Zoar?

[Artie]

For crying out loud! How many different ways can you make a distortion pedal? I want one. :headbang:

https://www.earthquakerdevices.com/zoar

 

[Chistopher]

I haven't listened to any clips of it yet, but the pre-gain bass knob has my attention. That's a pretty popular mod for me to do to my pedals, it's an extremely versatile thing to have as far as going between a tight OD sound and a wooly fuzz tone.

Also passive EQ that's designed to be neutral at noon is a cool idea

 

[Artie]

And it's not terribly expensive. I see this on my Christmas list.

 

[Chistopher]

Sheesh $129 is a lot cheaper than I was expecting. I may have to requisition one from Santa as well, provided I manage to pull off a spot on the Nice List

 

[Artie]

I'm trying to decide if I should be naughty or nice.

 

[Chistopher]

I have heard arguments for both sides

 

[memorablereceive]

I've encountered perspectives supporting both viewpoints. geometry dash meltdown

 

[marcello252]

For crying out loud! How many different ways can you make a distortion pedal?

generally talking, in analog realm, 3.

- soft clipping (diodes on the feedback loop)
- hard clipping (diods to Ref voltage)
- overloading a device (BJT, FET, MOSFET, OpAmp...)

the overdrive, distortion e fuzz pedals aways orbit around these three methods, there are not so many topologies used but the combination with the eq tailoring (pre distortion, post distortion ecc) and the components values used create millions of varieties, in some case significantly different with just the twist of a single value
​

 

[Chistopher]

generally talking, in analog realm, 3.

- soft clipping (diodes on the feedback loop)
- hard clipping (diods to Ref voltage)
- overloading a device (BJT, FET, MOSFET, OpAmp...)

the overdrive, distortion e fuzz pedals aways orbit around these three methods, there are not so many topologies used but the combination with the eq tailoring (pre distortion, post distortion ecc) and the components values used create millions of varieties, in some case significantly different with just the twist of a single value
​

There is a 4th more sinister type of distortion that I've only ever seen in the guitar world in an HM-2. Crossover distortion. If you look at the D5 and D6 diode pair, they form an arrangement that doesn't even count as clipping, seeing as it removes the lower end of the dynamic range rather than the upper limit. It also forms a simple 2 component noise gate.

You could add more parameters as well, such as octave fuzz's, even order versus odd order distortion (intentionally mismatched transistors), cascaded gain stages, pre and post gain eq's, and countless other glitchty effects

 

[Artie]

Here's a good article from Jack Orman on different ways to implement diodes, LED's and others for various distortion modes.

http://www.muzique.com/lab/sat2.htm

 

[Artie]

And another:

http://www.muzique.com/lab/zenmos.htm

 

[Artie]

And another:

http://www.muzique.com/lab/tclip.htm