# The Danelectro Transparent OD, TIM/TIMMY A/B Test



## traynor_garnet (Feb 22, 2006)

I owned a TIM for quite some time and absolutely loved the pedal. However, I never used the boost or loop so I sold it right before xmas with the intention of later picking up a Timmy.

Over the xmas break I picked up a Danelectro Transparent Overdrive on a complete lark. It was cheap and I thought it would be ok to play with until I bought a Timmy. Much to my surprise, this thing was incredibly good and REALLY reminded me of my TIM (see my thread “Looking for a cheap Timmy alternative”). This was before the recent controversy/discovery so you can basically fill in the rest of the story. Yet I wanted to hear things in a direct a/b comparison so I bought a used Timmy even though it was pretty much established that the TOD was a clone. At any rate, here are my findings . . .

In its stock settings, the Timmy and TOD sound identical. I am tempted to say that the Timmy is slightly clearer on the top end but I think my eyes are playing a role in this. Seriously, they are the same thing. I was hoping they wouldn’t be, but they are.

In asymmetrical mode, however, the Timmy IS more transparent than the TOD. Yet while more transparent, the distortion isn’t as smooth and is a bit more “gritty”; I don’t mean this in a bad way and some may prefer this mode to the TOD. I’m really on the fence because both the TOD and the asymmetrical Timmy sound simply amazing.

Ethics and sound aside here are the pro and cons of each pedal.

*TOD*
PROS: Dirt cheap, well made, unbelievable sound.

CONS: The knobs are horrible! I had read a few posts complaining about the knobs and thought “big deal.” Yet having spent some time with the pedal I’ve come to realize it IS a big deal. You cannot see where the knobs are set, it is hard to adjust, and the treble/bass knob is impossible to adjust individually (every time you try to adjust just one, you adjust the other). This is particularly problematic since your cables are right beside the controls. In fact, plugging a cable in will often rotate the knob!


*Timmy*
PROS: Cheap, well made, unbelievable sound, adjustable, incredibly cool designer/manufacturer. It is also a joy to adjust since it has clearly labeled, individual knobs for each function. Whereas the TOD requires you to lean over the pedal and use two hands to make the simplest adjustment, the TIMMY is easily adjusted with your toe WHILE playing. I know this sounds silly, but I cannot stress how bad the TOD knobs are.

CONS: I HATE where the power adaptor switch is. Seriously, is it possible to have picked a worse place??? Argh . . .



*Verdict*

Both the Timmy and TOD offer incredible value and sound. If you prefer the Timmy in its stock form, there is no really no reason to choose one over the other in terms of pure sound quality. In terms of functionality and versatility, however, the Timmy is the clear winner.

If you want to save a few bucks the TOD is a viable option but the knobs are a real negative. They are so bad that you may consider rehousing the pedal, but at that point the Timmy ends up being about the same price. Once you realize that the TOD’s low price stems from using essentially slave labour (I’m not anti Chinese, I’m anti exploitation) you have the following question to ask yourself:

“Is a $90 savings really worth horrible controls, less versatility, supporting terrible work conditions, and rewarding questionable business practices (cloning).”

Only you can answer that question for yourself.

TG


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Thanks. Excellent review. Balanced, thorough, and better than much of what I see in GP, quite frankly.:smile: Made me want to dig up info on the Tim/Timmy, so I checked it out and Paul Cochrane provides the kind of writeup/manual I would have written myself. VERY nice.

Seems like a fairly simple textbook design that makes intelligent use of the options available. Placing bass rolloff before the clipping stage and treble rolloff after is smart and appropriate. The symmetry options are essentially switches that shunt/unshunt diodes and are an option easily added to virtually any TS clone of any quality.

Asymmetrical clipping is something that too few guitar players understand. While it is an attempt to mimic something that tubes and FETs do it doesn't operate in exactly the same way, so people have unralistic expectations about it. Moreover,very often they can't really hear the difference.

So...a brief digression. Diodes conduct in a direction, and do so when the voltage applied exceeds a certain amount. One of the most common types of silicon diodes, the 1N914, used on so many pedals, will begin conducting when a voltage applied to the right end starts to exceed about 520-540 millivolts. In some batches it might be as much as 600mv and in others below 500, but in general its in the 520-540 zone. If you have two such diodes "back to back" (i.e., in parallel but oriented opposite), they will conduct whenever each half-wave (the part above and below the "zero-point") exceeds that voltage (2 x 520mv = 1040mv peak to peak). 

The "required voltage" (known as forward voltage) is additive. So, if you had two such diodes in series, they would not conduct unless the voltage applied was equal to the sum of their individual forward voltages. Sticking a silicon diode and a germanium diode in series creates a combined forward voltage requirement of around 750mv. Sticking 3 germaniums in series would be about the same, and sticking 3 silicon diodes in series would create a forward voltage of around 1600mv.

Normally, back-to-back pairs of diodes are used to produce clipping. When the forward voltage in one direction is the same as the forward voltage in the other, regardless of how many or what type of diodes are used to produce it, any clipping that results is said to be "symmetrical", because the exact same clipping threshold is applied to both sides of the waveform. Now, the applied signal has to be big enough to meet that required threshold in order to produce any clipping, but assuming it is whatever clipping is produced is produced equally for the upper/positive and lower/negative halves of the signal.

If you were to either alter the type of diodes (one Ge and one Si, or one Si and an LED) used in a back to back pair, or use different numbers of diodes (2 in one direction, 1 in the other), you would have an arrangement where by the forward voltage in one direction is noticeably higher than the other. Under such circumstances, the signal amplitude may be big enough to get clipped on one side, but nowhere big enough to meet the requirement to get clipped on the other. So, lets say we had a 2+1 complement of 1N914 diodes with thresholds of 532mv in one direction and 1069 in the other. A signal of +/- 540mv will certainly get clipped on one side, but not at all on the other.

We describe this as asymmetrical clipping. Here's where it gets interesting. Imagine we had three germanium diodes in a 2+1 configuration, with forward voltages of 219mv in one direction and 432mv in the other. Now, let's feed that a signal of +/- 1V (2V p-p). Is the clipping asymmetrical? Not on your life. BOTH sides of the waveform have their cute little heads lopped off and are quite squared, but because the "ceiling" is higher on one side than the other, one half cycle will be louder than the other. No difference whatsoever in the amount of harmonic content each side acquires, just volume.

Is that the same thing as the asymmetrical clipping that is said to be the heart and soul of tubes? Nah. It's different, I'll grant you, but where tubes generate harmonic content in a graded way, diode-produced asymmetry is kind of an all or none thing. That's not _bad_, as such, just not tube.

If you had a 2+1 didoe complement, and placed a piece of wire in parallel with one of the diodes on the two-diode side, it would behave just as if it was a 1+1 pair. If you had a 2+2 setup, and had a separate switch to bypass one diode of the pair on each side, you would have....drum roll...exactly what Paul Cochrane has in the Tim/Timmy: 4 different diode arrangements, including 2 different asymmetricals, one with a higher combined threshold (2 diodes in each direction), and one symmetrical with 
a low threshold (a 1+1 pair).

There are a number of things that happen when the threshold is raised, and when it is raised in asymmetrical ways. First, when the clipping threshold is raised, less of any picked note gets clipped. Remember that the amplitude of a guitar string drops very quickly after the first attack transient. Raise the clipping threshold by means of different or different numbers of diodes, and what happens is that clipping is applied to less of the overall "note lifespan", usually only the initial attack. Lower the threshold and the portion of the note where clipping is applied is increased. Perhaps equally importantly, when the threshold is raised, there are many more possible note amplitudes that can occur in the total absence of clipping. As you might expect, people describe this as having greater dynamics. And, not surprisingly, in most implementations it also results in a noticeable jump in loudness.

Where you notice asymmetrical arrangements is when you dig into notes. because one side of the waveform is still a ways from the clipping threshold, that lets you get a basic level of clipping, audible on one half-cycle, and then pick a little harder to elicitclipping from both half-cycles. Of course, if you don't pick the "right" way, or have the gain set appropriately, you won't hear that.

About 2 years ago, I made a Tube Screamer clone for local blues hero Tony D (now touring with Monkey Junk). In it I had a standard 1+1 diode complement, like a standard TS, but I added a variable resistance in series with one of the diodes so that its clipping could be adjusted, instead of just an on-off way of introducing asymmetry. Tony loved it, and it has replaced his much beloved, but disappeared vintage TS-9. being able to have a smaller gap between the point where you get only one-sided clipping and where digging in lets you bring in 2-sided clipping is a nice feature.


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