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Overdrive?
- Thread starter wyr2hs
- Start date
2 tube or not 2 tube...
Overdrive, as it was invented, is used to boost the input signal of a guitar plugged into a tube amp to "over drive" the tubes at lower amp volumes.
So in other words to help the amp sound as good at three as it does at ten.
Traditional tube amps are not like solid state amps. Think of the volume knob on a traditional tube amp as the volume/distortion knob.
In a very simplistic explanation, the volume knob controls the amount of power the tubes are allowed to amplify. As you turn the volume up you are "driving" the tubes to work harder. As you keep turning the volume up, the tubes will become "saturated" and are doing their job at their designed level to maintain a clean guitar sound.
Once you turn the volume up past that piont, you "over drive" the tubes and they start to distort the guitar sound.
At this piont the amp is kicking ass and sounding pretty damn good, but it's loud as hell, three 'o clock in the morning and the lady next door just called the cops.
So you plug in you trusty Ibanez TS-9 (tube screamer) to overdrive the tubes sooner and you get close to that same tone but at a lower volume level.
Or, you can keep the amp loud as hell and use your tube screamer and get even better tone at three in the morning with the cops on the way.
A distortion pedal completley changes the shape of the guitar signal before it ever gets to the amp so you can have a distorted sound at all volume levels.
So if a overdrive pedal was designed for use in a tube amp, why does it sound distorted with your solid state amp?
The same laws of physics are in use here as in the tube amp. The overdrive pedal increases or boosts the signal from you guitar before it goes into the amp. So the solid state amp is amplifing a louder source. The transistors are conducting more voltage than they were designed to conduct and and are "clipping" the extra voltage off and distorting the original signal from your guitar.
Solid state amps were originaly invented to amplify at louder volumes without distortion and guitar players said "what the fuck? It doesn't distort when I turn it up. I want my tube amp back". So, the manufacturers started puting "clipping" adjustment screws on the back panels of solid state amps so they would distort like tube amps. This eventualy evolved into disortion pedals and onboard "drive" or "crunch" knobs or those little tiny black square buttons and color changing LED's fender puts on their new crappy nothing like what fender used to be amps.
Now, the debate of which sounds better: the orange glowing heat producing oversaturated overdriven brown sound magical vaccum tubes, or the cold soulless metalic pathetic copy cat sound of clipping transistors will go on forever.
Overdrive, as it was invented, is used to boost the input signal of a guitar plugged into a tube amp to "over drive" the tubes at lower amp volumes.
So in other words to help the amp sound as good at three as it does at ten.
Traditional tube amps are not like solid state amps. Think of the volume knob on a traditional tube amp as the volume/distortion knob.
In a very simplistic explanation, the volume knob controls the amount of power the tubes are allowed to amplify. As you turn the volume up you are "driving" the tubes to work harder. As you keep turning the volume up, the tubes will become "saturated" and are doing their job at their designed level to maintain a clean guitar sound.
Once you turn the volume up past that piont, you "over drive" the tubes and they start to distort the guitar sound.
At this piont the amp is kicking ass and sounding pretty damn good, but it's loud as hell, three 'o clock in the morning and the lady next door just called the cops.
So you plug in you trusty Ibanez TS-9 (tube screamer) to overdrive the tubes sooner and you get close to that same tone but at a lower volume level.
Or, you can keep the amp loud as hell and use your tube screamer and get even better tone at three in the morning with the cops on the way.
A distortion pedal completley changes the shape of the guitar signal before it ever gets to the amp so you can have a distorted sound at all volume levels.
So if a overdrive pedal was designed for use in a tube amp, why does it sound distorted with your solid state amp?
The same laws of physics are in use here as in the tube amp. The overdrive pedal increases or boosts the signal from you guitar before it goes into the amp. So the solid state amp is amplifing a louder source. The transistors are conducting more voltage than they were designed to conduct and and are "clipping" the extra voltage off and distorting the original signal from your guitar.
Solid state amps were originaly invented to amplify at louder volumes without distortion and guitar players said "what the fuck? It doesn't distort when I turn it up. I want my tube amp back". So, the manufacturers started puting "clipping" adjustment screws on the back panels of solid state amps so they would distort like tube amps. This eventualy evolved into disortion pedals and onboard "drive" or "crunch" knobs or those little tiny black square buttons and color changing LED's fender puts on their new crappy nothing like what fender used to be amps.
Now, the debate of which sounds better: the orange glowing heat producing oversaturated overdriven brown sound magical vaccum tubes, or the cold soulless metalic pathetic copy cat sound of clipping transistors will go on forever.