# Over drive, crunch, distortion, fuzz, help?



## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

Original Question:

What is the difference in distortion effects?
Distortion, overdrive, crunch, fuzz, etc.

Edited:

I'm thinking about buying a distortion pedal.
I play a MIM fender strat hss with a Vox AC4TV.

The Vox has a great sound, the only trouble is for distortion the volume has to be higher than others would like it.

I'm not looking for one sound in specific. I'm learning mostly rock (classic rock) and blues.

I've got a good idea of the types of distortion now thanks to you all.
Can anyone drop some names?
So far I've got to look into the following:
--TS-7
--BOSS DS-1
--BOSS SD-1
--Fulltone OCD

Just wondering about your personal preference.


Sorry for not reading this section before posting,
and thank you for moving my post.


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## Raven (Nov 8, 2007)

Wiser said:


> So as far as I figure,
> 
> Over drive:
> the tone you get from just that, over driving the tubes in an amp.
> ...



I'm not the best person to give answer your question but since I have made the same trip recently I'll give you my two cents worth. If you want a technical answer pm mmhamer.

Distortion and Fuzz to me are in the same camp just different flavour. Think early Black Sabbath for Distortion and early Jimmy for Fuzz. Overdrive is also a kind of distortion to me but again a different flavour like SRV uses.

Crunch is a sound that I assosiate with Marshall. I know the song uses overdrive but "Cradle Will Rock" by Van Halen is a song that would have a crunch type of sound. Listen and you decide.

You should have a Long & McQuades near you somewhere. They have a rental department where you can rent pedals. I would suggest that you go and rent a Maxon or Ibanez tubescreamer to see if you like an overdrive pedal. Then rent a blues driver. Compare the sounds you get and try and figure out if this is what your looking for. If they have them available for rent, try out some of the Danelectro pedals such as the transparent overdrive (which is supposed to be a clone of a Timmy) Drive (supposed to be a clone of an OCD) and their fuzz (which is a Peach Fuzz clone). Follow this link and play sound samples to get an idea of what each sounds like. Then it's just a matter of deciding who's pedal you want to spend money on.

http://www.coolcattone.com/product_dist.html


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## Bevo (Nov 24, 2006)

Crunch to me is very light distortion, think of clean blues that gets into distortion on power chords.

Fuzz is just that, a bunch of bee's buzzing.. think intense static from your TV.

Overdrives to me is a bit confusing, depending on what pedal you get it can be a pure distortion pedal.
If you think of it, the pedal is supposed to push the tubes, so at decent volumes it should make the tubes work harder right? It does.. But at low amp volumes it still has that distortion and you know the tubes are not getting pushed.

A good overdrive will push your amp but maintain your original amp tone, almost like a volume pedal.

A distortion pedal will flavour the amps sound, some good some bad.

Your best pedal to start with is a TS-7 with the extra boost switch, it will act as an overdrive and a distortion pedal.
Look around for a used one, I got mine for $40.

The recomendation for renting is right on. Just be carefull, this can get very expensive..Lots and lots of pedals out there!


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## Budda (May 29, 2007)

If you're looking for a classic rock tone from your vox AC4, you don't need to buy any pedals


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## al3d (Oct 3, 2007)

We can't realy sugest anything without knowing what your gear is!...amp, guitar, music style...THEN we can make an educated suggestion..


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

I rediscovered my Boss DS-1 this week after it being in the closet for months. The last time I had tried it my amp was a Fender Blues Deluxe and I didn't really like the sound of it. I tried it yesterday on my Vox AC15 and it's sounds awesome, I can get any sound between slight overdrive to heavy distortion, it's sounds great. 

So depending on your amp/guitars/pickups and signal chain, your pedal can end up sounding very different. This is specially true with fuzz pedals, they tend to like being at the front of the pedal chain as close to the guitar as possible.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

My go-to cheap overdrive pedal is the Boss SD-1. Every time I use one, I'm floored by how decent it sounds for the sticker price (something like $70). It runs the gamut from light drive to a heavier overdrive, but doesn't really get into distortion range.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Do you have any idea how many keystrokes and how much ink has been spent on that question?

I've tried to answer the question many a time. I'll try again here.

1) Distinguish between processes and tone. Overdrive is a process, whereas distortion, crunch, and fuzz are terms which essentially refer to kinds of tone.

2) What gets called "Overdrive" is a sound which is easily pushed into clipping, but is generally capable of retaining the pre-existing sound of both the guitar and the specific pickups. The intent is to produce the sound of an amplifier that is not intended to distort but is set in a manner that it does distort. A Tube Screamer is a good example of an overdrive. Though there are probably some exceptions, for the most part, you can play a chord using an overdrive pedal and still recognize the notes.

3) What gets called a "Distortion" is something which tends to have a specific sound *of its own*. The sound will certainly be _different_, depending on guitar and pickups, but its not as if the end result is *supposed* to be easily recognizable as a Tele rather than a Strat. Rather than being used in a more interactive way with the amp to solicit clipping from the amp, many players will use a distortion pedal to produce a sound of its own. Generally more intense than overdrive, and less likely to hold up note distinguishability when playing chords that don't consist purely of a bunch of 4ths, 5ths and octaves.

4) Fuzz is the most intense of the different categories, generally possessing far more treble content, since it usual strives to achieve something close to a square wave. The other notable feature of fuzz is that it tends to produce the most constant volume level of the three general categories discussed here. I hesitate to call it "sustain" since there are some fuzz pedals which adopt a form of circuit that produces a kind of all-or-nothing output, which can choke off the signal if it falls below some designated threshold. Finally, If it isn't an octave or perfect fifth, or if your sonic goals involve something more than mere noise, don't plan on playing more than 2 notes at once through a fuzz.

There's a guy named William Martens, who used to be at McGill but is now in Sidney, AU, ( http://www.aes.org/member/profile.cfm?ID=474774015 ) that has published a number of papers examining perception of distortion effects, using a bunch of Boss pedals.


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## Swervin55 (Oct 30, 2009)

Bevo said:


> A good overdrive will push your amp but maintain your original amp tone, almost like a volume pedal.
> 
> A distortion pedal will flavour the amps sound, some good some bad.


Excellent description on both counts. After running the gamut, I've currently settled on a Fulltone OCD for exactly this reason. A little more dough, but worth it IMHO. 

OP: very good question

Swervin:smile:


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## Lemmy Hangslong (May 11, 2006)

excellent question and some really good answeres... I will add this

Overdrive is not only assoiciated with tube amps... overdive can also come from a solid state cct. A overdriven signal is where a sine wave has been pushed into clipping... simply put... distortion. There are many variations of this event.

Distortion is a blanket term used to describe both physical electrical conditions and guitar/amp tone.

Crunch is a term descriptive of a guitar tone. Some ppl have different views on crunch and there are several types of crunch. Most common and the origional use of the term is associated with early 80's metal where tube amps and solid state amps were used to give a bright agressive mid gain tone with upper mid focus... think of a crunchy sound and this is where this relationship and terminology was applied. Crunch is not limited to this description alone.
This is not unlike other terms such as "glassy highs" it's a word assoiciation terminology.

Fuzz is a physical electrical and tone term and again like crunch is a type of distortion that sounds like the word describes. Fuzz is usually a Solid State circuit that in saturated with gain causing the sine wave to take on a square wave characteristic.

These terms are all very subjective but in general fall under a certain basic criteria. If you look back to the origin of the term it helps to understand that basic criteria however like anything it evolves and becomes more complex with sublties that define it's character.

A good example of early Crunch before the term was defined is Funk 49 by James Gang where a great plexi crunch tone is used... later on Accept Balls to the Wall defined Crunch, Metallica also had their version look at And Justice for All for Example.


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## Bevo (Nov 24, 2006)

Good points again!

I will add that the level you adjust your pedal and amp will also change the type of tone you get. 
You may go from Crunch to Distortion just by raising amp or pedal volume.

Good topic guys!


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## keeperofthegood (Apr 30, 2008)

Ok

about clipping

and maybe compression

And I will be super technical and use play-dough in my question kqoct


If you treat a sine wave as simply a curved surface, and you make a round ball out of play-dough and then cut that ball up it so get like a half moon you've got like a sine wave like curve right.... (ok, tactile learning here LOL)

Ok, clipping, you take a knife and lop off the top of the curve. You've made a flat spot there. This is diode clipping from silicon right? How does a tube diode clipping differ from that?

What if you were to smoosh the curve into something so instead of getting a cut-off flat surface alone, you also sorta spread out the curve (easy to visualize doing this with play-dough).

I only ask because I have seen this happen in a few amp simulations I have run, where it isn't a line drawn clipping, its more a flattening and widening of the signal.

Is that compression instead of clipping??


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

al3d said:


> We can't realy sugest anything without knowing what your gear is!...amp, guitar, music style...THEN we can make an educated suggestion..


Oops. 
I chopped up and reworked my original post. 
I included that info this time.


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## Lemmy Hangslong (May 11, 2006)

lots of good info here... 

http://www.geofex.com/effxfaq/distn101.htm


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

RG and I had plans to write a distortion bible together. We worked out a basic plan of attack, put a few sample sections together, then stuff got in the way. We still keep promising each other to pick it up again. We'll see what happens.


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## Shiny_Beast (Apr 16, 2009)

those terms can be interchangable, but typically in the guitar pedal world they mean

overdrive
something usually of the tube screamer family, typically clipping in the feedback loop of an opamp. Soft and compressed saturation.

distortion
hard edged clipping, usually the signal is just clipped to ground after a gain stage. Good pick attack and high gain, good harmonics. 

fuzz
transistor clipping based on one of a few different classic designs from the 60s. Harsh, dry, thick and meaty. Can sound thin and buzzy in front of a clean amp. Good dynamics, versatile.



I say go with a fuzz to throw your amp over the top, should work well for the blues stuff, and give you some classic rock tones. 

If your can't turn up at all and you really need to get all or most of your gain from a pedal then it depends on how much gain you need. 

Low gain, try one of the popular overdrives like a Timmy, Zendrive or Barber LTD

high gain, I'd say a distortion. Wampler Pinnacle II, Riot, Hermidia D, or the ds-1. The ds-1 really needs an amp to warm it up and can be hard to dial in. the secret is to keep the tone knob wayyyyy down.

Personally I own a ds-1 and Barber LTD silver, the others I've just heard in demos on the net and they seem to get some respect.


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

I was tempted by the fuzz.

Any fuzz pedal recommendations?


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

I'm really digging the Way Huge Swollen Pickle theses days, pretty awesome fuzz pedal.


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

zurn said:


> I'm really digging the Way Huge Swollen Pickle theses days, pretty awsome fuzz pedal.


Oh jeeze, who names these things?


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

Well I've searched far and wide on youtube for videos of people playing with all sorts of effects pedals. It seems the sound of a pedal depends on the player.

It looks like there is no good or bad. They are all just different, and as long as you know how to use them they're all good.

I've changed my mind on the fuzz. It's just too much for me. I'm thinking of getting an sd-1 or ts-7.

I'm getting tired of thinking. By the end of next week I'll probably have one. lol


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## mspizziri (Nov 16, 2009)

I just got an OCD and I love it, it has such a nice open sound
I use to dirty channel on my Mesa combo for more of the metal stuff, but the OCD is perfect for more of that Marshall type rock tone. It also sounds great at lower gain volumes as well


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Well I'm certainly no expert, but I went through the same thing about a month ago, and I have the same amp you do, the AC4TV. I'm worried though, that if you followed my advice on the amp, you might follow my advice on the pedal too, and there are much more experienced players than me on this forum. 

The AC4 has a great sound when it's turned up, but I like just a little bit of breakup, kind of light to moderate distortion. I get that in the 1-watt setting with the volume knob at about 12:00, and that's a little loud if I'm not home alone. If I'm in the 4-watt setting, then I actually have to make it so that it's too loud even for me. And I find the 1/4 watt setting a little bit lacking in the richness the amp is capable of.

So I decided to get a drive pedal too. I was looking for something that could give me that "breaking up", just-over-driven sound, at a volume acceptable to my wife. I don't generally like a lot of distortion, but it can be fun to rock out a bit too.

I ended up getting a Liquid Gain Hydra, from Scott at axeandyoushallreceive.com. Which, by the way, is a wicked site for looking at many hundreds of pedals. The pedal was about $200, which on the one hand is a lot of money, but on the other hand, I'm not a gigging guitarist, I don't see myself getting tons of pedals. I really just want a few good pieces that will allow me to explore some different tones. The Hydra is nice because it allows me to have a rich, full, driven sound at decent volumes, but also allows me to play with some heavier distortion. It functions as a clean boost, up to a heavy distortion. It certainly has been keeping me entertained as I play with it.

The truth is, since you just got the amp, you probably don't know what "your" tone is yet, so get yourself something with some versatility, or be prepared to experiment with different pedals till you find it. The good thing is, the market for pedals is pretty liquid. If you buy something and don't like it, post it for sale here, and you'll get most of the money you spent back again.

When I did my research, the OCD was by far the most popular. There are 4 versions of it, and there's a youtube video out there with someone comparing all 4.

Good luck and have fun!

--- D


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

I definetly don't want to spend $200 on a pedal, lol. 

I've mostly been playing quietly. on 1/4 watt, tone and volume at noon, guitar volume at 7 or 8. Somewhere picking softly will give me a clean sound and harder will kick up the distortion. The Vox at its most distorted sounds too broken up to me. Like the notes turn into noise, lol. I guess I'm looking for a more smooth distortion right now. If that makes sense. I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I like it so far though, ha ha ha.


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## Lester B. Flat (Feb 21, 2006)

Wiser said:


> I definetly don't want to spend $200 on a pedal, lol.
> 
> I've mostly been playing quietly. on 1/4 watt, tone and volume at noon, guitar volume at 7 or 8. Somewhere picking softly will give me a clean sound and harder will kick up the distortion. _*The Vox at its most distorted sounds too broken up to me. Like the notes turn into noise, lol*_. I guess I'm looking for a more smooth distortion right now. If that makes sense. I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I like it so far though, ha ha ha.


Your amp at its most distorted will probably give you a great single note sound for solos but be over the top for chords. I would suggest setting your amp for a good crunchy sound for chords and kick in whatever pedal you use for soloing. You can't really expect any sound setting to always work for both. With some guitar amp combinations you can achieve this by rolling back the guitar volume for chords, which cleans it up a bit.


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Wiser said:


> I definetly don't want to spend $200 on a pedal, lol.
> 
> I've mostly been playing quietly. on 1/4 watt, tone and volume at noon, guitar volume at 7 or 8. Somewhere picking softly will give me a clean sound and harder will kick up the distortion. The Vox at its most distorted sounds too broken up to me. Like the notes turn into noise, lol. I guess I'm looking for a more smooth distortion right now. If that makes sense. I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I like it so far though, ha ha ha.


It's fun to mess around without knowing what you're doing, isn't it? 

Yeah, considering that amp cost $300, it's funny to have a pedal worth $200! In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's a relationship between the wattage and the volume. If you're playing at 1/4 watt, and with a particular volume setting you're getting some distortion... by switching into 1-watt mode or 4-watt mode, your volume will increase, but the sound will be cleaner. At higher watt settings, you have to increase the volume more to get distortion. At 1/4 watt, any significant volume will give you distortion, and I'm not surprised you'll find it to be "too much".

I'd encourage you to stay in at least the 1-watt mode. The amp really does sound much better at 1 watt and 4 watts, compared to the 1/4 watt setting. When I have to play quietly, I just lower the volume to about one-quarter of its travel. That cleans up the tone and brings down the volume, while keeping the great sound characteristic of that 1-watt setting. Give it a try. Once you realize how much better that amp sounds at 1-watt, you'll be DEFINITELY buying a drive pedal, because it will sound very clean unless you increase the volume substantially...

What other pedals are you thinking of adding? I'm now onto wanting a delay, and maybe a chorus or reverb. 

--- D


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

Right now im only thinking distortion. I read somewhere (might have even been here) delay, chorus and distortion were the big three. Looking further I found a Bad Monkey which may be my purchase. I found if when looking at the OCD. The OCD looks pretty sweet. It's price tag is just a bit much for me right now.

Thank you Duster, Lester, mspizziri, and everyone else for your input!


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

You can't go wrong with a OCD, I love mine, try and find a used one.


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

You guys are going to make me poor, lol. I'm considering the OCD. I'll go to L&M some time and see if they sell used pedals, and if so a used OCD. If the stars line up and that's the case I'll go for it. I haven't got the patience to find one privately sold. 

Which pedal I get is probably going to be decided by impulse, the day I'm in the store.

Until then, does anyone else want to tell me to or not to buy the Fulltone OCD? lol.



Duster, with your choice in gear you are looking like an expert.


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## fret15 (Feb 17, 2006)

Just to put some oil on the fire, I just got a used Z. Vex Box of Rock and it blows my mind how nice the distortion is, and the boost side helps out to push the amp farther into overdrive also. These are expensive though, but if you can find a good price like I did for a used one, you could make it happen.


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## Greenbacker (Mar 29, 2007)

If you're looking at a nice, inepensive alternative, you might want to look into the Visual Sound stuff. Funny looking pedals, but some of them are really kick ass! Check out these demos. I think they're great. It might help you out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMy_Jt7A1wA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt8PzSQJeBI

They carry these at L&M too!


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Well, I guess if I can't PLAY like an expert, I might as well LOOK like an expert!!

Try the for sale section of this forum, there are always nice drive/distortions for sale, and usually there's an OCD in the list somewhere. The OCD gets unanimous great reviews.

If you really want someone to make you poor, spend some time on the www.axeandyoushallreceive.com website. Scott runs that business out of Brantford, and he's got some ridiculously good pedals on that website, with lots of sound samples. He might even cut you a break on prices for being a member of GC, and he might have some used OCD's for sale.

Send him an email, tell him what you want and your budget, and he'll give you some advice. Fair warning though, when I did that I ended up buying a $200 pedal!!!!! 

--- D




Wiser said:


> You guys are going to make me poor, lol. I'm considering the OCD. I'll go to L&M some time and see if they sell used pedals, and if so a used OCD. If the stars line up and that's the case I'll go for it. I haven't got the patience to find one privately sold.
> 
> Which pedal I get is probably going to be decided by impulse, the day I'm in the store.
> 
> ...


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## Duster (Dec 28, 2007)

Wiser, there's an OCD v.4 for sale, $100, on The Gear Page. Posted at 9:39 this morning. It will likely go quickly. Thought you might be interested.

--- D


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## Wiser (Jan 6, 2010)

Thanks for the heads up, but i totally missed it. lol.

I was at L&M today. They just happened to have a used Fulltone OCD, so now I have a used Fulltone OCD.

Has anyone else had problems with L&M gear?

My first vox amp had a tear in the finishing. Whatever that covering is made of. They ordered me a new one, I picked it up today. Its got a tear in the finishing 

Also the pedal has sticky thick gunk on the back of it. Any idea what that could be? Do people glue pedals to pedal boards? lol. Any suggestions on removing the gunk?

I was really impressed with L&M, now, not so much.


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