!

D1 - 1N4001
D2 - 1N4001+1N34A
D3 - 1n34A


Thanks for everyone's responses !!

How do you hook up these diodes?

Just as i show it etc ...

D1 - 1N4001
D2 -1N4001 + 1N34a ( In series )
D3 - 1N34A

[HOTTUBES]

here is a redrawn circuit from eti. dial in your own diode softness.

That's kinda cool !!

[Bill Mountain]

For whatever reason this seems to work with my build . i have tryed just about every possible config of diodes
and even j201 as clippers , but i still keep coming back to this as being the most amp like tone imo . I can still max
out the gain & volume knobs and it still sounds clean & tight !
Also one thing to keep in mind , i'm using this OD to push my Marshall's dirty channel ( jcm800 like crunch , then add the OD !! )
Super higain fun !

You can sub out the 1N4001's here for 4148's and it sounds bad ass as well !!

D1 - 1N4001
D2 - 1N4001+1N34A
D3 - 1n34A


Thanks for everyone's responses !!

How do you hook up these diodes?

Just as i show it etc ...

D1 - 1N4001
D2 -1N4001 + 1N34a ( In series )
D3 - 1N34A

I guess I'm just missing something because a tube screamer only has 2 clipping diodes.  If you're using 3 (technically 4) diodes how are they arranged?

Are D1 and D2 in series and D3 antiparallel?  Or is it some other arrangement?

[HOTTUBES]

The boards i use are a Tube screamer clone with 3 clippers like a Boss SD1 ...

[peterg]

Late in the game but Tonepad's version of the Tube Screamer - Green Bean - has good clippping options.

[bluebunny]

The "Green Bean" is madbean's take on the TS - and has the options you mention.  Very flexible.  My tame guitarist won't give it back.    Tonepad's version is "El Griton", and includes parts options for TS-9 vs. TS-808 (and whatever clipping options you fancy), but without the switching support onboard.

[DougH]

Jack Orman has all kinds of good info on almost every conceivable diode clipping scenario known to man, as well as lots of good advice on how to mod a tube screamer to do a lot of different things: http://www.muzique.com/

I would suggest checking this out before going any further.