Something cool happened Saturday...

[z-zero]

So I'm playing my normal rig (nothing special), and we move into an impromptu jam type session with just the instruments, and I flip to my neck pickup and stomp on my distortion box and start doing this fingerpicking thing with a heavy thick fuzz and I start to hear my amp feedback in 3rds and 5ths of the note I'm playing. What in the world causes that? I was using my parker Nitefly II neck pickup (HSS) into a HK warp factor into the clean channel of a Marshall MG100DFX 1x12" combo. I had originally setup the distorion for my bridge humbucker but in the little jam session I was on my neck pickup coming from a clean song that built into whatever it was that happened. How can I get this all the time? I wrote all the settings, or at least I'm writing them down. Do I credit the HK warp for this? The neck pickup on my parker? The SS Marshall amp? I realize its a combo of all three but what contributed more?

And most of all is this the sound that they refer to as Muffish?

Thanks,

z-zero

[Herr Masel]

I don't have an answer, but when I tap pretty high on the neck (just left hand) when the guitar is not plugged I get similar sounds. I don't think I ever tried it with the guitar plugged in but it might work the same way.

[z-zero]

Thats what was kinda odd, I was finger picking open chords, but sounding a note singularly "sounded" like a full bodied chord, and of course if I picked more thean one string it got all muddy and undefined with oscilations. I'll get a chance to try and reproduce it next week so we'll see how it goes. It probally wasn't ringing perfect 3rd and 5ths, but man did it ever sound really musical when it started to roll, lots of sustain etc. It took a good half second to start moving into the roll after I plucked the string.

I was looking at the schematic for the warp factor and it looks unlike most diode clipping structures. Zeners all around in 2 different distinct configurations in the main gain stages of the design. I "think" its setup like a clamping amplifier. Using opamps and zeners you can setup a clamping circuit and set the clipping level from anywhere from slightly above zero to supply voltage. No more being limited but the break over voltage of a diode, at least I think it gets past that limitation. Anyone smarter want to elaborate on what the limitations of diode clipping vs. a clamping amplifier stage?

Alot of the "newer" distortions seem to be getting away from traditional diode clipping and into these opamp configs where some driving limiting clamping structures seem to be going on. Like the tech21 XXL, HK Warp, Zoom Tri-metal (maybe), I'm sure there are others but they elude me at the moment.

z-zero

EDIT: Here is a link to an article put together by TI:

http://focus.ti.com/lit/an/sboa039/sboa039.pdf

The author of the article is the same fella who has written numerous books on opamp theory and design. Amplifier applications of opamps is a good book he wrote a few years ago. Jerald G. Graeme, this is the only book I've seen with a clamping amplifier section in it.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0071346422/qid=1130868186/sr=8-6/ref=pd_bbs_6/104-3863502-8039167?v=glance&s=books&n=507846