Dirt pedals, any circuits that don't use clipping diodes ?

Danny1969

I fancy building the nicest sounding distortion pedal I can. Looking around the web most circuits are relying on diode clipping ... either hard clipping to ground or in the NFB loop. Are there any other ideas out there ? 

timhulio

Shin-Ei FY2 doesn't use any clipping diodes. I think it sounds beautiful :-)

paulnb57

I have no use for it but I like it.....its dark man........

hobbio

Wow, I hate that! Not one for me at all.

thermionic

Runoffgroove have a few schematics where they basically copy amplifier circuits using JFETs instead of valves.

I'm sure a couple of Fuzzdog's kits rely on something like overdriving opamp cascaded opamp stages.

4114Effects

Crowther hotcakes is IC based clipping. No diodes at all.

4114Effects

Subdecay liquid sunshine and I think zvex box of rock are both diode free.

ThorpyFX

4114Effects said:

Subdecay liquid sunshine and I think zvex box of rock are both diode free.

either of the above or anything jfet or mosfet based (to emulate tube style distortion) are great. if you are building one for yourself, have a look at General Guitar Gadgets BSIAB2 (brown sound in a box 2)

http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/effects-projects/distortion/bsiab-2/

Its the same circuit that JHS borrowed for their charlie brown pedal.

4114Effects

Yep. I think you usually find that most amp in a box type pedals will be diode free. A lot of caitlinbread pedals are and a few wampler ones, plexi drive for example.

frankus

My favourite is the ROG Umble