Thinking about the Jekyl & Hyde and ODs paired w/ distortions in general...

[MikeH]

So, it's obvious to anyone that an overdrive pedal like a tubescreamer distorts a lot less than a distortion say, like a Boss Metal Zone.  Or in the J&H department, some kind of TS derivative and some kind of Marshall Shredmaster derivative- I think? But that's beside the point.  My question is this:  When you feed a highly distorted pedal a signal from an OD, there isn't much noticable change- not that surprising.  But when you feed an OD like a tubescreamer a ridiculously balls-out distorted signal (like a metal zone) what you come up with is just a more aggressive sounding TS (and a lot of feedback).  It's less "distorted" than the original signal.  Or at least it seems.  So how is it that an OD like a TS can acually remove or quell clipping from a more distorted signal?  Or is it all in your head?

[John Lyons]

It should not make the distortion less.
The order of the circuits will make a difference but 1+1 will still = 2.
Meaning, some gain plus some more gain = more gain than the individuals.
At some point you will only gain (pun?) compression not level as the waveform
gets more square and hits the top pf the power supply.

john

[MikeH]

I guess what I mean is; a fuzz into a TS sounds more like a TS than a fuzz.  So where is all that fuzz going?  Is it because the wave form is amplified and re-clipped/eq'd?

[John Lyons]

Yes, I think what you are hearing is the filters and gain stages/clipping interacting.
This is why pedal placement within a chain can make a huge difference.

Maybe since the TS has a big mid peak and lowered highs and lows...it shaves
off some of that fuzz high end...? It's most likely a frequency issue I would think.


John

[R.G.]

Once something is really lost, more gain will not bring it back.

[DougH]

In this particular case I'd say it's that big whopping .22uf LPF cap on the output of the TS gain stage. That's where all  your fuzz went...

[jacobyjd]

I've been thinking about this concept for awhile now--I generally like having a very low-gain OD, then a more rock n' roll distortion on short order, and I'm planning on combining those into one enclosure.

However, I haven't been able to decide between giving each effect its own bypass switch and having one bypass and making the other toggle between the two. I'd lose the option to cascade them, but how useful would it be?

I've never had good luck with cascading separate distortions, but the loss of a possibly cool feature makes me stop and think

[MikeH]

Pushing a high gain dist into a TS style OD is a big part of my 'sound'.  It sounds really agressive and has the sustain of a high gain dist, but is still smooth and crunchy like a TS.  I was really just curious as to why it worked that way.

[R.G.]

Pushing a high gain dist into a TS style OD is a big part of my 'sound'.  It sounds really agressive and has the sustain of a high gain dist, but is still smooth and crunchy like a TS.  I was really just curious as to why it worked that way.

It's the filtering. The TS deliberately wipes off a lot of highs. Feeding lots of high harmonics to a TS still wipes out a lot of those highs.

I think you'd enjoy one of my favorite suggestions to budding distortion designers. Get yourself a consumer stereo graphic equalizer. Set it up with a buffer before it from your guitar (the hifi stuff often only has 10K to 47K input impedance) into one channel, then from that channel into any distorter, and out of the distorter into the other EQ channel, and there to your amp. Now play with the sliders and see how a treble boost before distortion differs from treble boost after distortion; ditto treble cut; ditto bass cut/boost; same for midrange, maybe even only one slider. I would be astonished if you didn't find one sound that you thought was amazing; further, I would bet that if you don't, it's because you didn't have time or patience to play with the setup.

Almost every distortion ever made is some combination of pre-distortion EQ, either a diodes-to-ground clipper or a feedback diodes clipper (both in some pedals) followed by post distortion EQ. A lot of the "magic" is in the pre- and post-distortion EQ.

[MikeH]

I think you'd enjoy one of my favorite suggestions to budding distortion designers. Get yourself a consumer stereo graphic equalizer. Set it up with a buffer before it from your guitar (the hifi stuff often only has 10K to 47K input impedance) into one channel, then from that channel into any distorter, and out of the distorter into the other EQ channel, and there to your amp. Now play with the sliders and see how a treble boost before distortion differs from treble boost after distortion; ditto treble cut; ditto bass cut/boost; same for midrange, maybe even only one slider. I would be astonished if you didn't find one sound that you thought was amazing; further, I would bet that if you don't, it's because you didn't have time or patience to play with the setup.

Ha ha!  I've totally already done this (I think due to your suggestion).  I picked up one of the old mxr 2 channel, 10 band graphic eqs with the wood sides.  It did give me some very good distortion sounds, just as you said it would.  Ultimately I decided it just took up too much real estate on my board.  And besides, the Jekyl and Hyde was already giving me the tone I wanted (thought you might like to hear that).  And even more so, I found it great for getting good bass distortion.

[flo]

To conserve "real estate" on the pedalboard, one could make a simple "pre-post EQ with send/return" pedal that contains:
- a simple HPF with variable cutoff before the send
and
- a simple LPF with variable cutoff after the return.
The OD/distortion/clipping stage(s) can then be patched into the send-return.

[Joe Hart]

I think a key component to replicating Eddie Van Halen's early sound is a frown EQ curve before the distortion and a smile EQ after. I know that I have a very midrangey sounding guitar and if I go into a DOD 250 then cut some mids at the amp it sounds KILLER! Just a thought.
-Joe Hart

[DougH]

I think a key component to replicating Eddie Van Halen's early sound is a frown EQ curve before the distortion and a smile EQ after. I know that I have a very midrangey sounding guitar and if I go into a DOD 250 then cut some mids at the amp it sounds KILLER! Just a thought.
-Joe Hart

If you think about it, that's the basic recipe for many of the TS-into-amp sounds that people love. The pedal pushes the mids, then the amp and speaker scoops them. Where it gets interesting is where you pick the center freq for the midrange "push" and "scoop", what highs are pushed, where rolloffs occur and how steep, how pre-EQ affects distortion etc.

I maintain that there's not necessarily a lot of scientific innovation in good distortion pedal design- but there is a lot of artistry.  Picking the frequency break points and the amplitudes etc can be a painstaking process, best done with a good set of ears. And spending a lot of tuning/tweaking time, after you have a sound design, will pay big dividends.