Metal Film vs. Carbon Comp / Film Resistors. What are your experiences?

[Evil Hoodoo]

What is your take on the appropriateness of one family of resistor over another in effects building? Have you noticed differences in gain, distortion, harmonics or tone brightness or darkness?

[LucifersTrip]

What is your take on the appropriateness of one family of resistor over another in effects building? Have you noticed differences in gain, distortion, harmonics or tone brightness or darkness?

It means very little to me...And most will be hard pressed to find any difference in sound.

Builders generally use specific types because they look cool or they want to make an identical clone.

...if you have a choice, best to just pick ones that have the best tolerance...it is the value that matters the most.

[anchovie]

What is your take on the appropriateness of one family of resistor over another in effects building? Have you noticed differences in gain, distortion, harmonics or tone brightness or darkness?

I've never changed all of the resistors in a pedal circuit to be able to compare! And if I did, any tone changes would be more likely owing to tolerances rather than a change of material.

[R.G.]

What is your take on the appropriateness of one family of resistor over another in effects building? Have you noticed differences in gain, distortion, harmonics or tone brightness or darkness?

Old, old, old question.

Other than the tolerances and drift, there is no audible change other than carbon comp having more noise than either carbon film or metal film.

This applies to effects running at low voltages (i.e. less than about 50V). There is a known asymmetrical distortion from carbon comp resistors in certain special situations in high voltage applications, as in certain positions in tube amps. See: Using the Carbon Comp Resistor for Magic Mojo" at Geofex.
http://www.geofex.com/article_folders/carbon_comp/carboncomp.htm

[asatbluesboy]

Technically, even bad solder joints are resistors, so I can't see how it would make any difference other than what R.G.'s already mentioned.

[R.G.]

Technically, even bad solder joints are resistors, so I can't see how it would make any difference other than what R.G.'s already mentioned.

Dead right. Shoot, technically, copper wires and traces are resistors.

[ayayay!]

Technically, even bad solder joints are resistors, so I can't see how it would make any difference other than what R.G.'s already mentioned.

Dead right. Shoot, technically, copper wires and traces are resistors.

And that, friends, is why I now scoff at P2P junkies that have no clue what things like inherent capacitance and load loss are. 

[Evil Hoodoo]

I see! There's a line drawn between the P2P and the etched/tracer crowd. Very interesting. 

[anchovie]

I see! There's a line drawn between the P2P and the etched/tracer crowd. Very interesting. 

There is, but it's not as good as the original hand-drawn line from a while back.

[petemoore]

  They work great mostly!
  Brownie caps being 1 caveat to working great, they're cheap and have been found in old effects.
 Knowing when 'it' matters helps prevent overexpenditure on window dressing, it may seem complicated that there are a few 'positions' in which high-end components may offer some small advantage such as noise reduction on very sensative inputs for example.
  Glossy parts make great window dressing and alluring gutshots, but the xplanations about how wonderful and why they were used are often only good for a small chuckle...I've seen so many silly ad copies I don't get the 'hilarium kick' I used to get from identifying the sillyness and associated costs.
 Sometimes I see an expensively built unit and say 'the explanation makes sense, and I want it even though it is not that pricey [or is, but I generally find a way around super expensive units] because boxing up a replica'd be0 more expensive, and much uglier in terms of tasks, time, involving unnecessary risks.
I have a Mic-Pre and a Tube-Comp which are examples of this, ...they have some high end components in positions which benefit from it. I'td be a B for me to try one at home.