The Thorny subject of Overdrive vs Distortion

[travisthedog]

I have always (so it seems and unintentionally) stacked "overdrive" pedals to get my distortion tone (do two overdrives make a distortion?)

I like the idea of having one on and the being able to "kick it up a gear" as it were for solos etc, it also means i dont have to turn one off before turning another on should i wish to go from overdriven to distortion (lets not get into the subject though of when distortion becomes overdrive and vice versa)

Stupidly i dont use the distortion channel on my Orange which is capable of biblical levels of gain the likes of which would never use, but i have always had trouble balancing the two channels so prefer to do it all with pedal.

What do you guys do, stack OD's 1 OD and 1 Distortion, neither. Sometimes if im feeling unusually competent, i just turn the whole lot on and use the volume knob on my guitar, but that can be a bit unpredictable........ Whats the general feeling, There can be no right or wrong to this question, but im just genuinely interested in what other folks do.

Ta

[Dadave]

I run my amp on the point of break up, then an Ultimate drive for my main dirty tone and a hotcake and tweak fuzz, both before my Budda wah for varying flavours of extra drive. Sometimes a Box of rock too at the very end, before reverb.

[ICBM]

I have always (so it seems and unintentionally) stacked "overdrive" pedals to get my distortion tone (do two overdrives make a distortion?)

Not really.

I like the idea of having one on and the being able to "kick it up a gear" as it were for solos etc, it also means i dont have to turn one off before turning another on should i wish to go from overdriven to distortion (lets not get into the subject though of when distortion becomes overdrive and vice versa)

I think we need to - this bit is important.

To me, "overdrive" is a softer type of clipping that usually includes some sort of compression and increases midrange at the expense of bass and treble - a bit like an overdriven valve amp. The classic example is the "Tube Screamer type" circuit which uses diode clipping in a feedback loop. "Distortion" is a harder type of clipping that is usually less compressed in terms of gain but more brick-wall-limited in terms of volume, and usually doesn't much change the frequency response (which can actually sound like bass and treble boost, since clipping naturally widens the frequency range, especially at the top end). The classic example is the "Rat type" circuit which uses diode clipping to ground.

In both types the hardness of the clipping is affected by the type of diodes and by the rest of the circuit, and it's certainly possible to have clipping-to-ground circuits that sound like overdrive. (And maybe clipping-in-loop circuits that sound like distortion, although I can't think of any.) If anything I think that the sound of a cranked *big* amp is more closely simulated by distortion-type pedals than overdrive-type ones. A cranked small amp sounds more like an overdrive pedal.

So...

What do you guys do, stack OD's 1 OD and 1 Distortion, neither. Sometimes if im feeling unusually competent, i just turn the whole lot on and use the volume knob on my guitar, but that can be a bit unpredictable........ Whats the general feeling, There can be no right or wrong to this question, but im just genuinely interested in what other folks do.

If I stack them, it's generally overdrive into distortion. Two overdrives can sound much too midrangy and nasal, two distortions too boomy and buzzy, and distortion into overdrive often just sounds like a squashed mess. But overdrive into distortion can sound great - it's not the amount of gain that makes it work (or not), it's the compression and frequency response. This rule seems to work for me even if I do stack overdrives, or distortions - since there is some crossover between the two as previously said. This way, you also seem to be able to use both pedals to boost level - which is odd, because you would think that having a more 'limiting' circuit second would hold the level constant if it's pushed by a more 'compressing' circuit... but for some reason that I don't quite understand, it's usually the other way round!


If fuzz comes into it, I usually put that at the front. Fuzzes work a bit differently and usually use discrete-transistor circuits, so they're not as predictable and controlled as either of the other types - you quite often get a lot of extra harmonics generated and a complete change in the waveform, rather than just clipping.

If I use an "amp simulator" pedal, it comes at the end (as you would expect). These usually have a more complex EQ and don't really suit going in front of something more basic.

[travisthedog]

whoa!. Was it Jennifer Aniston who said in a shampoo commercial......"and now the science bit"

Great post mate, that has made me think a little more about how I do things pedal wise.

[DrBob]

whoa!. Was it Jennifer Aniston who said in a shampoo commercial......"and now the science bit"

Great post mate, that has made me think a little more about how I do things pedal wise.

Agreed, I've never had the difference explained quite so comprehensively before.

[Axe_meister]

If I want some drive I always use the amp drive (valve), even if it is just a bit of crunch.
After all most overdrives pedals try to simulate valve overdrive so why not start with that?

However I always have a Tube screamer type drive, set to low drive but high volume to increase the gain.
Which does not suffer from the middy heavy sound that ICMB described.

Even my distortion pedal (TC Nova drive) which is based on a RAT does not have the gain set that high again it's volume that increased the gain at the amp level the Nova drive just provides the distortion characteristics.

Now having recently dug out my V-Twin, I'm trying to work out how to integrate that into my setup. Unfortunately I've run out of loops on my G-system.

[DrumAl]

I've gone a bit crazy with Distortions at the moment as I am struggling to find the sound I want on an amp that isn't dimed to the max, and therefore way too loud for rehearsal/small gigs. I went the clean amp - pedal route to counteract the issue and ended up with shed loads of pedals!!

So, I now have a Timmy as my slightly broken OD tone, and use a Wampler Pinnacle as my distorted tone, although I'm currently trying to wedge a Suhr Riot in there too!! I did get an awesome boost last rehearsal using the Pinnacle into the Riot, sounded lovely, both them pedals sound great on their own also. I suppose its up to you, the player what you want really, trial and error has got me to a sort of happy medium lately, so its pedals all the way for me

Al

[thereformant]

TS model from my GT-10 into fairly distorted channel of amp, the TS the drive is set low and vol high to tighten up the sound rather than add more distortion.

[cacofonix]

I used to have a coloursound overdrive pedal. It did very little except add a few harmonics and a volume boost.

It sounded utterly dire into my solid state clean channel-only amp.

The idea, I was told is that the pedal is put in front of a valve amp on the verge of break up, so it "over-drives" the tubes into saturation. So more of a boost than a sound shaper. However, if you watch the (fantastic) Gilmour sound youtube videos, he uses an overdrive to shape his tone, i.e. adding a bit of middle or cutting some bass, before then using a fuzz or distortion pedal to add additional harmonics and widen the sound.

So to my mind, overdrive is more like a boost effect with bells on, whereas distortion is designed to emulate valve clipping (lots of distos talk about that Marshall tone).

A really good distortion is the H&K tube factor. It drives an output tube, so you get overdrive and output tube distortion, which when coupled with the boost function can drive your amp into distortion and then add its own distortion stage onto that. I have one with the Okko Mod (part 1) and it really is in a class of its own. Also check out Owen Electronics, space charge, I think, who will make one up to your spec, to a limited degree.

[ballandbiscuit]

I like having an "always on" clean boost first, followed by a switchable fuzz (or distortion in your case), that way I find the boost boosts the amp to overdrive, but switch on the fuzz (can go lower gain on it then) and it boosts that instead, giving you two distinct tones with one on-off stomp