Good clipping opamps (No Diodes!)

[Bill Mountain]

I know it's taboo but I have been liking the sound of clipping opamps.  I don't push them very hard and I use higher value feedback caps to tame the highs.  So far I have used a CA3140 and a 741.  I'm looking to see if anyone can suggest some others to try.  I'm thinking about trying an LM308 but I don't know where to go from there.  I have a 2262 and a 4049 that I can try as well but they are already known to be decent clippers.  I'm looking for some less obvious choices.

Thanks!

[FiveseveN]

What makes a good opamp "good at clipping"? High slew rate? Low slew rate? High/low threshold?
Check out the Sansamp GT2 for a well-known example. Try a comparator. Experiment.
And when you convince yourself there's really no difference between devices you can move on to more important things 

[Bill Mountain]

And those more important things are???

[Gurner]

Diodes lol

[FiveseveN]

And those more important things are???

Pre- and post-clipping filtering (and inter-stage if applicable), gain vs. saturation vs. noise etc.
It's not as much a matter of how you clip the signal but how much and when/where. And this point has been made more poignantly by smarter men than me.

[Quackzed]

off the top of my head, 741's and other 'low slew rate' older chips tend to not clip as harshly at high gains...
and faster higher slew rate chips can be more 'harsh' or rather sharp due to their faster swings...
in the end tho, you can roll off your own highs other ways, you can use diodes for clipping and get more controllable results..
i think what gives chip clipping it's 'sound' is those sharp edges where the signal shoots up and gets clipped super quickly via the chip. a slower device will give you less sharpness 741 ... a faster device will give you sharper edges. so if what you like is that sharpness or harshness a tl071 or newer faster chip will give you more of it. if your looking for less of it, then the more high end you roll off, the more you start to get 'diode' sounding clipping anyway. i think thats why people say that  'op amp clipping is harsh and bad' because what separates it from diode clipping or transistor saturation is that it is capable of very fast signal swing which in turn offers very sharp corners at the clipping point...but op amp clipping isnt inherently bad, its that all by themselves they 'can' do some very fast/harsh things to a signal.
b.t.w. this is just my 'general' sense of the issue, i dont mean to go on like i'm an expert or anything, just figured i could share how i think of it. i may be wrong about some things here  . but thats my 2c , fwiw.
are you using a distortion plus type setup? just curious about the circuit as there may be other variables that have an effect on how the opamps are clipping. load,bandwidth,bias etc...

[Bill Mountain]

And those more important things are???

Pre- and post-clipping filtering (and inter-stage if applicable), gain vs. saturation vs. noise etc.
It's not as much a matter of how you clip the signal but how much and when/where. And this point has been made more poignantly by smarter men than me.

Are you saying that filtering has more of an effect than the way the opamp clips?  I disagree.  The opamp has to clip and you have to like the way it clips before you filter anything.  Garbage in is garbage out.

[liquids]

I've found that the LM353 sound pretty good when clipped, comparatively (though not used it that way).  I surprisingly liked the sound more than the rail-to-rail CMOS op amps I've tried, which Tech 21 uses.

[Bill Mountain]

off the top of my head, 741's and other 'low slew rate' older chips tend to not clip as harshly at high gains...
and faster higher slew rate chips can be more 'harsh' or rather sharp due to their faster swings...
in the end tho, you can roll off your own highs other ways, you can use diodes for clipping and get more controllable results..
i think what gives chip clipping it's 'sound' is those sharp edges where the signal shoots up and gets clipped super quickly via the chip. a slower device will give you less sharpness 741 ... a faster device will give you sharper edges. so if what you like is that sharpness or harshness a tl071 or newer faster chip will give you more of it. if your looking for less of it, then the more high end you roll off, the more you start to get 'diode' sounding clipping anyway. i think thats why people say that  'op amp clipping is harsh and bad' because what separates it from diode clipping or transistor saturation is that it is capable of very fast signal swing which in turn offers very sharp corners at the clipping point...but op amp clipping isnt inherently bad, its that all by themselves they 'can' do some very fast/harsh things to a signal.
b.t.w. this is just my 'general' sense of the issue, i dont mean to go on like i'm an expert or anything, just figured i could share how i think of it. i may be wrong about some things here  . but thats my 2c , fwiw.
are you using a distortion plus type setup? just curious about the circuit as there may be other variables that have an effect on how the opamps are clipping. load,bandwidth,bias etc...

I'm on a never ending quest to build a bass overdrive.  I'm trying everything I can.  I was working on a tube preamp/distortion for a while and I was getting somewhere then my tranny melted.  I put that on hold and am revisiting solid state.  I used to think a modded tube screamer would do the trick but I'm not liking it any more.  So, I'm trying other methods.  I have seen that some folks like to remove the clippers from their Rats so I decided to experiment with that.

[newfish]

The only way you're going to know what works for you is to spend an afternoon with a basic Op-Amp OD on your breadboard.

A simple DOD 250 / MXR D+ would do - and swap out as many Op-Amps as you can lay your hands on.

Have you considered running your Op-Amps at lower voltages so they hit the rails sooner?

p.s. my current favourite box is a TL061-based OD - with a diode lift switch - sounds 'gritty' even without the diodes, but only after shaving some of the top-end off.

[mookie]

Actually the modded tubescreamer is not a bad idea. Ibanez recently lent me their new bass tubescreamer for a tour and I was very impressed. I never quite got chance to take it apart but other than the addition of a blend and maybe slightly altered input filter I don't think there's much to it.

[Ice-9]

An op amp I have recently used that clips nicely is a TLC2262C,

[arawn]

Isn't there some law engraved in the sky stating that one must use diodes for overdrive/distortion??