Quote Originally Posted by M29
I am curious what relationship our guitar picks have to the level it takes to break the threshold. Is it attack that breaks or the volume? Say the attack of our picks or the volume that the amp is turned up to? I guess what I am curious about is, does it make much difference in volume to break the threshold of the diodes and get this thing singing and would either one work better at low volume compared to a louder volume. Or maybe it just has to do with the smoothness of the breakup itself.
I understand how it works but maybe not compared to our playing.
As I read my own post I don't know if I am saying exactly what I am trying to say. Sorry....
I think I understand your point, M29. As I understand it, it's the strength of the input signal that the pedal sees that determines how much the diodes clip at a given gain setting, and that can be modulated either through pick attack or the guitar's volume setting. So picking softly or rolling back the volume knob will definitely clean up the sound. Now, once the clipped signal leaves the pedal, there's obviously a lot more that can happen to it through the remaining pedal-preamp-power stage-speaker chain. I would assume that if you had a perfectly clean chain--no sources of harmonic distortion at all, no matter the volume setting--then you'd just hear the pedal's output amplified. But that pretty much never happens, even with a "clean" amp like a big ol' Fender Twin. There's always going to be some degree of further "character" added to the sound, and it will be volume-dependent. For amps that break up substantially with increased volume--or with amps where additional distortion is intentionally added--the pedal's output signal will be altered very substantially. What finally comes out of the amp speaker may sound great or not-so-great, depending upon how that interaction occurs.