Effects - QUIZ!

[GreggBummer]

I was chatting with my guitar players over (too many) beers and we were discussing the difference between effects. This is a three part question- explain your answer. If you use a technical term or jargon (like "clipping") define it.

What are the differences between fuzz, distortion, and overdrive?


No one is going to grade this or anything... I just had a hard time clearly defining this last night. I kept saying it "this one sounds fuzzy... that one does not". I am curious to see what you guys and gals have to say. Stay out of wikipedia... anyone can do that!

[bongomania]

Whatever, look in the FAQ if you don't know.

[fenderhutz]

Originally Posted by bongomania

Whatever, look in the FAQ if you don't know.

We have a winner!

[Sir Edward V]

Hahahahaha, Bongo FTW!

[Nyarlathotep]

+1 to the FAQ, Bongo FTW and all that shiz, but heres the way I look at em:

An OD can do a nice compression effect, and add a little more push (or make your bass sound a little "bigger"), but does so with little or no "grit" or "artifacts" at low gain settings.

A fuzz has grit on any gain setting, as should a distortion to be considered one or the other. Honestly, I don't put much difference in the terms "distortion" and "fuzz", and think that fuzz is just a cooler sounding name for really high gain distortion. If I was forced to make a distinction I would have to say that a distortion keeps some charictaristics (EQ, etc) of the original signal put into it, just with some mid/treble "grit"/"harmonic artifacts"/"whatever", whereas a fuzz doesn't (unless it has a blend or is in a blend loop)

[CamiloDíaz]

I always look at them in terms of "how dirty can they get". Generally speaking, OD's are the less dirty, then Distorsion, then Fuzz, being the most gritty of them all. They're all the same process in different degrees, so to speak; it all comes of taking the original signal and raise it to the point where the "wave" becomes clipped, in other words, when it excedes certain limits, therefore distorting. Or something like that.

[SpankyPants]

Originally Posted by DanielTulip

Honestly, I don't put much difference in the terms "distortion" and "fuzz", and think that fuzz is just a cooler sounding name for really high gain distortion.

OD is a lot closer to distortion than distortion is to fuzz. OD and distortion still reflect the nuances of the bass. Look at the Polish love pedal; it ranges from OD to mild distortion.

Fuzz, however, decimates the original signal and compresses it A LOT more. It's a different beast completely.

[GreggBummer]

I don't use fuzz or distortion anymore... Now that I think about it, I never used fuzz. When I was playing in punk and metal bands (in the late '80s and early '90s) I used a Boss Metal Zone pedal. It sounded great but I lost a whole lot of bottom end.

To my ears, audio engineering aside, fuzz sounds gritty. But distortion sounds clipped. I use my SansAmp now and I drive that pretty hard. Probably because I am listening to The Who alot now...

My original intent with the post was to see how folks describe these three effects. Not so much how they work. I describe fuzz as warmer and grittier than distortion... others do not. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to the question.

[bongomania]

Originally Posted by GreggBummer

I describe fuzz as warmer and grittier than distortion... others do not. I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to the question.

While of course interpretations are necessarily subjective, and the lines between the three "types" of dirt are completely blurred, there are some things to set aside in order to make the conversation more clear and manageable.

The first is that the audio engineering definition of "clipping" and "clipped" is pretty well set in stone and IMO should not be brushed off or re-interpreted. We can get into "hard clipping", "soft clipping", "asymmetrical clipping", etc. but they are all clipping.

Second, I can immediately think of several fuzzes that are smooth, not gritty, and at least one that I think of as cold, not warm. So one way to look at it is we use the words differently; another is that we just hear things differently; another is that we've heard different specific pedals in different specific contexts. All of those differences would seem to underline your point about "no right or wrong answer", but IMO actually they point out how careful we must be about using language to describe sound, in order not to give people wrong ideas, especially when generalizing about broad categories of effect.

IOW if someone wants to say they thought a specific pedal was warm and gritty, great- that's useful! But then broadening it to say the whole type of effect it was is generally warm and gritty... not so useful.