So, are there, like, six distortion pedals in the world?

[bifurcation]

I feel like every time I look at a new distortion/fuzz/overdrive, I'm always hearing "it's a Rat clone" or "it's based on the Tube Screamer." (especially the TS.)

And I get that different parts and power and configurations can radically change the sound and feel of any given pedal, but I still hear that a "Life Pedal" is a Shin-Ei FY2 into a Rat, and the "EQD Palisades" is a TS808 with a bunch of options dumped on it. An "OCD" is apparently based on Voodoo Labs Overdrive, which is a sort of cascaded MXR Distortion+, which is apparently also based on a Tube Screamer?

So, if we took all the distortions on PedalPCB and put them in buckets, would most of them be based on:
the Muff,
the Klon,
the Tube Screamer,
the Rat,
uh...
the Blues Driver?
and, uh, the Fuzzface?

I guess I'm curious if there are some truly unique circuits out there? (like, the Jext Telez White Pedal has that fasel inductor in it, what's that about?)

But I also wish I had a list of what everything is! I love the Mountainking Megalith, is that just a something into a something? What about the Gamechanger Audio PLASMA pedal? Is that just a ... I dunno, Muff with a xenon-filled tube instead of diodes or a transistor?

Help experts! Enquiring noobs wanna know!

 

[HamishR]

Just because something is based on something doesn't mean it sounds like the base pedal. For example a BJF Honey Bee is based originally on a Rat. Does it sound like a Rat? Not really! It is so heavily changed that it sounds a lot different. The Rat was just where it started.

In other cases you can hear the base pedal to a degree but with a useful "improvement". For example a Mesa Flux Drive is based very much on the Xotic BB to the point of being almost a clone, but then the BB is based on the TS. However the BB has a bass pot which makes it a lot more useful to some players and a different flavour of break-up. You can still hear the TS in it but the extra control can help a guitar sound bigger than it might through a regular TS. I for one find a regular TS pedal fairly useless - but the BB is very usable for me.

There are lots of ways to design anything. There are established ways of distorting a guitar in ways we like, so why try to reinvent the wheel when we know the wheel works? If you can get the result you want by modifying something which already exists then why not? I imagine that some circuits come about from a designer having a very firm idea of what they are trying to achieve, and then others by just trying out things until they find something they like.

A lot of my favourites are pedals where I have liked what an existing design does but wished it had more "X". So I'll try and work out how to get more X. By asking people here, reading other forums, or just by trying things out. There is no way I could come up with my own real design - but I can have fun trying stuff. But then I'm not trying to sell anything. I just build 'em for me.

Another way to look at this is: All cars with an internal combustion engine work on basically the same principals. There are only so many ways of using gas to make motion - does this mean a Chevy is based a Ford?

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

There are a few circuit topologies that get copied or borrowed a LOT. But there are quite a few unique ones out there too.
Besides the ones listed above, these basic designs get copied over and over:
The various two and three transistor Tone Benders, including the Buzzaround and Dizzy Tone
The 3 types of octave fuzzes
The JFET-based tube amp emulators (DLS Mk 3, Dr. Boogie, Benson, PAL 800, Velvet, etc.)
RangeMaster - some builders add diode clippers to increase compression, like the COT
386-based fuzzes, like the Acapulco Gold & Distortus Maximus

BTW, the Rat was based on the MXR Distortion+
Ford was based on Benz

If you have enough monkeys, enough typewriters and enough time, they will eventually type all of the world's great literature. Sometimes I think pedal design proceeds along the same methodology.

 

[Nostradoomus]

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

The Jext Telez White Pedal is pretty much a carbon copy of the Vox Virtuoso, Conqueror, Defiant and Supreme preamps. Any 500mH inductor will work, putting a Fasel in there is just hype. The J-T schematics I've seen are all copies of something else.

I'm not gonna get into what all of the other pedals are made from, would take too long.

If you want to see some strange and unique pedal designs, check out Devi Ever. She must be from another planet. Looking at her schematics makes me dizzy.

 

[twebb6778]

This made my day, thank you.