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Let's talk distortion

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  • #16
    Re: Let's talk distortion

    Originally posted by jeremy View Post
    pi distortion is a big thing too and doesnt get talked about as much. i dont know if anyone has heard a guitar amp with pure power tube distortion. youd have to have a perfectly clean preamp with a ton of signal and a pi that could take it without folding and pass that huge signal to the big bottles and a speaker with a ton of power handling. the best "classic" distorted tones are usually a combination of a little preamp distortion, some pi distortion, a bit of power tube breakup and a speaker being pushed hard.
    I watched an interview with Ade Emsley of Orange amps, and he gave the example of the clean channel on the Rocker 15 Terror, and the Brent Hinds Terror. He said that since they use only a single gain stage, you can't overdrive the preamp on those amps running into the clean channel, so any distortion you hear is going to come from the power amp. I don't know how much of that would be the PI tube and how much is the power tubes, but I thought it was interesting.
    - Tom

    Originally posted by Frankly
    Some people make the wine. Some people drink the wine. And some people sniff the cork and wonder what might have been.
    The Eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the Crow.

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    • #17
      Re: Let's talk distortion

      just cause it only has one gain stage doesnt mean you cant overload that one stage with a really hot signal but it would be interesting to crank the clean channel up all the way and see how it sounds

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      • #18
        Re: Let's talk distortion

        Do tubes "compress"? I thought they clipped, rather.

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        • #19
          Re: Let's talk distortion

          clipping usually gives some compression?

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          • #20
            Re: Let's talk distortion

            Originally posted by Rex_Rocker View Post
            Do tubes "compress"? I thought they clipped, rather.
            Tubes are just an imperfect amplifier, the imperfection is called "non linear". Those tube imperfection strart from very subtle when the input signal is very low and get more pronounced when the input signal goes higher, I guess a very preamp tubes may clip a signal when the input signal is super loud but all the sweet sounds from blues and classic rock are mostly in the in between. That is harder to achieve with transistors, transistors are also imperfect amplifiers but their "non linear" behavior comes in more abrupt, drastically. That is why tubes are so nice for low to moderate distortion sounds like blues and rock while transistors can do very super distorted sounds very well.

            Edit: Compression is a natural consequence of distortion, it does not allow the signal peak to create a loud output sound, it rounds it a bit or even clip. I think there can be clean compression but cannot be distortion without compression really.
            Who took my guitar?

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            • #21
              Re: Let's talk distortion

              Originally posted by jeremy View Post
              just cause it only has one gain stage doesnt mean you cant overload that one stage with a really hot signal but it would be interesting to crank the clean channel up all the way and see how it sounds
              There is that, but the way he put it, you can't get overdrive from the preamp using just your guitar and the volume knob when in the clean channel.
              - Tom

              Originally posted by Frankly
              Some people make the wine. Some people drink the wine. And some people sniff the cork and wonder what might have been.
              The Eagle never lost so much time as when he submitted to learn of the Crow.

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