{"id":2668,"date":"2018-08-24T08:00:20","date_gmt":"2018-08-24T06:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/delaydude.de\/?p=2668"},"modified":"2018-08-10T15:59:43","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T13:59:43","slug":"ic-basierte-overdrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/delaydude.de\/en\/ic-basierte-overdrives\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do IC-based overdrive pedals always sound harsh?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ask<\/a>If you are looking for an overdrive pedal that is able to emulate a slightly overdriven amplifier, you ought to choose a stompbox without IC chips.
\nBecause of their frequency range the clipping of ICs is always hard.
\nAnd this hard-clipping is definitively not the sound, you are wanting if you are looking for a soft low gain sound.<\/p>\n

Why do IC-based overdrive pedals sound that way?<\/h3>\n

Overdrive and booster pedals amplify the signal of the pickups.
\nFirst, I would like to illustrate how the signal processing in an extremely simplified way:
\nThe guitar signal has nearly 0.3.
\nBut depending on the string attack the signal peaks sometimes reach an amperage of 1.2V.
\nThe fact, that inside of the pedal, this signal will be again amplified by a factor of 10 before it reaches the IC, the peaks can easily reach 12V.
\nIf the overdrive pedal runs on a 9V battery or a 9V power supply, the IC is able to deal with signals up to approximately 9V.
\nAnything above will be clipped what leads to compression and distortion.
\nAlthough the subsequently fading signal will not sound overdriven, it will be louder than before.<\/p>\n

The IC-clipping is more harsh and abrupt than the clipping of JFETs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The transition between the signal without and with distortion varies from the transition that results from an overdriven tube.
\nBy reducing the amplification before the IC via the volume pot, the signal certainly becomes cleaner, but this also decreases the input impedance. The result is the same as if you wind down the volume pot of the guitar: the signal becomes dull.<\/p>\n

18V power supply or voltage doubler?<\/h3>\n

If a pedal runs on a 18V power supply or a voltage doubler (like for example the Klon Centaur) you can avoid this kind of distortion.
\nIn this case, the clipping diodes will create the actual distortion and, eventually use also high pass\/low pass filters.<\/p>\n

But beware: An internal voltage doubler might cause besides noise (the Klon Centaur for example does not like the combination with several digital delays \u2013 even if each of them gets its own isolated power supply).
\nFor all pedals without an internal voltage doubler the use of a 18V power supply can even work wonders.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,1282,259,263,268],"tags":[1283,985,1286,1289,1287,1288,1285,9,516,1290,1044,81,1284],"class_list":["post-2668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7000-questions-to-the-dude","category-ktr","category-overdrive-pedals","category-pedalboard","category-pedals","tag-18v-power-supply","tag-clipping-diodes","tag-harsh-sound","tag-high-pass","tag-ic","tag-ic-chips","tag-jfet","tag-klon-centaur","tag-ktr","tag-low-pass","tag-netzteil","tag-overdrive","tag-voltage-doubler"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9GLlF-H2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1220,"url":"https:\/\/delaydude.de\/en\/overdrive-distortion-fuzz\/","url_meta":{"origin":2668,"position":0},"title":"Overdrive – Distortion – Fuzz","author":"Delay Dude","date":"Monday October 2nd, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I guess every guitarist knows the three types of overdriven guitar-sounds: overdrive, distortion and fuzz. 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