mysterious high gain overdrive.

[jogina111]

I've found a circuit on a random image search but I dont know if this one is working...have someone ever built this   experimentalistsanonymous.com/diy/Schematics/Distortion%20Boost%20and%20Overdrive/4%20transistor%20High%20Gain%20Overdrive.gif   ... I think its a pretty good project. Can anybody clear this for me?..

[garcho]

Just 4 cascaded gain stages with diode clipping; should work. Might sound a little 'raw', and starting out with a 100k pot isn't the best way to retain your guitar's signal (some high end will bleed to ground), but then again, after going through all those diodes and gain stages, it's gonna be mangled anyway. Do you have a breadboard? It's a painless way to find out, and you'll end up using all those parts for something else if you don't really care for it.