They were all surprisingly similar, and great sounding! My general observations about the actual differences: 1. Soft-clipping from the breadboard had the most mids, and was the most compressed. Both FET pedals sounded more dynamic 2. The MOSFET was more scooped and top-endy, whereas the JFET sounded pretty even across the frequencies 3. At full gain all of these differences were even more apparent, as you had posited in the video. The MOSFET sounded the most ragged and "nasty" but still in a good way. The soft-clipper was a bit more "pedal" sounding than it was before. The JFET seemed to maintain its composure and to my ears, sounded the best of the 3 (with cranked gain at least, otherwise they all sounded good in different ways)
Thanks for watching! And thank you for sharing your tone impressions in great detail! Yes, I very much agree with your observations, and like you said, each circuit has a unique tone that sound nice in its own way!
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for watching! As I briefly mention in the intro, this is an old build and I don't have a schematic for it. But, there are tons of FET pedal schematics you can find online!
You've got to love how usable the breadboard OD is. I use a similar design in a pedal and it works for so much... though I use a twin transistor set up for heavier distortion (hard and soft clipping stages) such as Hendrix.
Hi, thanks for watching! Yes, the breadboard OD is such a bare bones circuit with so many options for modding, which makes it versatile and a great platform. I bet your version sounds awesome!
My favorite pedal uses cascaded OpAmps (clean) with tuned hard clipping diodes between stages. "hard clipping" is a misnomer, has nothing to do with hard or soft sound. It would be better if they were named "direct clipping" vs "indirect clipping" diodes. You can tune the diodes to be as soft or hard sounding as you like. My particular pedal has a smoother distortion than any amp I've tried.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I totally agree, hard vs soft clipping are kinda misleading and there are a lot of mild overdrives with hard clipping circuits.
@@arito You should! It's a great sounding pedal. Or, if you aren't going to turn it into a product, publish the schematic, so we can learn from it. Right now, my main overdrives are from DSM/Humboldt, in Chile, and One Control, in Japan, but I'm always interested in hearing new things.
I tend to gravitate to the breadboard OD. It seems to have a slightly more subdued sound. The Aritone up top sounds good too maybe a little cleaner and more refined than the breadboard OD. The boss seems to be crunchier to me and not bad at all but if I had to choose it would be the breadboard circuit then then the Aritone. On the other hand, the Aritone sounds great maxed out on gain..........hmmmmmmmmm all are fine pedals
Thanks for watching! And thank you for the kind words! Yes, they are all nice pedals/circuits and each has its own character tone, so it's fun to have all three! 🤣
I think try low gain you hear more difference. For what for op amp distortion and jfets do sound different. that if op amp has two diodes that clips symmetrically it going sound different. Jfet stage clip asymmetrically and become more symmetric at higher gain. Also as decays it become more asymmetric was cleans up. 2nd each jfet stage round out the hard edges of last one because of miller effect.
I always hear in the industry how much more tube like jfet and mosfet are, yet I always like the tone of opamp/clipping diode recipe better. And fet has a weird splatty tone. I think the only time I have liked mosfet is when the power section of an SS amplifier is mosfet. But I never like fet in pedals.
when come to tone there is not right answer other what you like. I think jfet really win out is clean channel of guitar amp. it simpler and cheaper than opamp buffer and can be over driven little by hot pickups in guitar or pedal because it soft clips. The most confusing thing is why in gautiar amps they op amp buffer for first thing you guitar signal sees. Yet very few guitarist like the sound of overdriven op amp with no diodes in feedback loop.
![Overdrive, Distortion & Boost Pedal Order Once & For All [You’re Asking The Wrong Question]](/img/1.gif)
Modded OD-2 like the one used in this video are available in my Reverb shop: reverb.com/shop/aritone-mods-and-gear
They were all surprisingly similar, and great sounding! My general observations about the actual differences:
1. Soft-clipping from the breadboard had the most mids, and was the most compressed. Both FET pedals sounded more dynamic
2. The MOSFET was more scooped and top-endy, whereas the JFET sounded pretty even across the frequencies
3. At full gain all of these differences were even more apparent, as you had posited in the video. The MOSFET sounded the most ragged and "nasty" but still in a good way. The soft-clipper was a bit more "pedal" sounding than it was before. The JFET seemed to maintain its composure and to my ears, sounded the best of the 3 (with cranked gain at least, otherwise they all sounded good in different ways)
Thanks for watching! And thank you for sharing your tone impressions in great detail! Yes, I very much agree with your observations, and like you said, each circuit has a unique tone that sound nice in its own way!
Awesome vid. I was really hoping for a shot of the schematic though
Hi Jeffrey, thanks for watching! As I briefly mention in the intro, this is an old build and I don't have a schematic for it. But, there are tons of FET pedal schematics you can find online!
Great content as usual. Arigato gozaimashita Arito san!
Hi Sid, thanks for watching! And thank you for the kind words! Really appreciate it!
You've got to love how usable the breadboard OD is. I use a similar design in a pedal and it works for so much... though I use a twin transistor set up for heavier distortion (hard and soft clipping stages) such as Hendrix.
Hi, thanks for watching! Yes, the breadboard OD is such a bare bones circuit with so many options for modding, which makes it versatile and a great platform. I bet your version sounds awesome!
My favorite pedal uses cascaded OpAmps (clean) with tuned hard clipping diodes between stages. "hard clipping" is a misnomer, has nothing to do with hard or soft sound. It would be better if they were named "direct clipping" vs "indirect clipping" diodes. You can tune the diodes to be as soft or hard sounding as you like.
My particular pedal has a smoother distortion than any amp I've tried.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I totally agree, hard vs soft clipping are kinda misleading and there are a lot of mild overdrives with hard clipping circuits.
The MOSFET pedal sounds great. Are you going to sell that design?
Thank you! Great to hear you liked the tones of that pedal! I don't have any plans to make it available as a product, but maybe in the future ; )
@@arito You should! It's a great sounding pedal. Or, if you aren't going to turn it into a product, publish the schematic, so we can learn from it. Right now, my main overdrives are from DSM/Humboldt, in Chile, and One Control, in Japan, but I'm always interested in hearing new things.
@@gcvrsa Thank you! I've never tried the One Control pedals, they get some great reviews and sound really nice!
I tend to gravitate to the breadboard OD. It seems to have a slightly more subdued sound. The Aritone up top sounds good too maybe a little cleaner and more refined than the breadboard OD. The boss seems to be crunchier to me and not bad at all but if I had to choose it would be the breadboard circuit then then the Aritone. On the other hand, the Aritone sounds great maxed out on gain..........hmmmmmmmmm all are fine pedals
Thanks for watching! And thank you for the kind words! Yes, they are all nice pedals/circuits and each has its own character tone, so it's fun to have all three! 🤣
I think try low gain you hear more difference. For what for op amp distortion and jfets do sound different. that if op amp has two diodes that clips symmetrically it going sound different. Jfet stage clip asymmetrically and become more symmetric at higher gain. Also as decays it become more asymmetric was cleans up. 2nd each jfet stage round out the hard edges of last one because of miller effect.
Thanks for watching! And thank you for sharing your thoughts!
I always hear in the industry how much more tube like jfet and mosfet are, yet I always like the tone of opamp/clipping diode recipe better. And fet has a weird splatty tone. I think the only time I have liked mosfet is when the power section of an SS amplifier is mosfet. But I never like fet in pedals.
Hi, thanks for watching! And thank you for sharing your impression on the tones. It's nice that we can have so many options to choose from : )
when come to tone there is not right answer other what you like. I think jfet really win out is clean channel of guitar amp. it simpler and cheaper than opamp buffer and can be over driven little by hot pickups in guitar or pedal because it soft clips. The most confusing thing is why in gautiar amps they op amp buffer for first thing you guitar signal sees. Yet very few guitarist like the sound of overdriven op amp with no diodes in feedback loop.