We all know that Overdrive, Distortion, and Fuzz effects make our guitars sound great, but what makes them different from one another? Join Colin as he talks headroom, clipping, and sound wave destruction! #overdrive #distortion #fuzz Gain access to exclusive content at: www.patreon.com/csguitars Buy CSGuitars Merchandise - www.csguitars.co.uk/store Website - www.csguitars.co.uk Contact - colin@csguitars.co.uk Affiliate Links: Thomann - www.thomann.de/gb/index.html?offid=1&affid=367 Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/2mGGg CSGuitars uses: LEWITT Microphones - www.lewitt-audio.com/ Hoffnine Cabinets - www.hoffnine.co.uk/ Hosa Cables - hosatech.com/ Dragon's Heart Guitar Picks - www.dragonsheartguitarpicks.com/ Title graphics and logo by: www.studiosmithdesign.co.uk/ Join the discussion at: Facebook - facebook.com/csguitars Instagram - instagram.com/csguitars/ Twitter -twitter.com/CSG_Scotland
so basically: Clean is like a fully shaven cock. Overdrive has some manicured pubes. Distortion is a fully overgrown man bush. And Fuzz is like a redhead with short curly pubes
"In both these cases, careful design of the circuits and tone-shaping elements is made to ensure that the resulting overdrive or distortion is tasteful, natural, and high-quality. ...And then there's fuzz." Best segue of the century.
well there is careful design of circuits for fuzz too get nice taste sound out of it. with fuzz you want synth like sound. in my mind distortion sound worst at high gain because models distortion of a transformer. so it goes even father than fuzz in terms of distortion. fuzz stop as square wave. distortion goes to point the wave form is very narrow spike.
IMO Best thing to do is run a wet/dry signal when using fuzz on bass so that you don't lose the bottom end (a problem with a lot of gain pedals). Then again I'm an idiot and run a RAT, 2 fuzz pedals and 2 delays in my wet chain.... The RAT is savage - recommended! Tube Screamers also sound great but as they shelve the low end a dry signal is vital. Most bass-specific gain pedals have a wet/dry mix built in which is handy if you're using them, but a lot of the more "interesting" pedals don't. FWIW a lot of metal bands use a bit of extra dirt on bass. My lot are kinda Melvins-influenced so I can use some pretty extreme gain in a few instances.
GuyNamedSean Fuzz is my absolute guilty pleasure. I seem to actually rarely use it in a tune, but always jam or noodle with my Fulltone Octafuzz when we're taking a break... such and intoxicating pedal... the tone, the attack, everything.
The MountianDude the green Russian muff reissue literally has the words "Follow the smoke toward the riff filled land" embroidered on the circuit board
@@tylerjohnson7971 don't need to sell any gear it's like $80usd, however I use it in a distortion chain, feeding it into the EHX Hot Wax boosting the fuzzed signal and adding some extra filth
Agreed, although when you say fuzz the first thing that comes to my mind is Empress Rising. And yeah, go get the Russian Green Muff, that's a beast on both guitar and bass! Of all the pedals I have it's my favourite!
I like to think it like Overdrive gives you AC/DC Distortion gives you any metalcore/metal band since the 90s Fuzz gives you the west like/ country like riffs IDK
I'd just like to add this minor point-a part that you seemed to overlook is that, as the peaks of the fundamental tone reach a brick wall, the rest of the harmonics of a note continue to increase in relative intensity, which is largely what creates the sound we call distortion.
THAT JUST HAPPENS WITH OVERDRIVE AND MORE OR LESS FUZZ, BUT NO WITH DISTORTION, CHECK THIS OUT: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gj8cT7WEGmo.html
@@MrG0CE It happens with distortion too. It happens with any distortion-like effect. That said, the DS-1 in that video works very differently from what Colin described.
Yes, but no. The harmonics are the side effect of clipping. If the fundamental tone was not clipped, it would not produce any harmonics. If you somehow filter out the harmonics of your clipped fundamental tone, you will end up with the original tone workout any clipping (and reduced gain)
it is so nice to finally find someone properly explaining the difference with some electrical background as well. this video inspired me to make one of my own on the same topic analyzing these effects on an oscilloscope (when i get the time). thank you my dude!
This so useful, not only does it explain the differences very well, it goes into the science of wavelenghts behind it and what happens inside the amp. Keep it up dude.
I'd say its old terminology that is a touch imprecise. I've heard it used to refer to overdrive and fuzz both, but usually in a bluesy/classic rock setting.
"In both of these cases, careful design of the circuit and tone shaping elements to ensure that the overdrive or distortion is tasteful, natural, and high quality... and then there's fuzz." Favorite part of the video.
I had always thought of it this way: Fuzz - Cream/Sunshine Of Your Love Overdrive - SRV/Look At Little Sister Distortion - Randy Rhodes/Ozzy/Over The Mountain
Fuzz - 60s garage tones, Cant Get No Satisfaction Overdrive - SRV, A fair amount of early metal tones which is just overdriven amps DIstortion - Nirvana, Blur - Song 2
I really like how this channel is growing! he's also making the videos become harder to resist when I scroll through my subs. great job making the videos better and interesting in a entertaining way to watch!!
Excellent explanation! I don’t even play guitar.....I’m a synthesizer person and use a shit ton of these pedals. We like the bass pedals because they can handle the low end a synth puts out, and often come with a mix knob.
I just built a pedalboard for my ukulele and vocals. I’m running the Boss Blues Driver and a Canyon Delay (pretty sure you had a review of that one that I watched right after I got it) in the uke chain and Behringer Graphic EQ and Compressor, plus TC HOF mini reverb and Ditto on the vocal chain. I also tried the Fuzz Face with the uke and really liked that sound, but figured one distortion effect was enough to start with. Thanks for the great videos!
This is so simple and clear to understand! I’ve been on a journey to have a more comprehensive understanding of how guitar gear works. Your videos have been crucial!
I've watched (and read) many different explanations of this topic over my 20 years of guitar playing. Your explanation here is one of the best! You very clearly and intelligently explain exactly what's going on and what it means with some nice demos. Great job!
Actually good fuzz isn't harsh, it's very pleasant. Stoner rock bands mostly use fuzz, and you wouldn't call Kyuss or Nebula harsh. It's a fluffy warm desert rock guitar noise, they probably smooth the signal in post prod or something I don't know I don't play guitar.
No what thy do in bands like kyuss and sleep is play guitar through bass amps and/or guitar amps with a good bass/mid frequency, and roll off most of the treble, what that does is it hides the characteristic "crunch" or "hiss" and gives a more meaty sludgy texture.
Nicolas Bertin there's a lot of bands that use fuzz and people think its standard distortion. People write home about Weezer's guitar tone on their first two albums and they both use fuzz pedals.
Part of the fuzzy sound in kyuss is the bass cabs (usually 8x10 Ampegs in combination with both 12 and 15 inch speakers), cranked JCM900's or Tube Works heads, the use of the neck pickup almost exclusively and a very down tuned guitar. It's actually more of a high gain tone than pure fuzz, It's just not used conventionally. But I agree, fuzz can produce both the most savage and probably the sweetest, most human-like tones you get on guitar depending on the pedal, setup and how you use it.
I used the big muff at a fairly low setting and people thought I was using overdrive. It had a 50's blues kinda vibe, like a clean amp when quiet, but a fuzzy amp when i played hard.
Appreciate that you don't endlessly ramble in your videos in one take. Clearly, you have thought about what you are going to say, written out your comments, use useful edits, and deliver the information in a concise and meaningful manner. Subscribed.
Finally an intelligent overview of the three genres that both gives a moderately technical explanation paired with good examples of the genres. Huzzah.
EE here, did a project SPICE simulating and building these circuits. You can get distortion in the feedback loop of the op amp if you use a diode with a stupidly sharp IV curve (to, you know, clip harder). Blue LEDs were quite something. Also! The germanium and silicon discussion is the same thing for the clipping diodes! Softer vs harder clipping, respectively. Love your videos!
i'm 61 American playing on and off since I was 13 but never really got that much of an education in pedals starting out with an old stereo as an amp and an old French fuzz box as THE effects pedal lol it's nice to travel around the world to your accent zone which adds a lot of color to the education and your damn smart about it ,carry on lad
Amazing vid dude, learned lots of stuff about waveform clipping. The video really helps to understand the difference between Overdrive/Distortion/Fuzz. I have a 6-slot Behringer case/pedalboard with 6 pedals. MultiFX (flanger, chorus, phaser, delay, tremolo, pitch shifter), GrapicEQ, PowerOverdrive, HeavyDistortion, VintageTubeOverdrive and SuperFuzz and i always struggle to explain their difference to non-guitar friends. I bought the Fuzz just for fun, and i almost never use it, but it's fun. Surely, the Compressor/Sustainer would be have been much more useful, but less fun.
I got me a Blackout Musket which is like a vintage Russian Muff but with a preboost inside of it as well as a mid control to tame or deepen the mid scoop associated with Muffs and a focus knob that lets it go from sloppy and boomy to razor sharp. It can get a little into soft clipping and hard clipping territories, but is mainly a smooth square wave machine.
Great information as always! Excellent job hitting the main points and ideas without getting overly technical. I'm liking that Plexitroll a lot. I've had one on my board for the last several months and I think it's there to stay.
Great info Colin, I've been playing for over 33 years. I'm glad to say I'm learning things from your videos and I cannot thank you enough! I'm subscribed and checking out all your instructional videos. Thank you again my friend! Cheers!
Thx for the info. Learned about u thru GuitCon. I just learned more about what’s actually happening w these differences in the past 10 mins from u than I have in the last 10 yrs. lol!
Thank you for offering the explanations for all the things you do. It really helps to know what all these electronic devices we use are actually doing. I have been able to improve my rig's setup with the knowledge I have gained watching your videos. I use a pedalboard with 19 different pedals and a looper/switch to organize it all as well as plugging into a stack (head and cabinet) as well as a combo amp for a stereo sound. My setup has always been fairly complicated. I plug my effects into a carl martin octaswitch but because it only has 8 loops I have to combine so one loop has my OD, Dist, Fuzz, and metal pedal and another loop has all my Modulation pedals. I use the effects loop on my noise gate because it is always on and put my EQ and volume booster in that loop so the EQ is always on and when I want a volume boost I just turn my booster pedal on. I have to change settings and what pedals are off or on before every song when on stage and it gets complicated. I am trying to simplify but still have all the elements to my tone that I have come to rely on. Your videos are helping me with this. Thank you.
Yes, you can talk about fuzz without mentioning EW. Gotsa get paid by ZZtop has a terrific fuzz sound. Fu Manchu, also great fuzz sound. Monster Magnet (early works) have AWESOME fuzzelicious sound. Fuzz is the real distorion, the rest is just cheezy overdive... I'm glad that "gain" is not mentioned as a type of distortion though :) (not intended as a hostile post or anything)
I've been watching your videos for a while now, and I feel I've learned a majority of what I know about gear from you, pedal chains, distortion v overdrive, gear history etc. Thank you for making such awesome videos!
Thank you for this very informative video. Corrosion of Conformity many moons ago introduced me to the beauty of Fuzz...and Geezer lead me to bass. I just subscribed to your channel. Greetings from the Bay Area, Nor-CaL....
Great video. Over time, these 3 words have become a bit blurred. There's some very heavy overdrives, and fuzzes like the Big Muff, that sound compressed that they are often marketed as Distortion. Some Overdrives are so clipped that they're virtually Fuzz. Marketing, and experimenting often cause confusion, but this sets the record straight.
You really simplified that to the point where anyone can understand that! Well done! I love this video! I sadly can't be a patron. I am jobless at the moment. The pedals I have are Ibanes Smash Box, MXR Dime Distortion and an EHX Metal Muff. For all other effects I use Guitar Rig 5.
This is one of the best explanations of the differences between the three "gain effect" types, though I think it's important to mention that there are multiple electronic ways to skin all three of these cats. For example, many overdrive circuits use transistors instead of soft-clipping diodes (in fact, transistors emulate overdriven valves more accurately). There are also distortions that rely on overdriven opamps instead of hard-clipping diodes, fuzzes that use CMOS timing chips instead of discrete transistors, and a myriad of "hybrid" circuits that mix-and-match some of these elements in from different classes of circuits (eg, using transistors instead of opamps to feed diode-clippers).
Can you do a video explaining all guitar effects in terms of the manipulation of the wave signal? That visual makes so much more sense to me than alternative ways of explanation. You the man
If you make a video comparing the signal headroom of digital pedalboards and analog overdrive and distortion pedals, please, let us know (something like headroom differences between simulated and real distortions, as well as dynamics differences). Most of them can be set to sound the same within a range of usable area on each parameter, but many times, this usable area is different, and one version goes further than the other depending on the features. Examples: virtual tube screamer vs. real tube screamer, virtual big muff vs real big muff, etc.
Man, I just left close to this same comment on JHS... Yours and theirs channel are the only ones I really pay attention to, because you actually know what you're talking about and aren't "guitar bro science" biased. I respect that. Haha
