Reply With QuoteSo. What's the difference between fuzz, overdrive, and distortion? Never learned.
Zoobesucherin
I even owned one!Originally Posted by Josh
So. What's the difference between fuzz, overdrive, and distortion? Never learned.
Geezer
Hell, I never really learned the difference either. The only thing I know is, overdrive and fuzz = good, distortion = bad.
I know overdrive is basically just mimicing a cranked tube and sounds more "harmonic" or whatever. I can't stand clean electric guitar (unless it's old school country twang with a ton of reverb) so I always have some sort of overdrive constantly on to dirty up my clean sound. I've never had much luck with fuzzes except for the Rat, which consistently roars, and I would really like to learn how to effectively use my Fuzz Factory, but that thing has a mind of it's own. It makes that farty, ripping velcro, campfire sound perfectly, but once it starts to squeal, it doesn't stop.
Last edited by Jed; 04 Jun 2015 at 04:40 PM.
I think of it like distortion = solid state bedroom amp, fuzz = creeping up on a square wave, and overdrive = amp turned up loud. I don't know if that's proper or not.
Geezer
Sounds about right.
my rad is killer
The thing is all these interact with the amp. So a strong boost (supposed to just increase signal strength without altering tone) can easily overdrive the shit out of an amp. An 'overdrive' pedal was initially meant to simulate the sound of an amp actually being overdriven. But turn up the overdriven amp simulation pedal loud enough and the amp will actually overdrive like a mofo too. And of course any distortion or fuzz pedal will also drive the living fuck out of an amp so it's just a big dumb foggy mess. They're perhaps a little bit more easily divided electronically than sonically but not really by much.
And I respectfully and politely disagree about DS-1 pedals being shitty. They distort the wave. Job done. Every pedal sounds different and in a perfect world (ie: limitless money or enough to not have to sell off gear that doesn't get used much) every pedal has its place. The only nonredundant pedal I ever sold was a Seymour Duncan Tweak Fuzz. It wasn't getting me my sound and I was annoyed by what I considered to be obvious and abject shittiness. so I sold it quick. Too quick because god and baby Jesus only know what it may have been used for in the studio or on some other day when maybe I wanted a thinner sound. I still can't imagine it being on my board but from my current perspective I also can't imagine it not coming in genuinely handy for something at some point. So even though the DS-1 will probably never get on my board, it stays for the one day that dumb sound it does will be necessary.
My experience is guitar pedals can sound really cool on vocals and snare drums if you just use the volume knob, mostly. Never tried a DS-1, but I bet it'd rule.
my rad is killer
There's got to be a place for it somewhere, someday. I really regret selling just about every piece of gear I ever let go. Leading the pack are a Nord Lead I used to have and the SG Classic I sold to Shakey.
My only real regret is selling my OG Jagstang (both of them) and my Harmony Stratotone. Maybe my Kimberly, but I never ever used it, and it sounded pretty awful.
Youth...
Geezer
Most of the gear I've sold was worth getting rid of, except maybe the OG Whammy Pedal I sold to a friend for pretty much nothing, those things are spendy now. I also traded a 74 Mustang to my brother under the express condition he sell it back to me if he got rid of it, and he traded it for some bullshit. But the worst was the 5 watt Kalamazoo amp I just left at my friends house like ten years ago and never went back to pick it up. So dumb.
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