advanced thinking.....from a simpleton!!!

[plexi12000]

i've been reading about the big muffs....i'm really diggin these things.  from what i am understanding...the "trick" to that sound is the fact that there are two cllipping stages.

So...i'm sure i'm not the only one to ask this...but, i guess you could incorporate a 2nd clip stage....in any distortion circuit?  like a T Screamer or MXR D+ ?

ANyone ever try it?  might be pretty dang awesome.

[Kipper4]

The mad professor sweet honey does this. First a TS style feedback loop with 3mm LEDs followed by diodes to gnd.
I'm not sure it sounds like a muff but I just remember seeing it recently.
Check out some samples and see what you think.
Rich

[Mark Hammer]

Some things have "invisible" clipping stages built into them already.

I recall well, past threads from forum members (when we had fewer than 10,000 of them) who were frustrated at not being able to get anything clean-sounding out of their Distortion+, even without any clipping diodes.

The trick is that the 741 has limited headroom - especially on a 9v supply - and that the signal is getting clipped even before it hits the diodes.  The diodes simply add another layer on top of that.

Is adding a second deliberate clipping stage "better"?  Interesting question.  It would depend on what is getting accomplished in each of the stages.

Let's take the various circuits based on the CD4049 or CD4069 invertor. This includes the Red Llama and Anderton Tube Sound Fuzz it was based on, the EHX Hot Tubes, and various solid-state Laney amplifier front-ends.  These generally use multiple invertor stages (at least 2).  Multiple stages are used to both provide a phase-corrected output (i.e., output is in phase with the input), but also to provide cumulative grind. No single stage is called upon to severely clip.  In part, that is what lends it to a modest comparison against tube amps, which also distribute their gain across multiple stages, and don't put all their chips on one single stage.

In the case of the BMP, the double-clipping was intended to impart a certain tone.  I recently lifted the diodes out of the first stage in a 90's reissue BMP someone gave me, and found the tonal difference to be difficult to hear, unless one paid very close attention.  It certainly had little impact on sustain, even at very low volumes.  Part of that stems from the very high gain sigal fed by the unclipped first stage to the second one.  In other words, the 2nd stage was gonna squish where it squished, and as long as the signal hitting it was hot enough to reach that maximum squish threshold, there was not going to be one iota of difference in how much the overall signal would be clipped and stay near the ceiling.

Now, cumulative harmonic alteration, over multiple stages OR devices, can be a very desirable thing.  One of the key features of the venerable Klon Centaur, and a great many other boosters that followed it, was that it provided a smidgen of clipping to shape the tone of the signal hitting the amp, so that the amp was overdriven in a particular deliberate way.  The pedal and amp form a dual-clipping circuit of a sort.  Pedals like the Analogman King of Tone or the Visual Sound XO provide the option to have one overdrive push another.  The EHX Double MUff does so as well.  Each individual half is a single clipping stage, but when the two halves are run in series, they form a dual clipping circuit.

So, you are certainly not crazy to be mulling it over.  There are more than enough examples where it does something nice.  BUt you need to think about what you want to achieve, and how the two clipping "stages" would interact in amusically useful way.

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

Try it. Enough blues players swear by using 2 ts's.
Personally, I've tried 4x TS in series... very high gain. Mods for bass would be good, stacking two stock ts stages would result in a ridiculous bass/treble cuts. Pretty bad with the TS as it is.

[plexi12000]

Thanks guys!   Mark Hammer--- you're the man.  thanks for the in depth comment!

Kipper4--  i'll check out the 'mad professor' !