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It's pointless in the case that you mention, where you're going for a hard clipped metal distortion tone. I was envisioning more of an overdrive sort of applica
by hamiltonkibbe 12y ago
It's pointless in the case that you mention, where you're going for a hard clipped metal distortion tone. I was envisioning more of an overdrive sort of application where hitting the rails is NOT the desired effect. The 5mV hard clipper was an extreme example, but you could conceivably use it for soft overdrive/compression with a small enough input signal which was what I had in mind.
- kazinator 12y agoIf hitting the rails is not desired, then don't configure the effect to have so much gain. The point still stands that you can get the distortion effect, at the desired amount, at various places in the signal chain. The problem you're talking about is about using too weak a signal and then using make-up gain. That can also happen anywhere in the chain. I can reproduce the problem without distortion at all, using a clean signal chain. Repro 1: turn down the guitar volume to simulate an extremely weak pickup. Then turn up the input gain to compensate. Result: noticeable increase in noise. Repro 2: turn down pre-amp volume, and crank up power amplifier volume to compensate. Result: noticeable increase in noise. Gains/levels have to be evenly distributed in the chain. Sure, you will lose headroom if your intent is to have some soft distortion from the back-end of the amplifier, but you put a heavier distortion earlier in the signal chain. The heavy distortion masks the later one; it evens out the level so the headroom from the back is not available. There is a fix for that: you can punch that distortion in and out with your foot as needed.