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previous: CBS I have been trying to figure out if... -- 9/14/1998 4:01 PM

Re: Overdrive w/Dynamics

9/15/1998 1:18 PM
Jim S.	Re: Overdrive w/Dynamics I'm afraid this setup might not work too well. When guitar players refer to "dynamic overdrive", this usually means that the amount of clipping that occurs is easily controlled by the player's pick attack. Light picking results in a sound that is clean or nearly clean, and hard picking results in saturation and extra harmonics resulting from increased signal clipping. Placing an expander after the clipping circuit does nothing to aid in touch-controlled clipping. Placing a compressor before the clipping circuit actually reduces dynamics and can actually make it harder to "clean up" the signal by backing off on picking attack (since the compressor will try to increase the signal gain to compensate for the lower input signal level). It might still be interesting to go ahead and build the circuit you have in mind - it might yield some interesting effects - but don't be disappointed if it doesn't give you what you originally wanted.

9/15/1998 1:18 PM

Jim S.

Re: Overdrive w/Dynamics

I'm afraid this setup might not work too well.
When guitar players refer to "dynamic overdrive", this usually means that the amount of clipping that occurs is easily controlled by the player's pick attack. Light picking results in a sound that is clean or nearly clean, and hard picking results in saturation and extra harmonics resulting from increased signal clipping.

Placing an expander after the clipping circuit does nothing to aid in touch-controlled clipping. Placing a compressor before the clipping circuit actually reduces dynamics and can actually make it harder to "clean up" the signal by backing off on picking attack (since the compressor will try to increase the signal gain to compensate for the lower input signal level).

It might still be interesting to go ahead and build the circuit you have in mind - it might yield some interesting effects - but don't be disappointed if it doesn't give you what you originally wanted.

Replies:

John Greene When guitar... -- 9/15/1998 2:12 PM
CBS I didn't mean the clipping will cha... -- 9/15/1998 3:39 PM