Difference between fuzz and distortion?

kmk42019 · #1 11-12-2007, 04:19 PM

Whats the difference? Im looking for something to sound like like the guy from tool...which one is it?

vegas532 · #2 11-12-2007, 04:24 PM

He uses both...be more specific.

Jared Lash · #3 11-12-2007, 04:33 PM

What's the difference between a fuzz pedal and a distortion pedal? About $10

The real difference is basically in the amount of clipping that occurs to your signal.

sublime0bass · #4 11-12-2007, 04:47 PM

is there any pedal that does fuzz and distortion and overdrive? or can that not be accomplished?

i really want to experiment with overdriven signals but dont want to have to buy 3 pedals (unless that is reccommended)

Jared Lash · #5 11-12-2007, 04:58 PM

I've seen pedals advertised as being "capable of slightly overdriven tone to full on wall of fuzz sounds" or something along those lines, but the truth is that I've yet to find a pedal that does a great overdrive and a great fuzz. In general I find that I need at least two (and often more) different dirt boxes to get the sounds I want.

There may be one pedal out there that can handle all your OD, distortion and fuzz needs, but I certainly haven't found it.

kmk42019 · #6 11-12-2007, 05:11 PM

How does he get that crunchy sound in SOBER?

bigchiefbc · #7 11-12-2007, 05:28 PM

Unless I've gone completely insane, I don't recall ANY distortion (or effects in general) on Sober at all. That's just the sound of a Rickenbacker 4001 Chris Squire edition into his amp (Mesa heads, IIRC)

Jared Lash · #8 11-12-2007, 05:33 PM

I'm not a big Tool fan, so I could be wrong, but that was my impression too. No distortion, just a Ric played with a pick through his normal rig.

Lowpro · #9 11-12-2007, 05:36 PM

Justin Chancellor uses a Sansamp GT2 amp modeler distortion pedal, a Proco Turbo Rat, and a Colorsound Tone Bender Fuzz pedal.

The difference in them is the clipping, and Fuzz pedals generally have the most clipping, at least they generally have the most that can be dialed in to your sound.

Jared Lash · #10 11-12-2007, 05:42 PM

Great info LowPro, but the song he's talking about had Paul D'Amour playing on it. I'm not sure what (if any) distortion he used when he played with Tool.

Lowpro · #11 11-12-2007, 05:45 PM

Yea I read that after I posted =X

Paul, He "may" just be using an overdrive pedal, if that. He really uis just using the Rickenbacker bass to the best of its abilities, running it super hot into Mesa tube amps. However, with a song like Flood i'm pretty sure he's using a disortion pedal of some kind.

Can't place the tone of it though, I'm pretty sure it's akin to an XXL or Sansamp GT2.

Swimming Bird · #12 11-13-2007, 06:58 AM

If you want OD, distortion and fuzz in one pedal you're going to need to tweak it a lot. OD is far enough different that a distortion pedal won't be able to do it, but some the clipping in some ODs can be pushed to the levels of a distortion and occasionally a fuzz.

The Pigtronix OFO Disnortion has seperate fuzz and OD effects built in, and I'm pretty sure you could tame the fuzz enough to get a distortion-type sound.

Also, the EHX English Muff'n is a tube-driven OD that can be pushed all the way into a pretty gnarly fuzz, but that requires more tweaking because it only has one stomp switch (the Disnortion has three).

Your best bet would be something like the Sansamp PDDI, but I have no idea how far that can be pushed. Luckily, there are many TBers who are obsessed with it, so I'm sure one of them will weigh in.

Good luck.

bigchiefbc · #13 11-13-2007, 07:01 AM

The only other one I can think of is the Boss OS-2, which also has an Overdrive and a distortion, and you can blend between them, although I doubt it will clip hard enough to be considered a "fuzz".

Jonyak · #14 11-13-2007, 07:16 AM

A fuzz pedal has huge amounts of overdrive which is then clipped to produce a near square wave. Now with a square wave come the addition of almost infinite harmonics. As the math involved with a true square wave includes infinite square waves. This adds over tones and undertones to the final wave form being produced.

An overdrive is simply a pedal that produces enough gain to push your amp into its non linear clipping zone.

A distortion Provides enough gain to push its own circuits into a non linear clipping zone, or it adds some type of clipping circuit that has a lower clipping threshold and profile than a fuzz..

voila, technical differences.

speak_onion · #15 11-13-2007, 08:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonyak

An overdrive is simply a pedal that produces enough gain to push your amp into its non linear clipping zone.

voila, technical differences.

That's not quite correct. Overdrive devices provide their own clipping, it's just less than that of a distortion device, so as to emulate the effect of silghtly "overdriving" an amp.

Jonyak · #16 11-13-2007, 08:50 AM

ahh well, that is not a true overdrive then.

diechris · #17 11-13-2007, 08:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonyak

ahh well, that is not a true overdrive then.

why is that? does it matter if the overdrive happens in a pedal or in an amp? clipping happens in both.

Dragonlord · #18 11-13-2007, 08:57 AM

Yeah, Death to False Overdrive as our brothers Manowar would say.

Jonyak · #19 11-13-2007, 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by diechris

why is that? does it matter if the overdrive happens in a pedal or in an amp? clipping happens in both.

yes it does matter, because clipping in a nice tube amp, IMO is much much better than fake clipping in a solid state transistor or diode.

tubes clip in a much softer rounder way then a silicon diode or transformer does, produceing, once again IMO, a much nicer sound.

speak_onion · #20 11-13-2007, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jonyak

ahh well, that is not a true overdrive then.

What?

Are you saying that a tubescreamer is not a "true overdrive" device? A mutlidrive? An LTD?

I understand your claim that the word "overdrive" must specifically refer to overdriving an amp (usually with a boost pedal), but that's not an accepted definition. I think the line between overdrive and distortion is not a clear one, and it just refers to the steepness of the clipping onset, not whether the device that is doing the clipping is an amp or a pedal or whatever.