How to Design a Distortion Pedal Circuit

HEY there! Just a quick note for you first...
We'll be offering many more new things to our newsletter members starting immediately:
*Monthly free pedal contests
*Exclusive videos only available to newsletter members
*First to be notified on upcoming limited releases (we have several coming shortly!)
*First to be notified when we have sales, discounts, and extra "B-stock"
*We'll send a notification when new KZbin, Exclusive Member videos and blogs are up
And much more!
Simply go here - www.wamplerpedals.com/members...
It's free, and we don't spam you every other day with emails like so many do!
_______________________
For years I’ve had many folks ask me to make dedicated courses on some of these topics that I dive into here on youtube, but have been wanting me to go into way more detail.
I’m proud to announce that we now have two guitar pedal courses available that are deep dive on all of those pedal questions you’ve been wondering, and we are ALSO taking pre-enrollments for a huge “How to design overdrive and distortion pedal circuits” course for beginners and intermediates who are wanting to learn all about the electronics side of guitar pedals.*
All of these courses are ABSOLUTELY RISK FREE - 100% money back guarantee within 30 days of your purchase. If you don’t love the courses, I’ll refund you, no questions asked.
If the thrill of building and tweaking your own equipment ignites your passion, you’ll love it. Swing by my other website, www.guitarpedalcourse.com
For a VERY limited time, you can snag any of our courses at a steal. Just type in the code 25offnow to slash 25% off any course. Don't delay though - this deal ends shortly. What have you got to lose? ;)
____________________
Comment below: Which one did you like best, and why?
In this video, we're diving into distortion pedal circuits for electric guitars. While we've explored breadboarding techniques for building overdrive and boost circuits in previous episodes, it's a good time for us to focus on the realm of distortion. We start by revisiting the breadboarding process, a great tool for quick and solder-free prototyping, tailoring the approach specifically for distortion pedal design.
Subscribe to our channel for more great content here:
/ @wampler_pedals
But what's the difference between overdrive and distortion circuits? We’ll dive into that, as well as some design philosophies and the nuanced differences between these two types of circuits.
For those who love the technical details, we dive deep into a few different circuit types, discussing why they do what they do. We discuss everything from the role of diodes to the significance of gain stages, to help explain how these elements contribute to the overall feel, sound, compression and saturation of your sound.
If you're a beginning DIY’er, you'll like this video as well. We'll provide a circuit walkthrough and explanation on breadboarding each circuit we explore. To keep things accessible, our component selection focuses on basic, readily available parts, like the TL072 op amp and 2n7000 mosfets.
Overall, no matter if you're more into the guitar tone chasing side or the DIY electronics learning enthusiast, this video translates the complexities of pedal electronics into terms every guitarist can appreciate-how it all influences your guitar tone.
Song at end written, recorded, mixed and mastered by my nephew Kyle Wampler:
music.apple.com/us/album/jetp...
Wampler Guitar Pedal Courses Now Available!
www.guitarpedalcourse.com/
Timestamps:
00:00 Beginning
00:22 basic non-inverting op amp with clipping diodes
01:35 playing through the circuit
02:06 soft and hard clipping through this circuit
03:19 schematic and circuit discussion of this circuit
05:49 adding another gain stage - an inverting op amp
08:04 soft and hard clipping through this circuit
08:47 schematic and circuit discussion of this circuit
10:39 using mosfets instead of op amps and diodes
12:52 schematic and circuit discussion of this circuit
15:44 My thoughts on all 3 circuits

[@Gruppe_11]

2x OP amp + 2x diode, put it in a box - sell it for 300 Bucks

[@CallousCoder]

Yeah! Back in 1990 I started studying EE, I was working at a music store setting up guitars and I was a gigging guitar player too. So I had a tube screamer a metal distortion and results distortion. And then I figured: “what is the difference between then ?” And I reverse engineered it and I felt cheated. So I figured I can easily combine all 3 and and since I had just done microcontrollers at college I figured: ‘I can even add presets using some digital potentiometers and a bit of ram and an eprom”. So I created this prototype for 90 bucks that did all types do boost, and distortions. My employer was like: “let me build an aluminium case and let’s produce these as bespoke systems.” The first week we had 7 orders. All gigging friends they went on gigs and we had 10 the next week. We build over 90 of them because we sold them for the price of 2 of those peddles. Oh yeah I added a tremolo and stutter (cut out) effect too. The problem was that it started to really consume time and the orders were too limited to have factory production done and too many for us.

[@johnsuede]

I’ve been designing my own circuits for a couple of years now and still learn something new almost every time I watch your videos. Love the pedal geek stuff!

[@yagotrillo]

Awesome, as always. Thanks for the lesson

[@wreckoningday]

The master of gain! Thanks for sharing Brian. I really like these videos - no one else does them. I'd like to see some going even further in depth of how each filter effects the stage it's feeding and why certain frequencies are omitted from being clipped and how you get them back!

[@richardoung1827]

Thank you very much Bryan for this video. I really enjoy your explanations. It is discussed with the right level of technical details to be understood by most of us.

[@poetry_tx]

The second circuit hit my sweet spot, sonically speaking. Great stuff!

[@samatskyline]

For something you slapped together for this demo, you came up with two great sounding circuits. Seriously impressive. 🤘🏾

[@mgynther]

Thanks Brian! Such a great video again! It's very informative when you play the circuits and then explain them. To me both opamp and mosfet sounded great, just different flavors for perhaps different situations. It was so nice that the circuits had similar frequency response and amount of gain to help to hear the actual difference. When comparing pedals it's so easy to prefer the louder, brighter, gainier etc and ignore how they distort. For me the most interesting bit was how much the mosfet sounded like a cranked amp even before you showed the circuit!

[@jerrymcdaniel4539]

I love this channel. I have a MSEE degree and I love guitar. This channel hits a home run with me.

[@allanshookphoto]

Thank you for following the signal paths through the schematic diagrams and talking about the differences between different circuits and components!!! Fantastic! And, it is NOT "nerdy" to have an understanding of basic electronics. (Even if it is a little nerdy, I'm proud to be a nerd!)

[@Pentode3000]

Again awesome explanation video. Definetly more Bass in the Mosfet circuit and that made the amp chugging a bit more. I liked the noninverting into the inverting into hard clipping. It is always amazing what different setups can produce different sounds. The possibilties are endless, not to start with different filters and tone stages. Thank you for letting us be a part of your development thoughts and ideas.

[@bryancarter8117]

I JUST PURCHASED THE TRIUMPH OVERDRIVE & PHENOM DISTORTION COLLECTIVE SERIES PEDALS FROM SWEETWATER AN I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THEM! I'M A WAMPLER FAN FOR LIFE! THANK YOU BRIAN 🎸🤘✌️

[@jeff1872t]

My first pedal circuit was a distortion plus and I read your article about mods to that circuit to help customize it a bit.

[@MC-hx6nk]

Really well explained and very reassuring to have a pedal designer demonstrate that he knows his onions. Though I also think your ears as a guitarist play a massive part in what you bring to market. Hard to teach that bit 😊

[@franktriggs]

I preferred the mosfet, it had more thump, like the sound of a cranked amp.

[@BrianClem]

This is an amazing amount of information. The world and I thank you!

[@gabriel77196]

Yesterday i finished breadboarding a Harmonic Percolator clone* with my dad, he's an electrician so his experience with circuits helped a lot. And the thing works! Im so happy that this is my first experience with diy pedal stuff and it worked! I want to thank you (and many other channels) for not only inspiring me to start this project, but teaching me a lot about guitar pedal electronics too, dad is an awesome electrician but the what all these components do to guitar signal is out of his field of knowledge, so i had to fill in by researching real hard on google and youtube. I really hope i can get to build more stuff in the future! * We accidentally broke the legs of one of the 2 needed transistors, we had to replace by furiously searching by any transistor laying around in dad's basement, so i guess i can say this is our own modified harmonic percolator circuit in a way lol

[@evanmiller2579]

Super cool. Thanks for the demonstration.

[@Sten626]

I think these types of videos are my favourites that you make!

[@jdmayfield88]

Wow! Impressive on so many levels! Audio electronics guru with some badass Mojo! Dude, would love to see a vid where you teach what you're doing with some of those riffs! Was having trouble testing different circuits cause it got me jamming on the first set of diodes and I couldn't stop! Thank you!!

[@brook543]

My favorite is mosfet, but with an amp with the right amount of headroom. My aproach to get the sound and feel that i like is, soft clipping for a dark amp and hard clipping for a bright amp. Everything eq´d with the right speaker and it usually works. Really like thesse nerdy videos! Thanks!

[@JohannesRaggam]

Great video, thank you! I did like the opamp version better - there was more clarity. Also, rolling off the heights caught my attention. I like when low end is well defined. The MOSFET sounded muddier to me. The video makes me want to try that out!

[@510bass]

Another great video for us tech nerds, Brian. Very good detail. I liked the MOSFET sound quite a bit - at least from what KZbin audio provided.

[@eddiehuman1]

Excellent explanation, great comparison, both op amps and FETs design sound excellent. I go for the fet design due to it being pick sensetivity.

[@fabianreyes237]

Thanks you so much!!! I want to start making my pedals and these videos help so much 🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼🫶🏼

[@omgnerv]

thanks! your videos are so informative and inspiring :-)

[@pointblankokc]

I really enjoy watching your videos Brian. I like learning about the circuits and how they work. I've built a few simple pedals and they worked pretty well. Tried to tackle a cocked wah pedal with the rully wow PCB and it's a nightmare. If you ever want to make a video of what "not to do" when building a pedal I'll be happy to send it to you. LOL

[@gstube1]

Finally the video I've been waiting for, right there 🎉 More please kind sir😊

[@m.a.6478]

I like the nerdy circuit videos a lot, thanks!

[@TheToneLounge]

I'm definitely not smart enough to build pedals. I get lost very quickly, despite Brian's simple approach to teaching. I'm just happy to play the pedals and let the smart people design them. :)

[@StealthParrot]

These type of videos are fantastic, I really appreciate that you do them to show us what the circuit changes sound like. I liked the MOSFET circuit, it seemed more sophisticated, smoother, controlled. Thank you Brian, please keep doing these. Could you please dedicate a video about effects of circuit design on sustain? I'm thinking more capacitance on both the input and output signals .. but I have no clue really. Cheers.

[@majordabalert]

YAY WAMPLER VID. Perfect birthday present

[@myrnabrean]

I am on a hard clipping op amp kick, having taken inspiration from you to build a breadboard setup with pots and i/o, taking a 250/D+ with a tone control from bb to perf. So this is one vote of appreciation, inspiration, and learning as a player and diy-er. Finding an op amp that you like the sound of with no clipping is also cool bc you can use on/off/on toggle switches and teach your ear and your circuit savvy brain the nature of all the different ways of clipping. Obviously your explanation of op amp vs mosfet being more "amp in box" topology is really key and although the beginner player can hear the difference between a sd1 and a bd2 or od3, taking us to the schematic and the breadboard still is key for inspiring the diy-er. Though im not sure there are many strictly players for whom a topology education truly influences their consumer behavior. And when it comes down to it, should it matter or do we just nerd out for fun but at the end of the day revert to, "well if it sounds (feels) good, it is good."

[@moonboogien8908]

How have I not seen this channel before?!? What the heck youtube, where's your algorithm? This is awesome fun... subbed

[@SmokyTheChain]

Thank you so much for these videos! I'm preparing to build my first pedals (aside from a mini-mixer) and it really helps me to understand which circuit design I'm looking for, and how I can modify the designs I find online to suit my needs 😊 Hope you keep them coming hehe, and a suggestion: it would be nice to see a circuit for a basic tremolo, to start dabbling with modulation effects.

[@PeterJahans]

Through the limitations of YT and my BT headphones, I thought the MOSFET version sounded best. Thanks for a great demo/explanation!

[@FNORDGWAR]

I was waiting for the nerdy stuff, thanks for sharing.

[@Pepino2017]

I have no direct experience with pedal circuitry, but I enjoy your videos explaining them. To my ears, the Mosfet circuit is better - I prefer a smoothness to my distortion with a peak of clean signal. Great job, Brian.

[@eddiegeorge4047]

Love the electronic schematics Right on with the feel thing; different pedal circuits have a differnt feel and they're all wonderful My fav is the mosfet then hard clipping then mosfet for a Tele and Strat heard twice from the tv at 6 ft away and my laptop We're not worthy, gain master!

[@dougsharrott]

Thanks That was great! Today....I liked the bite and edge of the op amps but It would be interesting to see how the different circuits fared in a mix.

[@BadChizzle]

Cool! Thanks for the video!!

[@greggjones2000]

Love the DIY content!

[@yurkshirelad]

I love the nerdy stuff! I need to take a screenshot of the circuits so I can try them. I prefer the op amp hard clipping distortion.

[@eyeball226]

More content like this please! I love how in depth you get about the circuits compared to say JHS. No offence to Josh, but his focus is much more on being nerdy about collecting pedals. This video is the kind of thing I'm interested in though!

[@dahmc59]

ty for video. i totally agree w the tone knob statement. i have a Rat: dist @9:30, tone @2:30 (they are backwards) and volume usually around 1:00. i kept it way more distorted and bright until i saw the Nuno interview w Rick Beato. now it is this crazy sweet spot. lots of head, stages well after boosts and makes a good boost, too. then i got a Pugilist. i got the hard stage very close, but the low mids are less head, yet the overall sound is tighter without the hiss noise. The Rat i still like better, but the Pugilist has a more modern sound and seems more versatile. i have an Eras for the higher gain stuff. the germanium has more bottom head and harder clip, yet cleans prettier than the silicon, but the silicon has more of the subtle overtones and seems tighter on rhythm. i cant wait to try a wampler!

[@AngelarmSpartan777]

I love these videos!!!

[@jackstrap82]

Great video. It got me curious as to how changing certain components (i.e. resistor sizes) to tweak the characteristics of the circuit would work and how you would go about it. Perhaps content for a future video? Great work, as always.

[@eastwind32]

I preferred the mosfet. Great video. Brian, could you do a basic video sometime that explains why each component is used. Like why is there always a resistor and a capacitor first in line and why does a change in resistance cause a change in tone? I need a little theory to understand better. Thanks

[@drewplummer5931]

The resistor and capacitor in the front act as charging elements allowing for the circuit's charge to change overtime. Adding a resistor before just increases the charge time (but not the discharge time). The change in tone is done by the combination of both the resistor and capacitor at ground to make a passive low pass filter attenuating higher frequencies. Passive low pass filters allow low frequencies up to a cutoff frequencies fc, and fc is determined by the resistance in the RC component

[@maloycastillo3473]

Great job, I finally got a more refine idea of what's going on inside a pedal. Now, it's possible to mix both circuits together?

[@coffeedudeguy]

Fantastic!

[@jeremiahmeyer-oday6925]

I like the mosfet circuit for a bass distortion. I shall make one now.

[@scottcurry4116]

Love videos like this because I’m a retired engineer. I could hear the difference but it would be hard to pick a favorite because I wasn’t playing. That being said, the MOSFET seemed to react a bit better to your playing.

[@kidkique]

awesome video

[@BCEpedals]

Love the more detailed videos! I think I would like the mosfet circuit better, but who knows! 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@bradconklin2878]

So, Brian, I think you should market a Studio Breadboard such as this for delicate non stage stuff. Sounds great!

[@felinekaiju4517]

Hi Brian, I liked both and for their own reasons. I did like how tight the op amp was for the higher gain stuff, and the Mosfets for the squishier tone with more of the clean signal. If you were to use both types, say with the inverted op amp , into the non inverted, then the Mosfets at either the end, or at the beginning to start more like a boost like gain stage. would there be biasing issues?. and Obviously setting it up so that there isn't too much gain. I'm a noob right now slowly learning electronics.

[@elvisalivetone]

I really like these nerdy talks 🤟

[@jcugnoni]

Great video. Very clearly explained as usual. The Mosfet version sounds great and more complex / natural .. It is more 'amp like' than the opamp/diode clipping version. Follow-up video on different types of clipping circuits like Leds/zener/asymmetric diodes/transistor/jfet/opamp?

[@Andreas_Straub]

I definitely preferred the MosFET circuit, as it does not introduce that much compression as the OpAmp version does.

[@johnenglish8261]

I seem to like the opamp and soft clip sound, but I'm curious what it would sound like running the mosfet stage after, or before.🤔 As always, good stuff.👍👍✌️

[@BluesCover]

1st - thank you so much for sharing this. it is very interesting and educating. 2nd - I found my self wondering in the middle of the clip - how many overdrive/ distortion guitar pedal I own that are the same topology with different EQ and brand and marketing? 3rd- for my and my headphone taste I think the 1st one was more raw in a way (distortion wise) , but more ready for mix in a full band. the 3rd with the Mosfet was more refine and round. to each it use. 4th- I wonder if you can make a clip about the difference between the green Russian big muff pi and the big muff pi? is it only component or is it topology? and what is the difference between pedal for bass and for guitar? and if you want to do a clip about the differences between all the main fuzz pedals. I don't recall if someone did it from the guitar effect builder point of view. THANK YOU!

[@ER-yq1lc]

I like the non-inverting soft clipping.

[@drdfx159]

I'm playing around with the OCD circuit these days, and the opamp distortion in this video sounded pretty similar. The mosfet circuit sounded a bit more spongy, less tight, less focused, altogether a bit looser to me. But as you say: it is not only the sound that you hear, but the feel as you play. I would also add, that many OD/distortion/fuzz pedals sound great on their own, and then completely garbage in the mix. So I at least always judge them by how I like them in our music. Which doesn't mean the ones I don't like are bad, they just don't work for me.

[@LockStoppageSandwich]

Brian, can you do a lesson/vlog/series on how to make up one of those prototype/test, development breadboards. You know the ones that have an intergrated power supply, built in jacks, switches etc etc etc ???? Would be fantastic 👍

[@wampler_pedals]

Do you mean how to connect it with a breadboard?

[@randytinsley9402]

Yeah I did the mosfet the most. Sounds more amp like and natural.

[@jesseyasaitis9036]

I got that same shirt!

[@mikehartigan2703]

A few questions, when you bias the mosfets like you have them in this video, how much does the bias resistor value affect the local NFB of the gain stage? Does it make a difference if you use a voltage divider in the "power supply section" and supply the vref through a single resistor? And, are there advantages / disadvantages to biasing with a source resistor-gate leak arrangement compared to either of the first 2 methods? ..... (Yes, I realize this is probably a big topic to discuss in a youtube comment section! lol) Would enrolling in the design course be a better way to get these types of answers? (I'm probably going to enroll anyway ;))

[@theguitaramptech]

I’m liking your nerd videos a lot. I’m very familiar with many of your pedals. Can you tell us which of your pedals uses hard clipping, soft, clipping, and mosfet 15:29 clipping ? I know my Tumnus uses hard. Plexi drive? Paisley?

[@hisproperty1438]

G'day Brian, Thanks for another great video. I liked the MosFET circuit, because it sounded a just little brighter than the OpAmp circuit. I don't think that there was very much difference between them. But I can see that 1 circuit might suit single coil pickups better then humbuckers. I was also confused by your circuit diagrams. I could see that you had similar power supply sections, with V & VRef points, but I couldn't see the V supplied in the OpAmp circuit, or the VRef in the MosFET circuit. Maybe I'm just becoming more nerdy myself... Hang on! I'm currently in the middle of writing an Excel macro to record my guitar pedal purchases so that I can take a list with me on my phone when I go shopping. I think I'm nerdy enough. As for this being a nerdy video, it too was just nerdy enough. If you were wearing a 60's Star Trek T-shirt instead of the Star Wars one, it would have been over the top. You just can't pay attention to anyone with a Trek outfit. Anyhow, thanks for a great video. Keep up the good work. Andrew

[@garymoore1567]

Brian, I really enjoy these technical videos. Please do a circuit analysis of OCD's.

[@wampler_pedals]

Yep- coming within the next month

[@trevorford8702]

Love the Brent Mason telecaster.

[@jimbeaux4988]

Brian, I built a fuzz face clone that cannot be used with my Ciocks supply. It has to use a wall wart or there is horrible (switching?) noise. Should I try to put a filter cap on the supply? As far as the circuits in this video, I would want ALL of them on some switches. LOL.

[@SammyBoiBeThicc08]

I definitely liked the cascaded MOSFET design more. I am a fellow EE guitar player, and your vids have been super helpful in getting me started in the pedal world. I do have one question, do you have certain MOSTFETS/OP-Amps/diodes that you always stick with? Do different component ratings change the tone very much?

[@altag1]

Hey Briian, just following up on a video short you did on Jake E. Lee tone... Unable to find the 'long version' on how you obtained the tone, also interested part 2 which I am unable to locate as well... your thoughts?

[@mpesta]

Nice one Brian, I haven’t seen much from you recently. Not sure if I just haven’t been looking or if you’ve been taking a break. Either way, it was good to see you. A question I have is, have you experimented with pedals that have both mosfet and op amp components? It would be cool to see what that looks like!

[@thegreatconvergence8422]

First board max clipping,sounds like it would be better for palm muting,also had better clarity and definition. Btw which component or arrangement gives you maximum palm muting chug? I'm looking for a sound that hasn't been created yet but closest is thrash metal and what pedal do you sell that's the heaviest distortion ?

[@PooNinja]

Thanks this helps with my plan to build a dual od/ distortion pedal called the Firehorse™️®️©️🤘🏽.

[@PooNinja]

I change my board more often than I change my underwear.

[@jeff1872t]

Any chance you can do a analysis of the Boss FZ-2 circuit for us?

[@johnpeterson4313]

Great explanation. Could you do a video that explain more in depth what all the other stuff does and how you decide if it needs to be there and what values they should be. The op amp and clipping stage makes sense, its everything else that is confusing. LOL Thank s for listening.

[@Durkhead]

Could you connect a wah or volume pedal to the midsweep of a metalzone?

[@jesseyasaitis9036]

Definitely the MOSFETs. Something in how they clip sounds more pleasing than the 4148's. I've built a circuit using BAT41's asymmetrically. Sounded pretty good.

[@dutchdykefinger]

hard clipping usually doesn't sound that great on opamps alright, but yeah realy depends on what kind of EQ you applied too. an active EQ with an opamp can cut and boost a lot steeper than your basic passive EQ to take out the nasties, and ofcourse it matters how much of the signal is already compressed through soft clipping beforehand, every gain stage is its own EQ stage by how far its driven, drive them real soft, it gets thin and tinny, drive them harder, the mids and the bass come in, drive them too hard and the clipping will usually be detrimental to the headroom of the bass again. this is teh reason why gain stacking actually works pretty well, you gracefully boost them multi-stage before destorying the signal completely so you can fix some EQ with gain staging, but it sure as shit helps to have a pre-EQ too to an even broader scope of control but that could just be an EQ pedal already on the market since it's on the pre, helps a lot to pinpoint nasty frequencies in your circuits by just cutting everything except certain smaller ranges of bands or you can make a little variable bandpass filter of course to serve the same kind of purpose :D you can control soft clipping with opamps quite gracefully with different diode types or just crank up the working voltage to increase headroom so more basic diodes clip harder before you bring it back down again, in case you need the heavy distortion, that's why TL(C)072 are still being used quite a bit too and then there's parallel... i love my Y splitter, one little practice amp for the more compressed grit, and one that's cleaner and a bit more bassy for the definition :D

[@gmcoates14]

What software is being used to draw the diagrams? Having something like that would be real handy for me as I am a total newbie, yes I should start with simpler than this circuit and have been but it's just so interesting to see. I'll get to this in time.

[@BlackChromeJamTracks]

I preferred the mosfet. Love these nerdy videos. Would like to see a mosfet v s jfet video.

[@dennismoes7281]

Nice

[@jdmayfield88]

Do you amp the signal before the diodes or only after? Have you tried both? What is the difference in the sound?

[@MrJingles021]

Give us a Wampler Blues Driver!

[@nohillforahighstepper]

Great video. But I really did not have a clear favorite. It would really depend on the feel of the particular song. They are all great circuits and sound good. If I had to choose a type that I tend to gravitate to most often, it would be more toward the soft clipping. But I'm an old dude that enjoys the oldies rock... 😊😊😊

[@RahulSingh-fl6bf]

Hi I am new to diodes, can someone explain why the diodes set up in the arrangement at 4:24 causes hard clipping?

[@PostColorGear]

I love these videos, especially as I am learning more and more about circuits as time goes on. Potentially silly question, for Brian or anyone else with the knowledge, where does one get the blue circuit board that feeds into the breadboard? (with the switch that bypasses the circuit). I assume that's where the guitar plugs into? Also, I've seen another builder just use two jacks (ones that you would seen in a pedal) on their board as the in and out. I assume something like that would work but be more noisy?

[@andreasdavour9973]

That's a question I've also been thinking of.

[@wampler_pedals]

I’m getting ready to release those, they just make it easy to get the Jack’s and power to the breadboard. Arcadia electronics make a version as well that’s really good

[@PlanesandCars]

How to start building and learn how each component affects the guitar sounds?

[@mattofthemountain]

Honestly I think I lean most toward a heavy soft clipping circuit, at least as far as the comparison in this video. But of course we’re guitarists and we change our minds a lot so the only answer is D) all of the above.

[@markhammer643]

I take the view that what we call "hard clipping" is often actually *double* clipping. The gains asked of op-amps in drive circuits, with a 9V supply, often exceed the headroom they have, such that the op-amp itself clips. A 9V supply to an op-amp will generally restrict us to about +/-3500mv amplified output. How many times can a guitar signal (often > +/-100mv) "fit" into 3500. Not enough to meet the gain settings found in most drive pedals. We now feed that output and try to get it past some diodes-to-ground, that clip it once more; hence, "double-clipping". In contrast, when the diodes are in the feedback loop, they clip, but in doing so they keep the signal level well below the headroom limitations of the op-amp (e.g., about +/-660mv with a pair of silicon diodes). It's not "softer"; it's just clipped once, rather than twice. If one is interested in using diodes in BOTH the feedback path AND going to ground on the output, it is useful for their forward voltage (clipping threshold) to be different, and in the "right" way. F'rinstance, if I stuck a pair of germanium diodes in the feedback loop, they would clip nicely, but limit the output of the op-amp to around +/-350mv or so. If I fed that output to a pair of silicon diodes, going to ground, those diodes wouldn't clip until the signal exceeded roughly +/-650mv, which the op-amp's output is simply not going to reach. *REVERSE* that arrangement (silicon in the feedback loop, germanium to ground), and the silicons in the feedback will clip nicely, AND yield an op-amp output that is above the threshold of the germanium pair to ground. Double-clipping deluxe! Either way, what one gets out of it is also a function of tone-shaping along the way.

[@magnussoderman6676]

very interesting vid :). Actually when I found your channel it woke up my somewhat forgotten electronics nerd in me :). So , maybe a little off topic question: What software are you using when drawing those schematics ?

[@AntonioCavicchioni]

What pedals do you make that use MOSFET? Thanks!

[@BadHorsie2]

Hey Brian could you do a video explaining VREF in a guitar pedal schematic? I am working on trying to read schematics.

[@wampler_pedals]

It’s basically the mid way point between full voltage and ground in our guitar pedals, and we use it as “virtual ground “, ultimately just think of it as “home base” for your circuit- it’s just a voltage reference point that different parts of the circuit will connect to

[@mmessmore]

After watching one of your previous videos and zooming in veeeeery closely, I picked up one of the Arcadia Electronics boards you were using. Such a nice shortcut to take the tedium out of breadboarding. But I see yours has a Wampler logo in this one but I don't see them on your site. Are you planning on selling them? I like the Arcadia ones, but was thinking about getting another and would like to skip international shipping. These videos are great. Even when I "know" the circuits, I learn something. The difference between "having messed with" and really knowing your stuff, I guess. Always happy to borrow a little from your wisdom 🙏

[@wampler_pedals]

Yes, I am going to release my own version with some features I was wanting but I also have a bunch of the Arcadia ones as well, and they are VERY good, highly recommended. Mine will probably be out later this fall. They will be sold on my other website, modyourownpedals.com

[@eduardo0796]

Thanks for the extremely informative video. I just have one question: how are you powering your TL072? What are the voltages are you feeding them for VCC+ and VCC-?

[@wampler_pedals]

It’s just a 9vdc connection, like using a battery. Look up any typical overdrive or distortion schematic and you’ll see the power block, op amp is biased to virtual ground at 4.5v

[@eduardo0796]

@@wampler_pedals Thanks. You reminded me about biasing. In case anyone had the same question as me: what he's basically doing is biasing the opamp with a voltage divider with resistors of equal value in order to obtain half of the input voltage. This creates an AC signal with an offset of 4.5V, so your AC signal can oscilate without losing half of its amplitude. Then, a decoupling capacitor is removing this offset, making your signal oscilate between -4.5V and +4.5V.

[@GoemonLovesFujiko]

What’s the little Arduino yastu you got going there?

[@cornbobrimlove7892]

I like mosfet!

[@MrJingles021]

I like whatever is in the Revv G2 and G4. I'm using the Moxie as my slightly dirty "clean" tone, G2 for medium gain, and G4 for lead and high gain. I may have been brainwashed into believing that pedals with JFETs are better. Not sure though.