Technically yes, but does it really matter ? #method_of_creating_distortion

[Ben N]

Dutch Elmers:

Alas, a dying breed.

[iainpunk]

Dutch Elmers:

am i missing something, im dutch but have no idea what i'm supposed to see.

cheers

It's a dutch elm tree surrounded by tree enthusiasts.  Sorry, I didn't give enough context.

in dutch, we call that tree an Iep [pronounced like eep in english].

I feel like we should have our own term for our Elmers/Grey Beards/Sensei. Suggestions?

that's a good idea. i suggest ''Guru''

i totally agree on the mojo thing when it comes to commercial pedals.
i'd buy a bunch of DIP14 package ua741's, file/scratch off the markings and stamp Cyrillic letters on it.
or coat your 4001/4148's with some colour nail polish, mark the band with sharpie and call them unique.
you might call it deception, i call it marketing.

cheers, Iain

[Vivek]

I feel like we should have our own term for our Elmers/Grey Beards/Sensei. Suggestions?

that's a good idea. i suggest ''Guru''

cheers, Iain

I like Guru

Because it's a word of Indian origin.

Due to 300 years of British rule, there are more than 2000 Indian words that entered into the English language, including

Guru
Pyjama
Shampoo
Bungalow
Chit
Juggernaut
Thug
Dacoit
Pundit

...........


One of the recent Indian words to get accepted into the English language is Aiyoo, with can mean any of about 10 different emotions or feelings.

[Fancy Lime]

Guru has some precedent going for it but I find it a bit generic. It's used as a synonym for expert in so many contexts. I like my insider terms strange and convoluted. I'll throw "erilaz" into the bowl, meaning a person versed in runes. A "rune master" if you will. We also have a lot of wizards and druids around here for a reason. I feel the whole "practitioner of magic" angle may be worth exploring. Vivek, is there a Hindi term for that? Better yet, do you know the Sanskrit root, if there is one?

Andy

[amptramp]

Different distortions have different characteristics and have a different effect on the sound.  We have had threads about the bass intro in the Beatles "I Feel Fine" and Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky".  The former is supposedly known but the latter was a custom circuit incorporated into Norman's Telecaster by one of his roadies.  Norman claims to have sold the guitar so I guess it is lost in the annals of time.

If you are trying to emulate a particular piece of music, it definitely gets critical.  Imagine you are tapped by a tribute band to emulate the original band's sound and you have to guess at the contents of their pedalboard (unless that is already published).  There are a lot of tribute bands around.  Then as the most exhausting case, Weird Al Yankovic hires you to play guitar in his band but you have to figure out exactly how to generate the sound on the original songs from a bunch of artists  Make no mistake - people will hear the difference.

So yes, for some applications, it matters.

[iainpunk]

Weird Al supposedly hunted down the original session musicians, idk if that's true tho, i just heard it through the grapevine.

but yes, its really hard to find the exact tone from records, since the pickups, pedal mods and the speakers in the amp are easily changed and make a big impact on the sound.
i don't buy in to the ''tone is in the fingers'' crap, a flap of plastic hits the strings, thats the end.

cheers, Iain

[stallik]

The more knowledge you gain on how it all works, the easier it is to design what you imagine. Whether that translates to something that sounds good to your ears is a different question but, if you don't like it, you are better placed to know where to make adjustments.

And tone in the fingers? Demonstrably true. Play quiet and gentle, then dig in and the tone changes. At least, it does for me. I chase and exaggerate that with every pedal I build .. but I'm still cr*p

[marcelomd]

Someone (here?) said tone is a complex number. There are real and imaginary parts, both important.

I started believing in finger-tone in bass class, 20 years ago. I had class after a guy with really light touch. His tone was all fluffy, fat and smooth. Mine sounded like a sledgehammer banging on an oil drum. Same bass, same amp, same settings. I had to turn down the amp volume from 5 to below 2 (which made me immensely proud, by the way  ).

[edvard]

Vivek, the point isn't so much what method you generate a can o' bees with, but how it reacts to your playing.  Any given audience (even yourself) might not be able to differentiate much between a restrained Fuzz Face and a cranked Tube Screamer by sound alone, but that's not the point.  Simulations and sine waves with perfectly shaped clipping thresholds aren't going to tell you a whole lot about how the darn thing will react to your style of laying plectrum to steel.  EQ has a big part to do with that, but so does everything else. 

The answer is more breadboard and playing time.  You may not come up with the perfect Brown Sound generator that will outsell everything Boss ever created and be adopted by hordes of guitar-spankers the world over, but you may very well come up with something that works and sounds just like you want it to, even if it sounds like Yet Another Big Muff to the inexperienced ear. You'll hear it as the best pedal you've ever built (until the next one) or further excuse for experimenting, and that's what we're all here for in the first place.

[iainpunk]

And tone in the fingers? Demonstrably true. Play quiet and gentle, then dig in and the tone changes.

thats not what tone in the fingers means. the whole gravitas of the phrase is that everyone plays with a unique dynamic touch (or lack thereof) which can't be replicated or approximated.
yes of course, bashing the strings makes a different sound compared to feather stroking them, but everyone can do both with a bit of practice, and in a full mix, the differences fade away partially or sometimes completely.

back to the #Meth-Od-Of-Making-Distortion;
i have been pondering the subject a bit, and believe there are significant differences in the overtone set, between symmetric and asymmetric systems, and that it does matter in a full mix, but its not something you should be worrying about when you are making music, if it sounds good, who cares about symmetry and overtones.
also, any diode in hard or soft clipping can be made to sound the same as another diode in roughly the same configuration with exception to tunnel and other special switching diodes.
alternate ways of wave shaping are too often ignored in my opinion, things like log amps, wave folding and phase cutting (the process of cutting the wave to neutral when a certain phase angle is reached, or if a certain amplitude is reached.), we know its often harsh and less pleasant than natural distortion (clipping), experimentation is not for the faint of heart.

cheers, Iain