DIGITAL DISTORTION

[Peter_F]

so i was thinking about A/D/A processors and does anyone think my idea will work and what it needs to actually sound good:

-input guitar signal to amplifier and add DC offset to create ~2.5Vp DC signal
that is then fed into a 0804 A/D that converts it into a digital binary signal. Say i want to emulate a
plexi distortion pattern, or for a simple example, i want asymetrical clipping, so i use various gates
to assign certain values on the outputs of the 0804 to read into a AD557 D/A converter which would output
an analog output close to what i want.

hows this sound for a start?

[Transmogrifox]

You may be better off making your own D/A converter from a summing op-amp config, or resistor ladder and capacitors.  The typical D/A will sum each bit in powers of 2, but you can sum them in a nonlinear way so that your most significant bits don't carry as much weight as they should in a linear D/A converter.  You just need a DAC that carries a sign bit and converts magnitude so you can define your symmetry with your D/A converter.  If you're just overdriving an A/D converter, you're probably not going to get anywhere close to a plexi, even if you are changing symmetry.  Otherwise, you would want to use some DSP on the signal after conversion to add flavorful distortion...and to do the processing you want with "various gates to assign certain values on the outputs of the 0804", you'll have one heckuva logic circuit there before you get a good sound.