what really is the diff. bet Overdrive and Distortion

[crawler486]

what really is the difference between Overdrive and Distortion?

:shock:

[zener]

The two are sometimes use interchageably.

Here read this:
http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/fx-desc.htm#Ovd

I think there's a link to http://www.harmony-central.com that describes every kind of effects available. You better check than one also.

[crawler486]

ok thank u pre...

[Alpha579]

I think Overdrive generally implies smoother sounding clipping. It doesnt necessarly mean less clipping, just smoother, rounder clipping. Distortion is usually grittier and harsher...

[erio fraga]

From "Cook Your Own Distortion" ( http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/richardo/distortion/index.html ) :

"When talking about distortion, you can usually hear the words overdrive,
distortion, fuzz and crunch. They are words describing the type of distortion an amp or an effect gives out.
Overdrive is a natural and smooth sound, while a distortion is more rough.
Fuzz is a metallic and very rough type of distortion that turns the sound of a guitar into a fuzzy sound.
Crunch is not a specific type of distortion, but mild overdrive or distortion. Crunch has a sound that resembles the sound of breakfast cereals crunching combined to a guitar sound (I don't mean snap, cracle and pop =).
These don't apply to all effects on the market, for example Craig Anderton calls almost all of his distortions "fuzz", no matter if it's a distortion, overdrive or fuzz. For example Craig Anderton's Tube-sound Fuzz is actually an overdrive unit. "

[petemoore]

An EE, when designing a modern mixing board, might call .07% distortion 'high'.
 A guitar player would probably call .07% distortion 'totally clean'.
 Technically, distortion is any alteration of a waveform.
 This type of distortion is sometimes confused with the word 'distortion', which to a guitar player..." isn't even distorting  "....they're really two different things...but they are also the same...confused?,,,you should be.
 I like to use the technical description of distortion, but it's kind of a misnomer..really for communication, there's guitar distortion and EE distortion.
 Guitar distortion 'starts' at about the level an EE [trying for low distortion or as close to elimination of distortion as possible] might call a 'rediculous amount'.
 Clean' to a guitar player, might have alot of 'distortion' by an Electronics Engineer definition.
 OD, or overdrive, taken from the characteristic 'distortion' produced by a tube amp when 'overdriven' is generally used as a way to describe the smooth[er] clipping sound of an overdriven tube amp ""Distortion'.
 Language creates misnomers sometimes... :idea: I hereby indoctrinate 'distortion' as any [even very slight] 'distortion' of a waveform...and "Distortion' as what a guitar player looks for in an OD, Distortion or Fuzz box...lol :lol:

[Mark Hammer]

Sometimes, the difference is purely in EQ-ing and filtering.  A given circuit may well yield some serious harmonic content, but if followed by equally serious lowpass filtering, it will *sound* like a more moderate distortion than it really is.  This is to be distinguished frm those instances where harmoninc content is restrained by the amount of gain applied, rather than by what gets taken away *after* gain is applied.

For that reason, rather than ascribing "distortion" vs "overdrive" to any particular approach to clipping or gain structure or gain-applied, I would simply say that most users will use the term "overdrive" when describing something which does not sound quite as harsh, regardless of how that happened to occur.

The term "overdrive" is also used to refer to those pedals which provide enough gain/boost, clean or otherwise, to *overdrive* subsequent devices, such as an amp's input stage.  In those instances, the tone comes from the joint action of two devices, rather than from one alone.

[petemoore]

Mark Hammer Wrote:
 "I would simply say that most users will use the term "overdrive" when describing something which does not sound quite as harsh, regardless of how that happened to occur.

The term "overdrive" is also used to refer to those pedals which provide enough gain/boost, clean or otherwise, to *overdrive* subsequent devices, such as an amp's input stage. In those instances, the tone comes from the joint action of two devices, rather than from one alone."
 
 And I agree, even second the motion, as it is a good way to make distinctions about the way OD vs Dist.  unit work.
 Many manufacturers ascribe to this, sometimes they don't.

[Mark Hammer]

It is probably fruitful to think of "overdrive" as having several identities:

a) a *procedure* whereby one stage is presented with an out-of-expected-range signal level from a preceding stage.

b) a *tonal quality* which is often attained by 'A' above, though not exclusively so.

c) a *tonal achievement* within a pedal that essentially follows procedure 'A'.

In general, a big signal into a tube amp, or the product of cascaded gain stages within a tube amp, is the benchmark for what 'B' ought to sound like.  What people call "distortion" is generally something which sounds like it came from a pedal or *maybe* an amp with something malfunctioning (e.g., the classic torn speaker cone).

[BDuguay]

Sometimes I think we don't see the trees for the forest. If we look at the 2 terms in question, the answer is right there. "Distortion" distorts your guitar signal. Overdriving your guitar signal is simply beefing it up, which in turn should create a type of "distortion" in the pre-amp section of your amp. Am I right about this fella's? Mark?
BTW Mark, our CD is finally done and available at our website :wink:
Hey, my first emoticon. That didn't even hurt!
B.

[Mark Hammer]

Congrats on the CD, Brian.  Should I pester Bill Stunt (or his summer replacement) at CBC to play it?

Yeah, I think we agree on the basic gist of what "overdrive" is.  The reason I make the distinction between a process and a tone is that there are a great many pedals/devices that provide that sort of tone without pummelling the amp input stage, and we need *something* to describe them with.  Take a plain vanilla Distortion+, treble-cut the bejeezuz out of it, and what you get left with is so unbuzzy, unfuzzy, and plain old "warm" that people would be hard-pressed to call it anything other than overdrive.  That, despite the fact that a stock one couldn't provide enough output to "overdrive" a cassette mic preamp, and is designed to be a hard-clipper.  It's that sort of scenario I think any definition of overdrive needs to be able to encompass.

[smoguzbenjamin]

You know Mark, that's a good idea. I think I'll try that :mrgreen:

[BDuguay]

Pester away Mark!
I should check to make sure we've sent a copy to the CBC. That's not my job in the band. My job is to fix pedals and patchcords, and to constantly remind our singer that the cord from his Takamine goes into the RIGHT side of his tuner, not the left. And said cord is to be removed from tuner when not in use to prevent killing the battery.
Singers :roll:
B.

[Mark Hammer]

Yup, the only thig that makes singers tolerable by comparison are...drummers!! :roll:  :roll:

[smoguzbenjamin]

Drummers are terrible. They play too loud so you can't hear yourself, and when you turn your amp up a bit, they play even louder! Damn drummers :x

[Transmogrifox]

Get a louder amp :wink:

I agree it is hard to explicitely (did I spell that right?) define "distortion", "overdrive" or "fuzz" as related to guitar tone.  However, I know that most of you would not argue amongst yourselves about what is overdrive and what is distortion when you hear a certain guitar sound...save the gray areas such as, The RAT.  Is that "distortion" or Fuzz?

I would like to point out some more qualities of distortion and OD that I perceive:

I would say that "distortion" is harmonically rich as compared to "overdrive".  Often "distortion" has much harmonic power up into the 8-kHz range, thus the more "harsh" sound, however in both there is generally a pre-filtering stage to minimize "muddy" intermodulation terms.

"Overdrive" would generally filter these higher harsh harmonics and is likely less tightly packed spectrally.  Merits of a good OD include clarity of the original guitar tone, meaning that intermodulation terms and excessive hard clipping are kept minimal.

I would say  the "wooliness" of fuzz is that it can be thought of as the "ultimately-rich-in-harmonics distortion".  The lack of pre-and post filtering in most fuzz devices increases the intermodulation terms, also there is generally a good combination of hard and soft clipping as well as more severe asymmetry.

[BDuguay]

Now, what do you suppose the guys in Social Distorion use?, And what about Bachman Turner Overdrive?

[Rich G.]

In the circuit sense here's how I differentiate between the two:

Distortion: +/- Clipping diodes are placed from amp output to ground.  The amp provides a high gain on the signal and the diodes hard clip the signal.

Overdrive: +/- Clipping diodes are placed in feedback from amp input to amp output.  When the signal is low, the diodes are open circuit thus providing high gain.  When the signal is larger, the diodes conduct thus providing low gain.  This retains "rounded tops" of the signal as the gain is unity for the large part of the signal, but as the signal decreases to zero the gain increases.