Which diode combination are the HEAVIEST ?

[DavenPaget]

Here are some of mine :
1N4148 , 1N4001
1N4148 , 1N60
1N4001 , 1N60
BAT85 , 1N60
BAT85 , 1N4148
BAT85 , 1N4001
1N4148 , 1N60
2N7000 , 1N60
2N7000 , 1N4001
2N7000 , BAT85

So what's your combination ( i mean YOUR pick , not pick from my list ) ?

[John Lyons]

Define heavy and in which circuit.
A diode (or pair) does not have a sound in and of itself.

[DDD]

The bigger the diode the heavier it is for sure. 

[brett]

...given that the variation in density is low....

[CodeMonk]

Speaking of Diodes....
What are some popular or interesting circuits that 1N270's?

I recently got 200 of them.
The price was right and I know I have seen them used somewhere,

[DavenPaget]

Obviously i'm talking about the way it clips ...
Like the ones normally used in very heavy in terms of sound pedals .

[Gus]

You are not asking the right questions. 

It is more about EQ and how you setup the gain and clipping and EQ between stages than diode type defining the sound.

This has been posted about over the years at this forum and other forums and web sites IIRC

[DavenPaget]

You are not asking the right questions.  

It is more about EQ and how you setup the gain and clipping and EQ between stages than diode type defining the sound.

This has been posted about over the years at this forum and other forums and web sites IIRC

Well how am i supposed to know which site has it ...
Just let me know a general answer to a pair of diodes that you guys find heaviest .  
( it is used in a hard-clipper , output to ground )
What i'm saying is , for any given pedal , which set of diodes that you guys have tried give the heaviest sound ( i bet 30% here likes heavy stuff right ? )
I could open up my HM-200 but it's 4th screw is stripped out of the factory . Bloody China products ( it's heavy sounding and well built , but the screws are of objectional quality )

[Gus]

Search this site and use a search engine for the rest of the web.

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Speaking of Diodes....
What are some popular or interesting circuits that 1N270's?

MXR Dist+ uses them! 

Thats about as popular as you get...

[anchovie]

I could open up my HM-200 but it's 4th screw is stripped out of the factory.

Don't worry about it - just look at a Metal Zone schematic and expect that the diodes are the cheapest silicon ones available at the time.

for any given pedal

I built a noise pedal which squares up the guitar signal using a comparator and has a pair of LEDs on the output. They make no difference to the sound, they're only there so I could mount them on the enclosure face (in the eyes of Insectosaurus from Monsters vs Aliens) and watch them flash. If I replaced them with 1N4148s or 1N60s I'd still get the same sound, only quieter.

There are no heavier-sounding diodes; there are, however, heavier-sounding circuits.

[DavenPaget]

I could open up my HM-200 but it's 4th screw is stripped out of the factory.

Don't worry about it - just look at a Metal Zone schematic and expect that the diodes are the cheapest silicon ones available at the time.

for any given pedal

I built a noise pedal which squares up the guitar signal using a comparator and has a pair of LEDs on the output. They make no difference to the sound, they're only there so I could mount them on the enclosure face (in the eyes of Insectosaurus from Monsters vs Aliens) and watch them flash. If I replaced them with 1N4148s or 1N60s I'd still get the same sound, only quieter.

There are no heavier-sounding diodes; there are, however, heavier-sounding circuits.

I thought i finally knew what i wanted
Right ! I want the same metallic square waves , only LOUDER
So okay , i shall go for a pair of 3mm red led's

[artifus]

http://tinyurl.com/6hzpskt

[Mark Hammer]

It has not been, and never will be, about the diodes.

It has always been about the signal level, relative to the diodes.  Now, if you have X amount of gain in the circuit (or stages leading up to it), changing from diodes with a smaller forward voltage to a larger one, or vice versa, will change the sound, but as long as you have the supply voltage to accommodate it, you can ALWAYS use any diodes you wish to get pretty much any sound you wish.  Hell, if your supply voltage is high enough, and you can provide the appropriate gain, you could use a 3+3 LED configuration and still get serious clipping.

Get your head around, guys: it's not about the diodes, it's about the entire signal path and gain structure.

[nexekho]

It has not been, and never will be, about the diodes.

It has always been about the signal level, relative to the diodes.  Now, if you have X amount of gain in the circuit (or stages leading up to it), changing from diodes with a smaller forward voltage to a larger one, or vice versa, will change the sound, but as long as you have the supply voltage to accommodate it, you can ALWAYS use any diodes you wish to get pretty much any sound you wish.  Hell, if your supply voltage is high enough, and you can provide the appropriate gain, you could use a 3+3 LED configuration and still get serious clipping.

Get your head around, guys: it's not about the diodes, it's about the entire signal path and gain structure.

Surely different diodes will clip differently?  I don't know the physics behind diodes but I can't imagine that anything would be a "perfect" diode - there has to be some leeway or give.

[R.G.]

As Gus pointed out, it's the wrong question.

Your question presumes that heaviness (hard clipping?) has a lot to do with diodes. Diodes do change clipping sounds, but only in concert with the rest of the circuit. The biggest issues for diodes are (a) how abrupt or otherwise their transition to conduction is and (b) how large the signal driving them is compared to that transition region. In addition, there is the issue of equalization and gain in the rest of the circuit, as Gus says.

Anchovie is correct - drive any diodes with a square wave - or any signal much, much larger than the diode's clipping region - and it will sound the same.

If you just want louder square waves, a comparator will do that for you with no diodes at all. The output signal size is limited to the power supply, so it's not going to get any bigger than +/-4.5V on a bare 9V battery. And louder signal into your amp will not make the amp louder the amp has to be able to provide more power to the speaker to get louder.

@Mark: correct again!
@nexekho: Mark's point is that other things have a much bigger effect that just the diodes. For a given set of conditions, changing only diodes, sure, the diodes can make some change in sound. But how big that change can be is severely limited by the rest of the circuit. There are circuits where changing diodes makes essentially no change in the output at all.

[petemoore]

  Water wave = signal wave analogy...
  Send a water wave down a hallway, if there is no impedance [the sides are smooth and straight] the waveshape will remain intact, linear.
 Now lower a board down from the top, across the waterwave-hallway, so it barely touches and flattens the top of the wave, this is 'non-linear' behavior, the board [diodes] clip' the wave peaks, removing anything above 'x' amplitude [height].
 The 'linear' [what looks like a specific line-wave-shape on a scope] wave has become non-linear, now instead of all original 'wave-curves', the tip-tops of the peaks are flat, having been removed by the clipping threshold.
 How low the board is lowered = how much of the top of the wave will be removed. Lowering the board [analogous to lowering diode threshold] .more. removes more wave, the analogy to diodes clipping an electronic analog signal wave is ~the same as a board clipping waterwave peaks...lowering threshold of clipping removes more of the wave, when say about 1/2 of the wave has been removed, it starts to 'look' [on a scope, [and sound'] square-ish.
  Making the wave bigger does the same thing as lowering the threshold, boosting the voltage 'amplitude' [hotter pickup, booster or volume control increase..anything that makes greater signal go into the clipping] makes higher wave peaks so a greater portion of the wave is removed. Boosting wave amplitude and lowering clipping threshold have a common effect: a greater portion of the wave is removed.
 

[Mark Hammer]

Surely different diodes will clip differently?  I don't know the physics behind diodes but I can't imagine that anything would be a "perfect" diode - there has to be some leeway or give.

The aspect which tends to escape a lot of folks is that, while there ARE very real differences in the manner which different families of diodes transition to conduction, those differences happen at speeds which are well above those pertaining to guitar or bass or indeed just about any musical instrument.

It's a bit like comparing an amplifier with flat response out to 50khz against another that's flat out to 200khz.  Yeah, they're different, and sure the second one is "better", but when considering the human ear is this a difference that can actually be heard, as opposed to merely measured?  If diode A takes 20 nanoseconds to transition to conduction, an diode B takes 5 nanoseconds, will that show up in terms of tone?

So many of the thousands of members here and elsewhere will stick in different diodes with a different forward voltage into the same circuit and assume that the diode change has produced a qualitative change in the nature of the clipping, but all that has happened is a shift between the threshold set by the diodes, relative to the signal level.  The same didoes as you used to have, with a different signal level will likely mimic what you are hearing in 99% of cases.

[artifus]

zen and the art of stompbox maintenance.

[WGTP]

I think he did ask the right question.  Look at all the interesting responses he got.  Yes, EQ is very underrated and things that work at bedroom volumes with one amp may not be the same as live volumes with a different amp.  Your op amp is contributing to the distortion.  The lower threshold GE's are going to sound the fuzziest and least dynamic.  The higher threshold LED's are more dynamic and light up so you can tell they are working.  Also, "Heavy" is a subjective thing.