Clipping Pedals

[FrettFretless]

Hey people, do you think it's possible to cause clipping to happen in a pedal that's not an overdrive/distortion pedal? I'm talking about just slamming the input of given pedal with something hefty, and getting the electronics to overdrive. Possible? Advisable? Anyone do this?

Thought it might be an interesting thing to think about since I recently got some distortion coming from my bass-converted crybaby wah for guitar, and it had some pretty useable tones.

[cheapbasslovin]

Yes you absolutely can. As long as you don't go stupid with the levels (like running an amp speaker output into the effect input), experiment away.

[bongomania]

Any circuit can be clipped.

[bassbrad]

Originally Posted by bongomania

Any circuit can be clipped.

...whether or not that is a good thing depends on the pedal and the resulting sound. Some pedal circuits can do interesting things when over stimulated especially analog ones, digital otoh never has a pleasing result. There are even some popular circuits based on over stimulated circuits like the Xotic EP Booster and Fuzzrocious Broke Dick Peanut Gallery.
I have several modulation pedals that have interesting overtones when over stimulated like a Dan Electro Psycho Flange and old EHX Small Stone and Small Clone

[Unrepresented]

Yup. My (well thought out) T. Rex Reptile delay has an input gain knob and LED to adjust for control of the clarity of the signal, in addition to the standard output gain controls.

[ZombieSpacebat]

My flanger is now unusable to me because my T-bird has such a hot output that it kills the flanger. It's also a pretty crappy flanger so there's that side of it too...

[mjac28]

My Schumann Electronics Lion pedal will clip any amp even without the boost engaged the instructions tell you to turn the pedal all the way down before you engage it.