Which clipping does everyone prefer most?

[owenjames]

http://www.muzique.com/lab/zenmos.htm

I found this link on another thread and found it to be an interesting read. I was wondering which types of clipping people had tried out, including traditional diode clipping. and which they liked the sound of most?

[earthtonesaudio]

I like red LEDs in a TS, or Ge in a Distortion + type setup.

[aziltz]

i prefer the sound of cascaded jFets, but I also think the Rail Clipping in Mosfet Op-Amps sounds good as well (Tech 21 - Type)

[Mark Hammer]

If it's loud enough, who can tell, and who cares?

[slacker]

Call me a heathen but I prefer your bog standard symmetrical silicon diode clipping.

[aziltz]

i prefer the sound of cascaded jFets, but I also think the Rail Clipping in Mosfet Op-Amps sounds good as well (Tech 21 - Type)

I'd like to point out that these two things don't seem to be that common, meaning, Everybody and their brother makes a tube screamer derivative (or integral), but I haven't seen too many designs letting the TLC2262 clip the way Tech21 does.  And besides the ROG/OLC amp emulators, I haven't found too many cascaded FET circuits outside of the DIY realm that are advertised as such (Subdecay, Catalinbread, and I supposed Zvex counts as well).  Boss does some creative things with discrete op-amps but they don't really go into technical details in the advertising.

[Mark Hammer]

If it's loud enough, who can tell, and who cares?

I'm serious.  The ear biologically/neurally adds its own content once the SPL starts to mount.  That's not to say that something recorded loud but played back at a modest volume will not show nuance in distortion, but unless one IS listening at modest levels, a lot of nuance disappears.  Just the nature of the beast.

[aziltz]

If it's loud enough, who can tell, and who cares?

I'm serious.  The ear biologically/neurally adds its own content once the SPL starts to mount.  That's not to say that something recorded loud but played back at a modest volume will not show nuance in distortion, but unless one IS listening at modest levels, a lot of nuance disappears.  Just the nature of the beast.

good point.  there's a nice level where you can still FEEL the sound, without killing your ears AND still hear differences in sound.  i suggest we all play on 7. jk.

i must admit though, that i think different clipping types sound worse or better at difference gain settings.  So while at some settings the difference is unnoticeable, some sounds are better for high gain, some for low gain and places in between.

[panterica]

In my opinion, the more gain stages the better. The ultimate distortion is many tubes cranked up with the master gain saturating the output transformer... but since this is a stompbox forum, my next picks would be multiple jfet stages like the Dr. Boogey and the MOSFET opamp technique mentioned earlier.

[BAARON]

Getting back on topic, right now one of my favorite combinations in a TS style circuit is an LED for one half of the clipping and two Silicon diodes for the other direction.  That way it's asymmetrical and it's a nice compromise between the round, smooth, clean clipping of LEDs and the chunky, meaty edge that you get off of Silicon diodes.

[tackleberry]

I built a doubleD for ROG with selectable clipping diodes on the OD side with AMZs saturation control. The diodes are socketed for swapping. Right now it has clear LEDs on 1 side and germaniums on the other side. I ran several germaniums in series to get the voltage up so there wasnt a huge drop when going from no clipping to clipping or LED to germanium. But clipping is very subjective. Everybody has their own tastes. Some like symetrical some like it asymetrical. Ive seen mixes with LED and silicon diodes together.

[liquids]

While I agree that there can bee different answers depending on content and desired gain range, few argue that for most dirty tone outside of fuzz, sonically speaking "tubes could do it better."  But practically speaking that is not always...practical.   

Also to say, there is more to it than 'type.'  Much of it is 'design,' as there are plenty of tube preamps/overdrive channels that I and anyone may dislike greatly, and might still rather play an op-amp distortion into a solid state amp, etc, despite the tubes vs. no tubes factor.   

With that in mind, I have to say that my overwhelming preference in pedals is for cascading JFET stages--and for all of the above levels of clipping.  Designs with other 'parts' for gain and clipping can sound quite good (or quite bad) but in the end,  I favor JFETs characteristics much like I favor tubes, all else being equal.  I've found I can get more of what I like from a well-designed and good sounding circuit composed of cascading JFET stages clipping than I do from even well-designed op-amp clipping stages, BJTs, diodes, CMOS stages, and even mosfets clipping, etc.  But it's not really rocket science or magic. To my ears, the dominant reason for that is 1) how they tend to enter and recover from being clipped 2) and how they respond to input gains (dynamics).  I think I  and my gear are overly sensitive to those characteristics, and so I've had much more success with JFETs.  Add to that my over-familiarity with op-amp circuits coming into DIY and intreige in the less-used JFET stuff, yielding more understanding of JFETs and the circle of familiarity (use it more = more familiar = use it more, etc), and so I tend to stick with them.   That's why--it's simple.

Again, I find it interesting that in most guitar and tone-minded circles, loving tubes and how they clip are the assumption.  Guys that adore tubes may hate boogies preamps and love marshall preamps etc, but they cling to love of tubes nonetheless.  Little may they know that many Marshalls, for example, do not excluively use tubes to clip. it's what you do in design with your gain-creating building block that causes the most tonal variation I think, and can make any type turn from horrible to outstanding.  We see a lot of different clipping types (op amps, BJTs, CMOS) in Big-Muff variant circuits.  We see a lot of Tubes to Jfet circuits.  With some understanding of design, the 'unit' of clipping can vary greatly in tone and different types can get similar sounds when tweaked by ear.  Sure, each of the aforementioned types have inherent characteristics, but there's lots of variations on each theme that account for more of the clipping...  That's another reason why, in general, I think it makes a lot of sense to get to know the ins and outs of all you can do with a given 'type' of clipping stage, rather than focus on magic  combination of op amps, bjts, etc to yield the right sound depending on situation, generally speaking of course. 

As for nuance --I do agree that it's important to understand the subtle differences between what may sounds 'good' at low volumes in small rooms with just you+guitar+amp, compared to being in a band content, and/or at higher volumes. 

But I digress--my vote is for JFETs, but more so, a vote for good design with any gain and clipping-yielding device you choose to use.        

Oh, and I'm a fan of slightly assymetrical over symetrical.  Symmetrical may sound smoother, but in the end I prefer the advantages of some assymetry, and would rather smooth out the tone in other manners. LEDs are ususally preferred over silicon, to my ears, ideally two that aren't matched. 

[Caferacernoc]

If you are looking for a authentic classic tube amp crunch I think cascaded jfets or mosfets. I am a also an admitted tube snob. And I play tube amps and like to crank them to where I get power amp distortion. "All right now" by Free, "Highway to Hell"........ That's my rhythm sound. IMHO you can do ok with a diode clipper overdrive into an tube amp on the edge of breakup for that sound. But into a clean amp I have NEVER heard a opamp or diode clipper get it right. I have recently built a trotsky drive and have messed with lots of heavily modified dist+ diode to ground clippers. I like them with germanium diodes usually in a 3 and 5 assymetrical array. Again, into a mildly distorted tube amp it works good. But the only thing I have that I could live with into a clean amp is the jfet and mosfet circuits I've been messing with the last 6 months. Cascaded assymetrically biased gain stages. Just like a tube amp. Listen to DougH's Hwy89 circuit. That's the same idea but with lowly bipolar transistors and to me it's still sounds better than an overdrive pedal that does all it's clipping in a single stage.