Inverting phase on a distortion pedal...why?

[Nocaster Cat]

I was hanging out with a friend and he made a comment about wishing a distortion pedal he liked had the option to invert the phase. What would this do and why would you want to do it? Thanks.

[Seljer]

When running just one direct signal line it doesn't matter.

When running things in parallel (e.g.: stereo amp setups or blended pedals), depending on what you hook up you may end up with issues with inverted phase that can be mitigated by inverting the phase on one of them so they match

[amptramp]

Some pedals like the Orange Squeezer operate on one polarity of the input signal and thus, the polarity of the first alternation to come through determines whether the first alternation goes through unmolested before quieting anything or everything gets quieted.  Other compressors operate from both polarities, so it doesn't matter.  There will be slight differences with non-linear single-ended effects, but it should not be that noticeable.

[brett]

Hi
with inverted ouput you are much less likely to get positive feedback.
That can make a big difference to the stability of high-gain circuits.
cheers

[charmonder]

I could see maybe it woud make some difference on the sound if you have two distortions that produce assymetrical clipping. The idea is you can choose whether or not to clip both sides of the wave or just one side of the wave. Tube amps will clip assymetrically so that might be useful. The