Do various distortion pedals really sound radically different from each other ?

[Vivek]

I saw a video on Youtube showcasing all the drive pedals in the AXE FX III. It appeared that they were really only 2 or maybe maximum 4 types of sound families, and all other pedals sounded like tone and gain variations and derivatives of these basic families

I saw many videos of Snobel comparing different distortion pedals, and most sound like kissing cousins of each other.

Can the ear really hear minute differences in the percent of 3rd harmonic versus 5th harmonic as created by different pedals.

Can the sound of any pedal be quite closely replicated on another pedal by

-- tone/gain control adjustments
-- EQ pedals placed nearby in chain of the distortion pedal

Does the world need another distortion pedal ?

[Steben]

I saw a video on Youtube showcasing all the drive pedals in the AXE FX III. It appeared that they were really only 2 or maybe maximum 4 types of sound families, and all other pedals sounded like tone and gain variations and derivatives of these basic families

I saw many videos of Snobel comparing different distortion pedals, and most sound like kissing cousins of each other.

Can the ear really hear minute differences in the percent of 3rd harmonic versus 5th harmonic as created by different pedals.

Can the sound of any pedal be quite closely replicated on another pedal by

-- tone/gain control adjustments
-- EQ pedals placed nearby in chain of the distortion pedal

Does the world need another distortion pedal ?

Mark? 

[Mark Hammer]

I saw a video on Youtube showcasing all the drive pedals in the AXE FX III. It appeared that they were really only 2 or maybe maximum 4 types of sound families, and all other pedals sounded like tone and gain variations and derivatives of these basic families

I saw many videos of Snobel comparing different distortion pedals, and most sound like kissing cousins of each other.

Can the ear really hear minute differences in the percent of 3rd harmonic versus 5th harmonic as created by different pedals.

Can the sound of any pedal be quite closely replicated on another pedal by

-- tone/gain control adjustments
-- EQ pedals placed nearby in chain of the distortion pedal

Does the world need another distortion pedal ?

Mark? 

Um....do threads read the same? 

Apologies, Vivek.  You're relatively new here, and there ARE a lot of threads generated, which nobody can be expected to exhaustively plow through.

A decade or more back, Bob Weil, from Truetone pedals (then called Visual Sound) had a series of Youtubes, in which he demoed a bunch of pedals (Zac Childs did the actual playing) from behind a screen to a room full of people (RG was sitting among them but unannounced AFAIK), and the negligible differences between pedals was apparent.  What was not discussed there but was discussed here, at the time, was that the pedals in the "shootout" were all dialed in to sound approximately the same.  The full range of sounds attainable from any given pedal was not explored, merely the ability of pedal X to sound like pedal Y or Z.  It's not deceptive, but neither is it the whole story.  There may well be a big chunk of pedal X's range that perfectly duplicates a big chunk of pedal Y's or Z's.  But perhaps one can dial in a little more drive with X, while Y and Z can dial in lower drive settings. Or maybe the tone control allows for just a little more bite in one but a little more smoothing of highs in another.  In other words, they can be pretty much identical for all controls between the 9:00 and 3:00 settings, and really only pull apart below or above those control settings.

That's not an indicator of better or worse, simply a difference that might be more serviceable to this player, using this rig and doing this material.

One can buy loaves from some bakeries that are sliced length-wise, rather than width-wise.  It's the same white bread, with the same ingredients and taste, but the one fits in your toaster and the other is ideal for making "pinwheel" sandwiches for catering.  Same thing here.

[Vivek]

Dear Mark, I thank you for your kind reply.

[marcelomd]

A decade or more back, Bob Weil, from Truetone pedals (then called Visual Sound) had a series of Youtubes, in which he demoed a bunch of pedals (Zac Childs did the actual playing) from behind a screen to a room full of people (RG was sitting among them but unannounced AFAIK), and the negligible differences between pedals was apparent.  What was not discussed there but was discussed here, at the time, was that the pedals in the "shootout" were all dialed in to sound approximately the same.  The full range of sounds attainable from any given pedal was not explored, merely the ability of pedal X to sound like pedal Y or Z.  It's not deceptive, but neither is it the whole story.  There may well be a big chunk of pedal X's range that perfectly duplicates a big chunk of pedal Y's or Z's.  But perhaps one can dial in a little more drive with X, while Y and Z can dial in lower drive settings. Or maybe the tone control allows for just a little more bite in one but a little more smoothing of highs in another.  In other words, they can be pretty much identical for all controls between the 9:00 and 3:00 settings, and really only pull apart below or above those control settings.

Hah, I was half expecting them to be the same pedal. Would be a nice twist to show the variations (or not) between pedal serial number n and n+1.

Seriously. I think most overdrive/distortion pedals try to do more or less the same thing. Make a clean amp sound like a dimed tube amp (often a specific brand from a specif era). If they are successful, they will all be in the same ballpark. Plus minor differences, like Mark pointed.

[Mark Hammer]

Are hamburgers and pizza popular?  You bet.  Are most pizzas or hamburgers pretty comparable to most others?  Yes.  Does that stop anyone from opening up yet another pizza place or burger joint, convinced that they can carve out a sustainable market segment for themselves - particularly now that nothing is local anymore?  Not at all.

Distortions are and remain popular.  After one's first 30 or so, you realize you're not hearing anything terribly different from the first dozen.  Will that stop anyone here from trying yet one more build from a posted circuit that seems intriguing?  Nah.

There's not much out there that truly makes a guitar input square.  But stuff comes close, and once you achieve squareness, there's not much elsewhere to go.

[amz-fx]

There are two main design choices that make distortion pedals sound different from each other:

1. Amount of gain;
2. EQ (before and after clipping)

These factors are used to shape the tone more than special diodes, expensive op amps or NOS transistors. These choices made by the circuit designer are what sets the pedal apart from the next.

regards, Jack

[Mark Hammer]

Pretty much sums it up.

[Steben]

Agree ... but closely followed by opamp allowed to do clipping or not.... (no matter what opamp)

[bartimaeus]

depends on context... into a solid-state amp, i can totally hear the difference between an SD1 and a TS9, but they both sound absolutely terrible with such a clean amp. but into a dimed amp they sound the same, all that matters is how much treble and bass they cut

you could probably reproduce most boutique tubescreamers just by making a pedal with variable lowpass and highpass filters on the input and output. but then you have to worry about all those settings... i think most people prefer to buy a pedal where someone worked out the "best" settings for them.

[Vivek]

1. Gain
2. EQ (before and after clipping)

regards, Jack

Thanks Jack

Gurus like you, RG, Teemuk , Craig having been saying exactly this for more than 20 years.

I identified 2 types of pre and post EQ

The tube screamer type

The MT2 / Chainsaw type

Please enlighten me on other types of pre and post EQ in amps / pedals.

[Vivek]

you could probably reproduce most boutique tubescreamers just by making a pedal with variable lowpass and highpass filters on the input and output. but then you have to worry about all those settings... i think most people prefer to buy a pedal where someone worked out the "best" settings for them.

Check out the VFE Dragon

(Not VFE Dragon Hound)

[amz-fx]

I identified 2 types of pre and post EQ

The tube screamer type

The MT2 / Chainsaw type

Please enlighten me on other types of pre and post EQ in amps / pedals.

There are lots of methods used. One example is no EQ. A flat response distortion sounds muddy or fat, depending on your other gear and what type of music you play.

Another example is the low pass filter that some builders put at the end of the distortion signal path to crudely imitate speaker response. Catalinbread does this a lot.

The Big Muff has a notch is the mid-range from the tone control, which is opposite the TS types.

There are plenty of other variations and techniques, which is what makes the field so big.

Best regards, Jack

[Fancy Lime]

Another major division between distortion types imo is between fuzz and everything else. While philosophers can easily argue what fuzz really is until the cows come home without reaching an agreement, one big factor is definitely that fuzzes have a lot of low frequencies going into the clipping stage(s). If you put a high pass in front of a Big Muff, you get a nice distortion pedal. A Fuzz Face with a small enough input coupling cap makes for a sweet overdrive. If you put a hefty bass boost in front of a Rat or even a Tube Screamer, you have a fuzz. Hell, you can turn a Marshall Plexi into a fuzz with a proper bass boost in front.

DOD has a series of pedals in the 80's and 90's, where they used the same PCB for half a dozen different drive pedals from "tube-like" overdrive to heavy distortion to classic fuzz. The only difference was pre and post clipping tone frequency shaping and where they put the clipping diodes. Goes to show that you can get almost any distortion sound from the same topology. Playing around with different and strange topologies is fun, though.

Andy

[Electron Tornado]

I saw a video on Youtube showcasing all the drive pedals in the AXE FX III. It appeared that they were really only 2 or maybe maximum 4 types of sound families, and all other pedals sounded like tone and gain variations and derivatives of these basic families

I saw many videos of Snobel comparing different distortion pedals, and most sound like kissing cousins of each other.

Many pedals out there are derivatives of a few popular pedals. More than a few are simply clones.

Can the sound of any pedal be quite closely replicated on another pedal by

-- tone/gain control adjustments
-- EQ pedals placed nearby in chain of the distortion pedal

Any distortion pedal will do 3 things:

- amplify the signal
- clip the signal
- filter the signal

It may do those in varying order, and in varying degrees.

It's been mentioned that a good experiment is to take a simple distortion pedal and place it in between two EQ pedals.

[Rob Strand]

There's clearly a difference between feedback diode clippers and the old-school circuits which have a gated or farty character.

[aron]

OK here's my 2 cents and I've been pretty consistent on this. Can you HEAR the difference? Maybe, maybe not, but this has not always been about the sound but the feel. As an example, sure, the early modeling amps "sounded" fine - played back, it sounds fine. Did it feel good? NO! A big NO!
When I mod my feedback diode string and mod my pedals, I mod it to feel good as well as sound like I want. There's a certain feel that I need to feel comfortable with. An amp can sag and alter the feel, but the listener may or may not notice it, but the player certainly can. Almost every single good player I know can tell the difference in feel (and tone). So maybe they don't sound "radically different" to some people, but believe me, they feel different and as a result sound different to the player.

[Fancy Lime]

+1

Differences in played back material can be rather minor but the differences in feedback to the player (aka feel) can be drastic. The latter has a big influence on how inspiring a pedal feels. When I play an overdrive that is very sensitive to playing dynamics, I automatically play more dynamically, because it's fun. When a pedal reacts well to use of the guitars volume knob, then I will incorporate that in my playing. Feedback from your equipment is fun.

Andy