NEED HELP W/ WORST DISTORTION EVER

[iainpunk]

so a friend of mine asked for the worst distortion pedal i could come up with. i want to first acquire a set  of features that are bad to incorporate them all in a pedal.

some features i was thinking about:

• heavy scoop
• NO dynamics
• low volume, less than clean guitar
• badly gated
• hiss and hum BOOST

i thought you guys would know a few ways to make a distortion sound awful!

cheers, Iain

[Steben]

Lol give me some time to think about this

[kraal]

• crackling sound
• inverted pots
• led on when in bypass, led off when circuit on
• oscillating
• germanium + peltier plate
• buzzing
• crosstalk
• poorly working stompswitch (not everytime you hit it)
• poping sound

You're welcome 

[iainpunk]

so i was thinking about power supply noise and how to boost it! i know he uses daisy chains so i want to inject a bunch of noise in  to the power line to freak up the other pedals.

yes, inverted pots, all pots have some DC for crackle when turning, popping bypass, inverted LED, whining/motorboating, even whining when in bypass. i think i know a good way to make the bypass switch more random, it drives a shift register randomiser which determines if it goes on or off with each flick of a small toggle switch.

reversed jacks
LED brighter than a nuclear blast.

remember that it should be the worst pedal, not a 'so bad its good' pedal

cheers, Iain

[Marcos - Munky]

I think a fuzz with a voltage starve pot (just a pot between v+ and the circuit, to simulate a dead battery) and a feedback loop (conect the output of the circuit to the input of the circuit) will sounds bad and with lots of oscillation. If the fuzz is something like 3 or 4 Bazz Fuss in series, or 2 Big Muff in series, you'll get more noise and a oversaturated sound.

It can sound worse, but that's a good start.

[GibsonGM]

Opamp distortion like Guvnor. 680R bias resistors >>mid hump >> boost >> mis-biased bjt stage > 220n cap to ground > output     

[willienillie]

If you can make a distortion that sounds worse than the DS-1, you should call it Rocktek.

Oh, too late, already been done.

[mozz]

Attach a long wire without ground to the input.

[blackieNYC]

Plastic enclosure.

[iainpunk]

Attach a long wire without ground to the input.

the chassis should not be grounded, the chassis should be directly connected to the input

Plastic enclosure.

with aluminium foil over it to do the trick described above.

Op amp distortion like Guvnor. 680R bias resistors >>mid hump >> boost >> mis-biased bjt stage > 220n cap to ground > output     

schematic?

i am fully going to use op amps for everything because its easier to design in my opinion. i'd like to keep it to max 2 op amps.
i also have an exciting surprise coming later for the bypass switching ill apply. i have a few plans brewing in my head.

cheers, Iain

[ThermionicScott]

Cuts out and recovers briefly under heavy overdrive.  But not in a consistent, predictable way.   

Can't wait to hear this thing!

[iainpunk]

its not going to be a distortion in the traditional sense, it doesn't have more or less overdrive, but always the same. no volume control needed, only a tone control, from bright to brighter with a very narrow frequency band being boosted. and its always whining because the opamp doesn't like capacitive load, hihi

if one of you has an extremely good memory, i talked about the bypass system i envision before, i found it on a flea market on some weird old man's stand. for those who haven't seen it or have bad memory, it's still a surprise for later!

cheers, Iain

[Vivek]

It should catch BBC !

[Vivek]

It should heat up !

[Vivek]

It should give electric shocks when you press the footswitch

[11-90-an]

Use an lm386 to play radio 

[bartimaeus]

those "passive fuzz" add-ons for guitar that're just a couple clipping diodes check a lot of those boxes

[teemuk]

My humble suggestions:
- Emphasizes discordant harmonics
- Out of tune with single notes, unintelligible noise with chords
- Hides characteristics of the instrument and all dynamics of phrasing and basically makes every guitar sound like 1$ Casio synthesizer with no key sensitivity
- Ear fatigue after one minute

[soggybag]

Misbiased octave fuzz.

[EBK]

Mixing in a 60Hz drone oscillator could be useful.