# What's a "Timmy"



## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

Been going through some threads here and I've seen this "Timmy" topic brought up.

I assume its a O/D pedal?

I've never heard of this, whats up peep's?


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

ThePass said:


> Been going through some threads here and I've seen this "Timmy" topic brought up.
> 
> I assume its a O/D pedal?
> 
> I've never heard of this, whats up peep's?


Ever heard of Google? lol

[video=youtube;AViMnHAV-lw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AViMnHAV-lw[/video]


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

I suppose I could have, LOL..........but why not come to the source and talk gear????

Thanks for the link!


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

To me, it is the greatest low gain pedal ever created. Amazing.

TG


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

traynor_garnet said:


> To me, it is the greatest low gain pedal ever created. Amazing.
> 
> TG


Agreed, the Timmy and OCD will never leave my board, it sounds great through all my amps and with all my guitars.


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

Geesh that dude has some sweet gear!


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

The Timmy IS a high gain pedal, which is how it manages to generate clipping. However, because it sets the clipping threshold high, it enables the user to get very light clipping even with applying lots of gain and a whomping output level.

I repeat, *gain is not distortion is not level*. Gotta keep those three straight.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

mhammer said:


> The Timmy IS a high gain pedal, which is how it manages to generate clipping. However, because it sets the clipping threshold high, it enables the user to get very light clipping even with applying lots of gain and a whomping output level.
> 
> I repeat, *gain is not distortion is not level*. Gotta keep those three straight.


Sorry Mark, but I thought gain _was_ level? The more gain, the louder it is until it starts to clip and compress? I don't mean to derail the thread, but I was just curious.

@ the OP - as for the Timmy, all you need to know is it's a great overdrive that produces a good amount of drive on it's own, but also really pushes your amp hard to create tube overdrive as well, and the best part of the Timmy is that it's really transparent. So, if you like the way your amp sounds, the Timmy will make it sound the same, just with more dirt. If you don't like your amp, it's not going to help much.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

hollowbody said:


> Sorry Mark, but I thought gain _was_ level? The more gain, the louder it is until it starts to clip and compress? I don't mean to derail the thread, but I was just curious.


Curiosity is what makes us smarter.

They are all related, but too many folks will use "gain" interchangeably with distortion. Moreover, there are plenty of things that can translate gobs of gain AND distortion into low levels. For instance, the venerable Big Muff Pi applies lots of gain...twice...to get the long sustain and intense clipping it does. But then it follows that with a tone-control stage that eats up a lot of the signal, such that the unit has lots of gain, lots of distortion, but a pathetic output level. EHX solved this by sticking a modest additional gain stage after the tone circuit, to make up fr what was lost. The BMP likely has far more gain and distortion than the Timmy, and a host of other "transparent" overdrives, but ends up having less output level, unless the volume compensation is introduced.

The MXR Distortion+ has a maximum gain of 214x. It also uses germanium diodes which clamp the output at a lower maximum point, and clip at that lower threshold. If I replace those germanium diodes with silicon diodes, or LEDs, the clipping threshold is raised, and without doing anything to the "gain", I have increased the output level dramatically. Of course, despite the huge increase in output level, some will inevitably describe it as "less gain-ey", because the severity of clipping is reduced. Again, absolutely NO change in gain, just a change in clipping threshold.

"Gain" is what you apply to the signal. If there are no other limits imposed, then gain WILL translate into greater output level. Multiplying what came in by two should get you double the output, right? Some pedals, like the Proco Rat, "work" by applying far more gain to the signal than actually be created. With a 9v battery, a +/- 50mv signal can only be multiplied by 90x before the 9v power supply fails to permit the signal to have any greater amplitude. And that presumes (falsely so) that an op-amp can "swing" all the way from 0v to 9v (usually they can only swing to within 1.5 volts of either extreme, which is a maximum actual gain of 60x). The Rat applies a gain of *over 3000x *to the content above 1.5khz. This, despite being a chip with a low slew rate, and a compensation cap deliberately selected to impair its ability to deliver much gain for high end.

Now, it's a loud pedal, by any measure, but 3000x? nah. The headroom limitations just turn that into a corrupted signal - what you and I call distortion - and the clipping diodes add to that. Of course, take the clipping diodes away and you'd still have a very distorted signal, simply because the chip has been set to a gain it cannot possibly provide.

Like I say, gain and distortion and level are certainly _related_, but there are so many other things to factor in (like input signal level, supply voltage, and clipping threshold, for starters) that you can't use them interchangeably.

I like to use a phrase which I _think_ I came up with (though I'd be honoured if I simply unearthed a longstanding well-known principle), and that is "proximity to clip". All audio signals will have a point where the properties of the circuit they are passing through will begin to introduce additional harmonic content, and perhaps sideband products. The question is, given the amplitude of the input signal, and the distance between that and the point where clipping begins, how much gain needs to be applied? Take any guitar, feed it through a "clean booster" set for modest gain, such that the output signal is a perfect copy of the input, with no additional coloration, only 3x the input amplitude, and feed THAT into any distortion pedal you want. The distortion pedal will sound far more intense than normal, because the input signal x the gain applied brings much more of the input signal up to, and past the threshold of clipping; i.e., the entire signal has been moved closer to the clipping point (proximity to clip).

Here's another oddity. If you stick diodes in series with the signal, they "clip the sides", but not the top. Huh? A pair of germanium diodes in series (like they are in the Boss Heavy Metal HM-2) with the signal obliges the signal to be +/-230mv or so, or greater, before it can pass. That clipping of the onset and offset of the wave also adds harmonic content, but has no impact on the maximum amplitude of the waveform like clipping the peaks would. This allows for distortion with modest gain applied, and no real impact on the peak level.

The "Black Ice" passive overdrive module uses a pair of Schottky diodes, that have a VERY low clipping threshold, which can be met and exceeded by a great many standard humbucking pickups, in the complete and total absence of ANY gain being applied. And of course, pickups themselves do not have any "gain". All they have is output resulting from magnets and wire.

So, again, gain, distortion, and level are connected, but are also quite dissociable in ways you need to keep on top of in order to understand what's going on. Make sense?

RG Keen and I had started collaborating on a comprehensive "Distortion Bible" about 5 or 6 years ago, and ended up getting distracted by other things. We should probably get back to it one of these days, because obviously the misunderstandings haven't gone away.


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## ThePass (Aug 10, 2007)

Wow ~ good reading guys!

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like a Timmy could help me out some.


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## hollowbody (Jan 15, 2008)

Thanks Mark. Insightful, as always, to say the very least!


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## Alab335 (Jan 10, 2010)

This sound like a fantastic pedal !

Any links to where it can be ordered from here ?

thanks

All


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## Chito (Feb 17, 2006)

Paul doesn't have a website, he's got a page on myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/paulcaudio

From what I've read, he's just finishing orders from October last year, about a 6-7 month wait. You can find them on ebay but they'll be more expensive. The Timmy is $129.00 if you get it direct from Paul. I ordered mine in April last year and didn't get it till November. Give him a call and he'll call you back when your pedal is done.


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## zurn (Oct 21, 2009)

There are tons of them for sale on TGP.


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## Alab335 (Jan 10, 2010)

Chito said:


> Paul doesn't have a website, he's got a page on myspace:
> 
> http://www.myspace.com/paulcaudio


Thanks for the link Chito, definitely will check on this. It has the sounds an features I am looking for.


All


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## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

Phone Paul, it is how he does business.

I spoke with him on Sunday and he is a great guy. He is way behind on orders but is now working his butt off to get pedals done.

After I spoke with him I found out that the wait time is largely due to his mother's cancer and recent death. Obviously, building pedals takes a back seat to life.

TG


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