Red Llama - a fuzz or an overdrive?

[gutsofgold]

I've noticed the Red Llama is often classified as an overdrive but it has a fuzz control. How would you describe it? Better overdrive than a Tubescreamer?

[soulsonic]

It's an almost exact copy of the "Tube Sound Fuzz" from Electronic Projects For Musicians by Craig Anderton, so maybe that's why it's labeled "Fuzz". I've built a Tube Sound Fuzz before and it's definitely more of an overdrive than a fuzz. It sounds very different than a Tube Screamer; it's hard to compare the two because they are so different.

[petemoore]

  For workng up a nice distortion: Tube Sound Fuzz, Anderton...or some derivitave.
  There's a lot can be done with CMOS, and the linear design is pretty straightforeward to work with.
  Put a booster on it it distorts harder.
  You can also try lowering the supply voltage to say about 5v.

[Mark Hammer]

Once upon a time, some 30 years ago, there were plenty of commercial and DIY circuits around, but not so many that people actually thought the question "What's the difference between a fuzz, overdrive and distortion?" warranted a thorough and crystal clear answer.  The Anderton TSF originates from that time period (1977).

DO NOT treat the legending on the chassis of anything as 100% equivalent to what it actually does in a technical sense.  Plenty of times, the term that is silkscreened onto the box is simply the closest familiar term the maker could come up with.

[DougH]

Ahhh yes... Back in the days where "fuzz" just meant "distortion" and nothing else...

[petemoore]

  You can try or even buy a TS easy enough...modify etc.
  Enough TS talk, they are relatively inexpensive, buy one/try one should be N/P, also sorta easy to build...mess with the diodes...morgan enough TS Talk out there.
  Then get an unbuffered CMOS chip and tailor the voicing and tone [consider altering designs..perhaps use a different type of active up in front of it...etc.], and level of distortion to your liking.
  I found it's ability to do the 'big amp thing in a box' quite remarkable, great chip and circuit to work with.
  Except for the fact that my circuits with CMOS chips tended to fail on me...I still need to work that through some more and get Andertons DIY advice on my pedalboard, when it worked it did a few fairly unique tricks...really cool ones...and a soft-tube-type distortion tone with lots of dynamics being one of them. Whether I failed the chips or the chips failed me remains unresolved...most everyone else who diddled with the CMOS chips have reported fine results.

[WGTP]

Check out the RunOffGroove CMOS Tube Screamer.