Favorite way to clip a signal?

[Bill Mountain]

This is sort of an informal poll.  You don't have to go in to great detail.  I'm just wondering after years of innovation and experimentation what your favorite distortion engine is?

As much as I like the "organic" nature of clipping transistors and tubes I find that diodes are more reliable and the secret is in the pre & post eq.

What's your favorite?

[Govmnt_Lacky]

Well.. if you go by popular vote AND by history...

Looks like silicon diodes in the op amp feedback is the winner (i.e. TS808) 

[tca]

Could not resist!

Cheers.

P.S.
The muffer.

[bluebunny]

^ Low parts count.  Very low power consumption.   

[GibsonGM]

Post-boost diodes (Dist +,  Guvnor...).  Unless you want more of an overdrive, then TS808 feedback loop diodes....and yup, using the EQ to get what you want, Bill....

[jubal81]

Anything but diodes. Well, unless they're in a muff. That's OK.

[Bill Mountain]

Could not resist!

Cheers.

P.S.
The muffer.

Brilliant!

[anchovie]

CMOS inverters.

[MrStab]

power tube saturation!
...but that doesn't work well at 9V

given much A/B switch-flicking lately, i think i have to go with Mike - i prefer clipping after, not so much during, a gain stage.

[mth5044]

Drivin' dat FET.

[bool]

clipping a gain stage (within nfb) and some after it - my fav. way of getting a hairy tone without resorting to multi-stage hi-gain circuits (with their own set of problems, noise et.al)

[Transmogrifox]

JFET differential pair.

[puretube]

JFET differential pair.

hey Transmo: whereyabeen? 

[Mufftastic]

I like the two clipping stage design in a big muff.  So diodes, in the transistor's feedback loop, and two of them.

I've built high gain amps and a ton of pedals and the sound I always, always come back to is a clean, fat tube amp and a big muff.  There are plenty of great overdrive/distortion designs out there but this is the only one I enjoy playing through.

[seedlings]

power tube saturation!

+1



CHAD

[Bill Mountain]

power tube saturation!

+1



CHAD

Has anyone ever pulled this off for reals in a pedal format?

[seedlings]

Has anyone ever pulled this off for reals in a pedal format?

Yes, with cmos voltage converters or transformers to get B+.  My best effort was to use a 24V notebook power supply.

CHAD

[petemoore]

  Once a bit, twice w/more, then add a bit of opamp 'near rail' tone.
='s a D+'s 741 opamp @ about 6v supply, with a Jfet booster in front and a treble control after.
The two amps [jfet and 741] and clipping diodes [assymetrical] all contribute to distorting the signal...fairly simple and seems to work well.
just the boost into tube amp [yet another tone shaping element] into speaker [the contributors continue to grow in number...
Pretty generic distortion tone, nice boost sound...
Otherwise for more 'exotic' [ie distort heavy for fat single notes...mushy for polyphonic use], I'll use a FF, which looks simple but may require the player [and gear] to 'acclimate' to it. I like the way it turns the guitar volume intoo a 'gain' control.
  Not that the Bazz Fuss can't provide a very hard clipped signal with 1 transistor...sort of opposite to the more 'delicate' approach of 'gently' re-clipping gently clipped signal stages, shaping waveform and frequency content along the way... 

[puretube]

Vac-Trans... 

[Bill Mountain]

JFET differential pair.

Is there a specific circuit that utilizes this?