Favorite way to clip a signal?

[Transmogrifox]

JFET differential pair.

hey Transmo: whereyabeen? 

I've been doing digital open source guitar FX software in my free time:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rakarrack/

...hardware engineering to pay the bills, and making babies to make the bills worth paying

Just recently got the urge to pull out some transistors and try some stuff. I'm about to start another thread to share some things I've been playing with.

[Transmogrifox]

JFET differential pair.

Is there a specific circuit that utilizes this?

I don't know that I've seen it done quite how I like to do it in a commercial pedal, but here's the part I'm talking about below.  It's that current-steering principle where it creates a nice soft approach but a hard limit when it hits the rail. 


And here is the full circuit.  It sounds tube amp-ish.  Good responsive dynamic crunch.

[amptramp]

I prefer the precision clamp on the right-hand side of this:

https://archive.org/stream/NationalSemiconductorLinearApplicationsHandbook1994#page/n105/mode/2up

I would use two of them, one for positive and one for negative in a circuit like a DOD250 where the diodes go to ground.  You get precise, repeatable clipping point with no temperature dependence and the ability to add in series resistances.

[Quackzed]

my 2 favs are muffer style with a lower emitter resistor(to get it to distort) and mu-amp (with a good high imp jfet booster driving it...)
...so far...