is this possible? Blinking led for clipping?

[swelchy]

Had a guy tell me he uses a 5mm blinking led as a clipping option on overdrive circuits... via a toggle switch to create a tremelo style clipping circuit on an overdirve? Would that even be possible? Does a clipping circuit even see enough voltage to turn a blinking led on?

 

[Diynot]

Indeed it does. Think the “seeing eye” mod on a Keeley ds-1. As far as “tremolo” clipping, I will leave that to smarter folks to answer. My gut tells me that something like that would require way more circuitry including an LFO to add the LED clipper in and out of the circuit, much more than just throwing an LED in the clipping stage

 

[Gordo]

Oh lawdy, the LED would burn out on my rig...

 

[BryGuy]

In referencing a tremolo does that mean they want to see a light show from the clipping LEDs? Some pedals show the tremolo rate blinking as visual feedback but not all drives will have enough voltage to make clipping LEDs light up so it depends. Having the LED driven from an LFO or whatever in a drive circuit sounds pretty wild.

 

[phi1]

Full tone plimsoul did this, with 1 of the 2 red clipping leds exposed. I did it once for a guy with two red eyes on a plim soul circuit. I think if I remember, the plumes I built will light the leds (in that clipping mode). Always depends on how much gain, how strong the signal from guitar (or other pedals upstream) is.

No idea what the “tremolo” clipping comment is about, except that if you look close at 2 clipping leds, you can sometimes kinda see them alternating (since they’re clipping Different halves of the wave form). Tremolo would be a strange thing to call that phenomenon though.

 

[Robert]

I assume he's talking about actual blinking LEDs ... They're similar to those color cycling ones, apply voltage and the LED blinks on and off or between red and green, etc.

I suppose technically if you used one of those as a clipping diode it might clip only when the LED was in "lit" state, creating a sort of tremolo sound because the signal gain would increase/decrease in time with the blink pattern of the LED. Of course you'd have no control over the rate..

 

[Feral Feline]

Yeah, Electronic Goldmine has had a lot of those flickering LEDs for sale lately. It's an interesting idea, cause it's not the whole signal that would be tremolo-ing, just the dirt in and out so you'd have a more full sound I bet than if you ran a fully distorted signal through a proper tremolo.

So, one flickering LED and one red/green-blinker for asymmetrical clippolo...

I just coined a new word.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

The flickering is done by a little tiny IC inside the led so I would imagine it wouldn’t really work as a clipper.

 

[swelchy]

So who’s trying it first?

 

[Cybercow]

I'd be very surprised of those color-cycling LEDs would work for clipping elements. The tiny CPU in them injects noise into the audio as the colors change. I got them to work beneath transparent shafted pots, but I had to add 100nF & 1nF cap in parallel to eliminate the noise.

Demo here:

But for clipping . . . I dunno.

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

I'd be very surprised of those color-cycling LEDs would work for clipping elements. The tiny CPU in them injects noise into the audio as the colors change. I got them to work beneath transparent shafted pots, but I had to add 100nF & 1nF cap in parallel to eliminate the noise.

Demo here:

But for clipping . . . I dunno.

I’ve managed to use them as power indicators for Cornish style buffers and for bypass indicators for some Electra style circuits without introducing any noise/oscillation, and in fuzz circuits with a cap in parallel as you’ve mentioned. I’ve seen a lot of people say that those leds are completely unusable in guitar pedals because of the noise they introduce— I wonder if different brands of them are more or less prone to noisying up signals.

 

[Cybercow]

I’ve managed to use them as power indicators for Cornish style buffers and for bypass indicators for some Electra style circuits without introducing any noise/oscillation, and in fuzz circuits with a cap in parallel as you’ve mentioned. I’ve seen a lot of people say that those leds are completely unusable in guitar pedals because of the noise they introduce— I wonder if different brands of them are more or less prone to noisying up signals.

Dunno. I've only ever found them from China sources - AliExpress, eBay, etc. Know any US sources?

 

[Bricksnbeatles]

Dunno. I've only ever found them from China sources - AliExpress, eBay, etc. Know any US sources?

These are the ones I have. Got ‘em a few years ago on Amazon. Chinese, but they arrive quick

https://imgur.com/a/2ZatHJ4

 

[MichaelW]

I'd be very surprised of those color-cycling LEDs would work for clipping elements. The tiny CPU in them injects noise into the audio as the colors change. I got them to work beneath transparent shafted pots, but I had to add 100nF & 1nF cap in parallel to eliminate the noise.

Demo here:

But for clipping . . . I dunno.

Great demo! Just found your channel too! Some good stuff!