What Makes Distortion Sound Different Than Overdrive?

Distortion and overdrive are the same process, called clipping, which is pushing a signal past the limits of the hardware being used. The real difference in the sound comes from the TYPE of clipping.

[oliverkky]

"what a tube naturally does when you overdrive it and push it into distortion"

[bluarcher]

would have been nice to hear examples, considering u have a guitar around your neck????

[DrKevGuitar]

Broadly speaking, yes, but I'd just like to mention two amazing aggressive Marshall-in-a-box pedals that are soft clipped: Carl Martin Plexitone and Keeley El Rey Dorado.

[mrreemann]

The best part of this video is the Roland 301 space echo at the top of the rack! I've had 2 and want #3.❤

[jonreali]

The sharpness of the clipped corner, symmetry, etc., are better understood in the frequency domain to see the effects on harmonics. That's another way to visualize / explain the differences.

[lmenascojr]

The hard clipping can actually overshoot the rails by a nominal amount depending on the drive circuit.

[SandauxBeats]

I was waiting for him to talk about fuzz.

[chucklakeridge]

Lets see the wave form of Fuzz, the best clipping there is, next to Disto and OD.

[jerrylong]

Unless of course, you're talking about that infamous elusive, super expensive overdrive. That is a hard clipper. Can't klone that!

[AmiGuitar]

We need a "what is the supro sound" 😊

[edwinwise]

I have thing called a tube amplifier ands it creates a great distorted tone and comes with a clean tone as a bonus . It doesn’t seem to require any signal altering devices to make it sound great, making for quick set up and tear down on gigs

[burt]

After owning dozens of OD pedals I've found many distortion pedals that do low to medium gain better. Currently running a RAT at low gain for some classic rock sounds. Beats any other pedal I've tried for this kind of sound.

[chrisb]

Man that SG Junior is cool no doubt, but you should get a Standard in Ebony. It’d be sick.

[AnthonyJ_]

I learn more from shorts then I do a whole video about the subject

[davidfellows]

Or the gain knob and if your running though a clean amp or overdriven amp.

[JiTiAr]

Nice explanation. But sound samples wouldn't hurt next time.

[neilbreen]

Overdrive - Gain
Distortion - More Gain

[jonathandidley]

Accept for the Klon! And others but yes, mostly it’s soft clipping on od pedals.

[jimyounger]

That just confused me. If the clipping is eliminated, how do you get distortion ?? The overdrive made sense because it uses the clipping. But I didn’t understand the distortion pedal explanation. You need the clipping for distortion, no ??

[matthieuforte]

The funny thing is that they are both generated by a pair of diodes mounted head-to-tail cutting off the signal above their minimum voltage. For hard clipping the diodes cut the guitar signal after it's been amplified by the opamp. For soft clipping they act on the feedback signal of the opamp preventing the opamp to amplify the top of the guitar signal. Same principle, same diodes, the difference is just where you put them in your circuit !