Fuzz question for builders/engineers

[zwkoch]

As part of my daily pedal hunting, I came across the nice gentlemen from Lotus Pedals Minnesota. They have a distortion pedal called the THD+N (Link Removed).

While the demo video sounds very nice, but I am confused by the readings they are showing and the following description:

"Short for Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise. The THD+N is a Lo-Fi Fuzz with Harmonic Distortion measurement is excess of 80% which are sweepable between even order and odd order harmonic distortion."

What do the readings mean, and what does the even/odd order mean?

I'm just curious how this is different from standard distortion pedals. Thanks!

 

[johnk_10]

IMO, there's no simple answer to your odd vs even order harmonics question, since it's my understanding that pretty much all heavily saturated harmonic distortion contains both. some say that tube amps produce more even order harmonics (which sounds more pleasant) and SS amps produce more odd order (which sounds nasty), but it really depends on the circuit design.