Cascading Cliping stages

[Pablo1234]

Has anyone ever tried this, I just did and found it to be extremely interesting, I may make a project of this yest but would like to get some feedback on this sort of thing.
I currently don't have an Scope anymore so wave form analyses isn't feasible at this time for me, but I was thinking harmonic content would be increased exponentially with a cascaded clipping stage design.

Currently I have a clipping setup in my feedback loop with a full bridge rectifier and diode across them. I like this kind of distortion as its really smooth and harmonic but low noise. The drawbacks are its a bit smooth, so to chunk it up a bit I took 2 LED's and a cap and added another gain stage after the first clipping stage and wallah chunk in my smoothness, was totally awesome. Still low noise but it defiantly needs some tweeking as I just slapped it together and such. Anyone ever try this before?

[CynicalMan]

The big muff pi has two clipping stages, one after the other. http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/pdf/ggg_bmp_ram_sc.pdf

[Joe Hart]

Do you have a schematic?
-Joe Hart

[Pablo1234]

ya its in eagle now, I'll do an export in a sec.




The second stage is basically a copy of the first gain stage connected right to the output decoupling cap and the voltage divider and volume potentiometer is just connected after that, I just drop a couple of LED's after the 2nd gain stage. I will have this marked up later today, I am working on adding a bit of compression to this now. I also need a -1db dip at about 900 Hz or so, maybe a bit higher, I am using my MXR to find the frequency I want to cut a bit for the attack. So far I am happy with 1.1KHz cut too -1DB but I am not sure if that's really where I want it, I may just add a variable Twin T and gain stage to find it using pots.

Thank god for spell check.

[Ripthorn]

Very interesting looking schematic.  Any chance of soundclips?

[Pablo1234]

actually yes I am working on that right now, I did do a video on facebook that you can go see but the sound quality is absolutely horrid, I used a crappy camera for the video and the thing couldn't take the sound pressure so its popping and the tone ain't nothing like what you hear from it, its way off. its a few posts down on my wall. I also bossted the input gain so I don't need to use that crappy DS-1 as a boost. Its not anywhere near that noisy as it is with that pedal driving it.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000122123891&ref=profile

This is a pic of my test bord so far, the uper right bord is my power supply at +/-12V with a terminal strip right next to it, then in the middel top is my distortion. I havent gotten around to thinking about an enclouser yet but it wont be small, I am building a compressor, Envelope follower, reverb pan mixer, Chorus(I actualy have a BB chip set waiting for me in the bastment) and 4 channel FX mixer. Its not going to be a small project.

[Primus]

I was looking into this with soft limiting germanium diodes.

Dogzilla pre-amp: http://www.dogstar.dantimax.dk/tubestuf/dzart-6.htm
Tape saturator: http://home3.netcarrier.com/~lxh2/tapesat2.gif
Speaker saturator: http://www.aronnelson.com/gallery/main.php/v/STMs-Circuit-Ideas/Speaker_Saturation_Simulator.gif.html

There are some good threads about this searching for diode limiter, diode ladder, etc.

John