Newbie here; question on jfets as diodes

[MKB]

Hi all, this is my first post here after some lurking.  Many of you seem to be pretty sharp on stompboxes, got a question for you. 

Has anyone tried to use the diode connection in a jfet (jfet gate as anode and drain/source as cathode in a n channel jfet) as a clipping device in a distortion circuit?  We use fets connected this way as low capacitance protection diodes in high impedance measuring circuits, and you can actually buy diodes made in this way (PAD1 as example), but I have never heard of them being used in distortion circuits.  Have any of you tried this and found that it sounded bad?  I plan to try a few out next week when I get my breadboard set up.  Thanks for the very informative forum!

[R.G.]

Hi, and welcome to Effects Abusers Unanimous.

In general, if it can even possibly be used as a clipping diode, it's been tried by someone here. JFET gate/channel diodes are very low leakage, but they have the channel resistance between the effective cathode and the anode lead (for N-channels), so they're a little softer clipping than they otherwise might be, and the diffusion for low leakage changes up the forward voltage a bit.

We've tried pretty much all of the single nonlinear devices by now. We're a bit over ten years into the revolution.