Overdrive pedals use pairs of semiconductor diodes to clip the audio signal, generating distortion, but what is clipping and how does it work? We take a look at the Walrus Audio Ages overdrive which features 5 different gain and clipping arrangements so that you can no longer be Too Afraid To Ask. Get your Walrus Audio Ages: www.walrusaudio.com/products/ages-five-state-overdrive Thanks to Walrus Audio for funding this video. #clippingdiodes #walrusages #csguitars Affiliate Links: Thomann - www.thomann.de/gb/index.html?offid=1&affid=367 Sweetwater - imp.i114863.net/2mGGg More from CSGuitars: 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 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
@@ninjahflighttaktiks1467 electrical engineering lol! This is the most advanced field of science that exists and commonly mistaken for a trade. It involves quantum mechanics, very advanced mathematics, classic mechanics and remembering a lot about fundamental topologies(design schemes). All software languages were born from this field, all modern chemistry relies on this field, all your gadgets, your medical equipment etc. right down to the computer systems and AI in a jumbo jet are directly a product of electrical/electronics engineering, and so is guitar gear. Always be weary of self-taught amateurs because the majority preach fake science..
The sense here is not to educate electronical sound engeneers, but to clear up the principles of guitar distortion and overdrive ( ...and , surely, present some advertising for "Walrus", okay?) - even for non-technical students. If you like more "sophisticated" information, there are tons of specialist literature, right? -'And a good informative and self-declaring graphic presentation even for non-specialists has nothing to do with a "childish" illustration....
Of all the creators that do sponsored content, no one else manages to create not just something that demonstrates the product excellently but also manages to educate as you do with all of your videos. I understood the sound difference between soft and hard clipping but being able to understand *why* they're different is something I only learned today. Thanks for the great videos, Colin
The thing I love about these "TATA"s is, it contains both the scientific and tl;dr versions for plebs such as me. The tl;dr versions really helped me grasping a general understanding.
People learn in different ways and at different rates. I want to make sure my videos are accessible enough that everyone can come away understanding the concept on some level.
I love how you take a pedal review and turn it into an amazing class about clipping. Great work with the graphics, really helps drive the points through.
I've spent 20+ years on this and over a decade ago, *finally enrolled in college for electrical/electronics engineering with this having been one of the driving forces.* You did a great job on this as expected. As an amateur engineer(never quite finished the degree), I still struggle with the prices people get fleeced on with stomp boxes. *What is truly goofy is the terms "overdrive, fuzz and distortion" have been grossly misappropriated since somewhere in the 70's.* For example, I just designed a "fuzz" by overdriving transistors, and some will call this a "classic fuzz" or "classic fuzz overdrive" because it's actually a product of overdrive. *The term was bastardized because these overdrives were intended to emulate the sound of an overdriven tube, and at the heart of the circuit, use soft clipping in a feedback loop.* Meanwhile, my first original design uses soft clipping, and I regularly regard it as a distortion lol. *Anyway, my best work is yet to come. I'm well into a solid-state design that will produce the clarity and note separation we expect almost exclusively from tubes.* My goal is very bassy, clustered arpeggios that don't turn into frothing slop from very high, even order harmonics. Ultimately, semiconductors can do it better, but the designs require actually giving a fuck about a solid-state that will rival or exceed tubes, and 99% of designers educated or not are married to tubes or even digital. Ironically, the recipe to achieve what I'm describing isn't complicated in the least.
I’m so glad you are reviewing this pedal. Living in and being from Oklahoma (where these are made) gives me a soft spot/ fanboy of Walrus. I love that you don’t just say “here is what this sounds like using this guitars into this amp” but actually explain the science of what is going on. I really love your channel and the last year or so it has elevated so much. Been a fan for a long time, but you have really done something to separate yourself from other reviewers. Thanks Colin, greatness as always. And much love from Tulsa.
Out of the avalanche of 'Ages' reviews, Col gets first view of mine. I'm familiar with diode clipping, but I'll still learn something new, and only Colin gives the added edumercationizing content.
I knew people were going to get an influx of near identical reviews and demos, so I thought I'd do something a little different. Glad to be your first choice.
I think this everytime I watch one of these CSG videos, but this might be the first time I've commented on it: I'm so glad Colin creates videos like this! Between him and Brian Wampler, I've gone from kind of getting the basic gist of what certain tones/effects sound like to having a much better understanding of the mechanics behind the effects. Without Colin, I'd have NO idea how a tube amp works or what is happening when I turn the presence knob, and without Brian, I'd still not know what compression was at all (except that it's used by country guitarists a lot). Thank you Colin!
I bought this pedal yesterday to use primarily, as a boost/drive for the clean channel on my 1981 Carvin XV-212, 100 watt tube amp. This amp has a luscious clean channel, and with the Walrus Ages pedal added... over the top. Great pedal, and the best bang for my buck of any I own.
One of the overlooked aspects of "hard" vs "soft" clipping is that diodes in the feedback loop of an op-amp (i.e., "soft") tend to prevent the op-amp from crashing against its headroom limitations, since the maximum amplitude of the op-amp will be set by the diodes at roughly +/-600mv (for silicon) or +/-1.5V (for red LEDs). If, however, one directs an op-amp to provide a gain to the input signal of, say, 200x, and sticks the diodes on the output, what you end up hearing is the sound of an op-amp that has been explicitly directed to *exceed* its headroom, and *then* clipped by diodes on its output - double clipping. I recall many forum posts by people puzzled at why their MXR Distortion+ could never get "clean", even in the complete absence of clipping diodes. So, one of the differences between "hard" and "soft" clipping is that, with soft, one is hearing essentially ONLY the characteristics imposed by the diodes, while in the case of "hard" clipping, one is hearing the manner in which the op-amp responds to headroom limitations PLUS the actions of the clipping diodes. Some pedals will use a sort of combination of the two. For instance, the venerable Marshall Bluesbreaker, and its derivatives, like the Analogman King of Tone or JHS Morning Glory, provide two cascaded op-amp gain stages. (Bear in mind that gain is "multiplicative", such that a gain of 30x, followed by a gain of 20x provides a total gain of 600x to the input signal.) The first stage doesn't push the envelope too hard (max gain of 22x for the overall signal, and 31x for high end), but provides enough gain that if you crank the pedal and hit a power chord, you'll run up against the chip limitations. The output of that first stage is then amplified further by the 2nd one, which has diodes in its feedback loop. So, a blend of chip-clipping and diodes. None of this is a criticism of your excellent explanation, merely a few wrinkles you didn't get around to.
Thanks for the clear explanation. I’ve been trying to figure out how/why diode clipping works as well as differences between soft/hard clipping arrangement in a circuit. This by far has been the best explanation accompanied by visuals - and I feel much better about analyzing and potentially modifying schematics. Thanks so much!
The animations showing the circuits are great, as I get a bit lost when ppl talk that stuff without showing anything. The added SFX during those animations is also top-notch, & lastly, that video of the truck getting the top cut off was just excellent for meme value despite your point already being made.
I love your fossil obsession. I have also learned more about guitar pedals in 2 weeks of watching your channel than 17 years of playing with them. But I subscribed mostly for the fossils.
I thought I was familiar with current the Walrus Audio catalog, so I assumed the Ages was a long since discontinued pedal. It's not, it's new and available. Thanks Colin for stepping on my GAS pedal
Answer is you don't. It's a vestigial way of thinking from a time when amplifiers didn't have enough gain on their own, so hot output pickups were used to drive the amp harder. Modern amps and pedals can add as much gain as you'll ever need now, so there is no requirement for high output pickups in metal. In fact you should try low output pickups, they sound great when you crank their signal level.
@@ScienceofLoud what will be the difference between using a high-headroom active pickup with the volume pot rolled down vs a low output pickup? Am I losing any tone this way? I can use the volume pot as a built-in boost pedal, basically.
@@TheApsodist i use high output pickups this way sometimes. Turn the pickup down on the guitar, setup up the tone on the amps and pedals, but turn the pickup back up for extra gain when needed, such as a lead boost.
@@TheApsodist Active pickups sound different from humbuckers or single coil, even when you ignore the higher volume. It's more of a choice by the designer to make them sound different than anything inherent in the design of active pickups in general, but it's still an important difference. I personally don't like the way they sound, to me they sound extremely characterless and clean, but some people like that.
Ahh yes the good old clipping diodes, loathed by some players when incorporated in a tube amp’s circuit, but praised by the same when fed into a diode-free tube amp. We guitarists are a strange breed.
he means people say non-transistor tube amps are the only amps that sound good because solid state components are trash and sound like crap. Then they rave about the sound they get from running their guitar signal through solid state pedals into the amp. the point he is making is that they are using solid state components, integrated chips even, which they claim sound like crap if it was in the amp.
Great demo. Even if you weren't interested in the subject pedal you get educated. And then the rec of stacking it is more than you typically get from other reviewers. Because, to be honest, I wasn't very impressed by the pedal until you demonstrated it stacked. Well done!
this was a good video. TATA: how did you turn the pedal on and off while playing? does the signal pass through cleanly when pedal is unpowered while switched on?
That's some clever camera trickery. I'm taking a clean DI from the guitar, then reamping it twice: once with the pedal on, once with the pedal off. I'm then filming separate plates of the pedal being on and off and the rest is just composite work in editing to make it all look like it's happening for real in the room.
OK, here's a related TATA: Given that diode clipping pedals all use similar components, why is it that one pedal can sound amazing and another, similar pedal sounds like garbage? Does it have to do with how they choose to clip the signal or is it in the EQ? Or both?
Amateur’s understanding: has to do with internal voltage regulation and how EQ is handled in the circuit design. For example, how the Ages has bass control before clipping means that adding bass will increase clipping specifically done by the diodes as more voltage/output is going through part of that circuit. Adding bass post clipping will result in a different effect and (in my general opinion) make the tone a bit muddier. Another aspect is overall internal voltage. For example one the largest differences between 1981 DRV and a ProCo Rat is that the 1981 has differentiated its circuit with an internal voltage doubler. Unless I’m mistaken, more available voltage means you can still route voltage through the diode clipping but with extra available voltage results in more overall headroom. This is why the 1981 cleans/tightens up at lower gain settings. Of course, not an expert, this is just my understanding and I would be glad to be corrected. You can see an example of the impact of circuit design using the same not components by taking EQ, volume/boost, compression and drive and simply rearranging the order of effects.
Eq both before and after the distortion, combined with different diodes being used. 95% of guitar tone (other than the player and physical properties of the guitar) comes from eq in one way or another.
Im fond of that one. Like is find my fave n then months later find a new fave I do stack drives at times n i think the dry blend would be nice. I think the klon type pedals also put a mix of dry and clipped out
Dude! I genuinely love your channel and so much appreciate you and your teaching method... thank you for these videos. I just wished I could wrap my head around center positive, center negative and 9V and 18v and why everything can't be universal... if you have any videos on that - please let me know 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻
at 2:07 you say that the excess voltage clipped by diodes goes to ground. I always figured the harmonics that clipping provides comes from the Law of Conservation of Energy, in that the difference in wavelength is put somewhere else in the wave, adding "hair" to the shape, so to speak. Does this still happen to a more limited degree, or is it really the square shape of the new crest/trough that provides the perceived harmonics?
Thanks for the explanation of how clipping diodes and how soft and hard clipping work as well as symmetric v. asymmetric. The Ages seems like a nice pedal, but I've already decided my next pedal will be an Iron Horse V2. Walrus still gets the money, tho.
Hey Colin, have a TATA question. Maybe you could answer as a reply to this comment because I’m not sure it would make a great video. I see a lot of guys use humidifiers in their guitar rooms to prevent the wood from drying out. This seems counterintuitive to me for a couple of reasons... 1.) Older acoustic guitars usually sound better in large part because the wood has completely dried... so doesn’t a humidifier slow the “aging” process of the wood? 2.) With regard to electric guitars and amps and pedals (if they’re in the same room, which they almost always are), I would think that the humidity would be bad for the electronic components... so wouldn’t a humidifier do more damage than good over time? 3.) Lastly with regard to strings... wouldn’t the excess humidity cause uncoated strings to die more quickly? Seems to me like a humidifier would do more harm than good, but maybe my understanding is incorrect or there’s something I’m just not considering. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks so much!
You're asking very much the wrong person. Living in Scotland I'd never have any need for a humidifier. It's always wet all the time. This is a question for someone in Arizona who needs to add moisture to the environment to prevent wood cracking and warping. I'm sure they'll be able to tell you exactly why humidifiers are useful.
Maybe this is just me but the Walrus Audio Ages in and of itself is already a good drive/distortion pedal. If that is the only drive pedal on my board, I'd be more than happy with it. But would really go to town if there is another overdrive pedal to go with it, that's for sure!
I have both of them. The Plumes is fatter and has more pronounced, slightly brighter clipping. The Ages is good bit tighter and has a smoother and darker clipping profile. It never reaches that fuzzy territory when gain is maxed like the Plumes does even when the dry knob is all the way down. And obviously the Ages has wayyy more headroom. Can be used as just a mid boost more or less with low gain on mode 1 and dry all the way up So they are somewhat similar in that they are both mid gain ODs with multiple clipping options but the actual sounds are somewhat different
Exactly what I was looking for. I want to buy a Friedman JJ jr but I wasn't sure that it would have enough compression so to make it a little more flexible I wanted to boost it with KHDK ghoul jr wich has soft and hard clipping but the mids are a little strange for me on that pedal so the Ages is the perfect solution.
Nice video and explanation dude. Have a question for you. Does the amp SUNN BETA EAD its a Soft cipping amp or the clipping its different becaus of his MOSFET system ? Also the same question for the EHX Hot tubes pedal ? Its distortio. Applies for this explanation or its differenet the matter of using MOSFETS ?
Colin, I have a Marshall JCM 900 100 watt dual reverb with the diode clipping feature built in. Can you tell us how that may be the same or contrast the clipping discussed here? Also how does the JCM 900 compare/ contrast with let's say a JCM 800 or a plexi?
@@rickc2102 some kids in one of my classes' families came from some part of South America, and one of them was named Joanna, so when they said her name really fast my brain always thought they were getting my attention
Great stuff, as always. This may seem like a stupid question, but when you rotate a gain/distortion potentiometer on a pedal, are you increasing the forward voltage, thus increasing the part of the wave that gets clipped? And then with the volume pot, is this increase caused by some secondary amplification after the clipping diode circuit?
The gain control usually sits in the negative feedback look of the op amp and controls how much of the the output is fed back into the inverting input. This literally dictates how much gain the op amp can generate and is entirely independent of the clipping diodes. The forward voltage of a diode is defined by the materials it is made from and cannot be altered by any external process. The volume control in pedals can be either passive or active: If passive it's simply a potentiometer right before the output which bleeds a percentage of the signal to ground, making it quieter. If active then there will be a secondary amplification stage that will either increase or decrease the signal generated by the gain stage.
I wonder how this would compare to the Fuzzrocious LunaReclipse pedal. It has 12 different clipping options ranging from LED to 2 different silicon pairs to germanium to combos of diodes.
Hello....can you make a video on the difference between Feedback Clipping in Non-inverting mode (Tube Screamer) vs Feedback Clipping in Inverting mode (Blues Breaker)...I don’t think both are the same!! It will be great if you explain the same!!
Thank you for a fantastic explanation! My initial thought was that the difference between settings 1 & 3 (or 2 & 4), was the number of diodes arranged symmetrically in the feedback loop. You mentioned that the higher gain soft clipping settings (3 & 4), are the result of more voltage travelling through the opamp. Any idea how this is achieved? Maybe the voltage in those settings is diverted into a charge pump before the opamp? Thanks again for such a great breakdown of this!
Are there any kinds of standards whatsoever for guitar pickup sizes, or do you pretty much have to always cut into the pick guard and maybe even the wood if you wanna change them? I have a Fernandes with P90 soap bar pickups for example, can I buy ones made to fit in a Gibson and use them?
Most aftermaket pickups will be sized to fit into most standard guitars without modification. That is that humbuckers are typically of one size (although they will have different string spacings), P90s will be typically of one size, and so on. There are always exceptions, certain guitars and brands will have their own propitiatory electronics and hardware, and especially so if we are talking about vintage instruments which were being made before the industry settled on a standard. Always check your sizes, but in most cases any modern pickup will be the same size as any other of its type.
I know this is an older videos, but I’d be damned interested in seeing a collab between you and Paul Davids. The Dutch and The Scot; The Theory and The Science. It’d be so infotaining that both channel bases would love to see.
Can you do a tldr on how to read those diagrams you post as visual aids or maybe point me in the right direction to research on my own? Love your videos, and I've learned so much about the science of loud from you.
Overdrive pedals use pairs of semiconductor diodes to clip the audio signal, generating distortion, but what is clipping and how does it work?
We take a look at the Walrus Audio Ages overdrive which features 5 different gain and clipping arrangements so that you can no longer be Too Afraid To Ask.
Get your Walrus Audio Ages:
www.walrusaudio.com/products/ages-five-state-overdrive
Thanks to Walrus Audio for funding this video.
#clippingdiodes #walrusages #csguitars
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what is the difference between a jazzmaster pickup and a p90?
What is the study of this technology called?
@@ninjahflighttaktiks1467 electrical engineering lol! This is the most advanced field of science that exists and commonly mistaken for a trade. It involves quantum mechanics, very advanced mathematics, classic mechanics and remembering a lot about fundamental topologies(design schemes).
All software languages were born from this field, all modern chemistry relies on this field, all your gadgets, your medical equipment etc. right down to the computer systems and AI in a jumbo jet are directly a product of electrical/electronics engineering, and so is guitar gear.
Always be weary of self-taught amateurs because the majority preach fake science..
We just learned a lot about our own pedal. 😉
I love the way you describe science. It’s like children’s tv but in a really good way.
Yeah, the pictures really are worth a thousand words. Easy to follow.
Bill Ney of guitar
Totally agree
The sense here is not to educate electronical sound engeneers, but to clear up the principles of guitar distortion and overdrive ( ...and , surely, present some advertising for "Walrus", okay?) - even for non-technical students. If you like more "sophisticated" information, there are tons of specialist literature, right? -'And a good informative and self-declaring graphic presentation even for non-specialists has nothing to do with a "childish" illustration....
The clipping LEDs at 4:42 would've looked killer on the outside of the case as the eyes of the mastodon. Missed opportunity for added badassness...
Of all the creators that do sponsored content, no one else manages to create not just something that demonstrates the product excellently but also manages to educate as you do with all of your videos.
I understood the sound difference between soft and hard clipping but being able to understand *why* they're different is something I only learned today. Thanks for the great videos, Colin
The thing I love about these "TATA"s is, it contains both the scientific and tl;dr versions for plebs such as me. The tl;dr versions really helped me grasping a general understanding.
People learn in different ways and at different rates. I want to make sure my videos are accessible enough that everyone can come away understanding the concept on some level.
@@ScienceofLoud And i have to say, you are one of the few channels that actually manage to do this well!
I love how you take a pedal review and turn it into an amazing class about clipping. Great work with the graphics, really helps drive the points through.
I've spent 20+ years on this and over a decade ago, *finally enrolled in college for electrical/electronics engineering with this having been one of the driving forces.* You did a great job on this as expected.
As an amateur engineer(never quite finished the degree), I still struggle with the prices people get fleeced on with stomp boxes. *What is truly goofy is the terms "overdrive, fuzz and distortion" have been grossly misappropriated since somewhere in the 70's.* For example, I just designed a "fuzz" by overdriving transistors, and some will call this a "classic fuzz" or "classic fuzz overdrive" because it's actually a product of overdrive.
*The term was bastardized because these overdrives were intended to emulate the sound of an overdriven tube, and at the heart of the circuit, use soft clipping in a feedback loop.*
Meanwhile, my first original design uses soft clipping, and I regularly regard it as a distortion lol. *Anyway, my best work is yet to come. I'm well into a solid-state design that will produce the clarity and note separation we expect almost exclusively from tubes.* My goal is very bassy, clustered arpeggios that don't turn into frothing slop from very high, even order harmonics.
Ultimately, semiconductors can do it better, but the designs require actually giving a fuck about a solid-state that will rival or exceed tubes, and 99% of designers educated or not are married to tubes or even digital. Ironically, the recipe to achieve what I'm describing isn't complicated in the least.
I’m so glad you are reviewing this pedal. Living in and being from Oklahoma (where these are made) gives me a soft spot/ fanboy of Walrus. I love that you don’t just say “here is what this sounds like using this guitars into this amp” but actually explain the science of what is going on. I really love your channel and the last year or so it has elevated so much. Been a fan for a long time, but you have really done something to separate yourself from other reviewers. Thanks Colin, greatness as always. And much love from Tulsa.
Out of the avalanche of 'Ages' reviews, Col gets first view of mine. I'm familiar with diode clipping, but I'll still learn something new, and only Colin gives the added edumercationizing content.
I knew people were going to get an influx of near identical reviews and demos, so I thought I'd do something a little different. Glad to be your first choice.
Heh. I actually learned a lot.Nice one Colin!
I think this everytime I watch one of these CSG videos, but this might be the first time I've commented on it: I'm so glad Colin creates videos like this! Between him and Brian Wampler, I've gone from kind of getting the basic gist of what certain tones/effects sound like to having a much better understanding of the mechanics behind the effects. Without Colin, I'd have NO idea how a tube amp works or what is happening when I turn the presence knob, and without Brian, I'd still not know what compression was at all (except that it's used by country guitarists a lot). Thank you Colin!
This is the best explainer I have ever seen on this topic. Well done.
I bought this pedal yesterday to use primarily, as a boost/drive for the clean channel on my 1981 Carvin XV-212, 100 watt tube amp. This amp has a luscious clean channel, and with the Walrus Ages pedal added... over the top. Great pedal, and the best bang for my buck of any I own.
This is my favorite video series on UA-cam, and this is the best of the bunch. Thank you, Colin, for so much information and disambiguation.
One of the overlooked aspects of "hard" vs "soft" clipping is that diodes in the feedback loop of an op-amp (i.e., "soft") tend to prevent the op-amp from crashing against its headroom limitations, since the maximum amplitude of the op-amp will be set by the diodes at roughly +/-600mv (for silicon) or +/-1.5V (for red LEDs). If, however, one directs an op-amp to provide a gain to the input signal of, say, 200x, and sticks the diodes on the output, what you end up hearing is the sound of an op-amp that has been explicitly directed to *exceed* its headroom, and *then* clipped by diodes on its output - double clipping. I recall many forum posts by people puzzled at why their MXR Distortion+ could never get "clean", even in the complete absence of clipping diodes.
So, one of the differences between "hard" and "soft" clipping is that, with soft, one is hearing essentially ONLY the characteristics imposed by the diodes, while in the case of "hard" clipping, one is hearing the manner in which the op-amp responds to headroom limitations PLUS the actions of the clipping diodes.
Some pedals will use a sort of combination of the two. For instance, the venerable Marshall Bluesbreaker, and its derivatives, like the Analogman King of Tone or JHS Morning Glory, provide two cascaded op-amp gain stages. (Bear in mind that gain is "multiplicative", such that a gain of 30x, followed by a gain of 20x provides a total gain of 600x to the input signal.) The first stage doesn't push the envelope too hard (max gain of 22x for the overall signal, and 31x for high end), but provides enough gain that if you crank the pedal and hit a power chord, you'll run up against the chip limitations. The output of that first stage is then amplified further by the 2nd one, which has diodes in its feedback loop. So, a blend of chip-clipping and diodes.
None of this is a criticism of your excellent explanation, merely a few wrinkles you didn't get around to.
The absolute perfect level of detail. Great work!
Fantastic video, using this to inform customers on what style they’d like for customs. Cheers Collin!
5:35 "Visaaage" Colin, you must be beating the lasses off with a stick, bro!
Thanks for the clear explanation. I’ve been trying to figure out how/why diode clipping works as well as differences between soft/hard clipping arrangement in a circuit. This by far has been the best explanation accompanied by visuals - and I feel much better about analyzing and potentially modifying schematics. Thanks so much!
Dahm Collin, this was the best explanation of an overdrive/distortion pedal circuit ever! Cheers mate!!!
Man, it’s so clear now. I had an idea of all these things but it’s so neat and clear here. Your videos are always interesting and informative.
I love that this series is called "too afraid to ask" because that literally describes me perfectly lol
Your production has come such a long way man! So happy to have followed it and learned so much.
Even though he explained everything like you would to a child, I still had to watch at .5 speed.
Man great video! Great amount of info without getting too much in the weeds.
This over drive sounds amazing Colin and thanks for teaching us what's going on inside the pedals.👍🏾💪🏾🔥
The animations showing the circuits are great, as I get a bit lost when ppl talk that stuff without showing anything. The added SFX during those animations is also top-notch, & lastly, that video of the truck getting the top cut off was just excellent for meme value despite your point already being made.
I love your fossil obsession. I have also learned more about guitar pedals in 2 weeks of watching your channel than 17 years of playing with them. But I subscribed mostly for the fossils.
Loved the sounds and your playing and the 2 second endings!
Thanks for the "too afraid to ask" videos. They are very informative.
I love this series you've made. Keep it going, cheers from Canada mate
I thought I was familiar with current the Walrus Audio catalog, so I assumed the Ages was a long since discontinued pedal. It's not, it's new and available. Thanks Colin for stepping on my GAS pedal
That's a great breakdown of diode clipping... and man do I want to get that pedal now.
Here's my TATA: why would I need high output pickups for metal if i can boost my output with a clean boost?
Answer is you don't. It's a vestigial way of thinking from a time when amplifiers didn't have enough gain on their own, so hot output pickups were used to drive the amp harder.
Modern amps and pedals can add as much gain as you'll ever need now, so there is no requirement for high output pickups in metal. In fact you should try low output pickups, they sound great when you crank their signal level.
@@ScienceofLoud what will be the difference between using a high-headroom active pickup with the volume pot rolled down vs a low output pickup? Am I losing any tone this way? I can use the volume pot as a built-in boost pedal, basically.
@@TheApsodist i use high output pickups this way sometimes. Turn the pickup down on the guitar, setup up the tone on the amps and pedals, but turn the pickup back up for extra gain when needed, such as a lead boost.
Unless you don't like pedals, or want to use them as less as possible.
@@TheApsodist Active pickups sound different from humbuckers or single coil, even when you ignore the higher volume. It's more of a choice by the designer to make them sound different than anything inherent in the design of active pickups in general, but it's still an important difference. I personally don't like the way they sound, to me they sound extremely characterless and clean, but some people like that.
Really nice. A pedal like that sounds very useful if you have a temperamental old amp or just plug in to what ever amp is available at the time.
Nice vid, Colin! You have really stepped up your graphics game.. very informative display of clipping!
Moo
Great vid! Easy to understand and bloody important.
Great vid. very clear. I like the pedal. I wish I had a pedal that makes my guitar change like that.
Ahh yes the good old clipping diodes, loathed by some players when incorporated in a tube amp’s circuit, but praised by the same when fed into a diode-free tube amp. We guitarists are a strange breed.
The implementation is key.
What. Diode free tube amps are impossible, they are required in the power supply. Are you talking about diode tubes?
@@lobsterbark silicon and germanium free would be more technically accurate.
lobsterbark i think he means diodes in the preamp section to sound like the tubes are being driven harder than they actually are.
he means people say non-transistor tube amps are the only amps that sound good because solid state components are trash and sound like crap. Then they rave about the sound they get from running their guitar signal through solid state pedals into the amp.
the point he is making is that they are using solid state components, integrated chips even, which they claim sound like crap if it was in the amp.
you are so good at explaining things. legend. thanks.
Dang, i feel like if I dig through your videos long enough, i could learn everything I need to build my own pedals...
I was with you all the way up to "hey guys, Colin here" ☺️
Not because the vid was bad (it was great), I'm just not as clever as Colin!
Great video and a layman’s explanation, which my simple brain can follow. 👍
This is a fantastic video. Thank you!
Well done per usual. I love the explanations and always learn/reaffirm things. Hope you’re well man.
-Aaron
Great demo. Even if you weren't interested in the subject pedal you get educated. And then the rec of stacking it is more than you typically get from other reviewers. Because, to be honest, I wasn't very impressed by the pedal until you demonstrated it stacked. Well done!
0:56 this made my day, thank you :D
As always very informative video 👍
That's why I love this channel!
Every time he says clip/clipped/clipping you get to take a drink 🥃🍺🍻🥂🍸🍹
Great product placement. It actually applies to the topic.
Demo jam at 6 minutes sounds like The Darkness. Love it!
Great video! Very clear explanations and great sounding examples!
Brilliant.
Cheers mate!
🎸🔥
This was VERY helpful!! - now I just might build a variable clipper with LEDs,.. as something to do while procrastinating from other projects.
this was a good video. TATA: how did you turn the pedal on and off while playing? does the signal pass through cleanly when pedal is unpowered while switched on?
That's some clever camera trickery. I'm taking a clean DI from the guitar, then reamping it twice: once with the pedal on, once with the pedal off.
I'm then filming separate plates of the pedal being on and off and the rest is just composite work in editing to make it all look like it's happening for real in the room.
@@ScienceofLoud wow, very smooth, I had no idea
Sick logos mate ! Snd those animations are on point !
OK, here's a related TATA: Given that diode clipping pedals all use similar components, why is it that one pedal can sound amazing and another, similar pedal sounds like garbage? Does it have to do with how they choose to clip the signal or is it in the EQ? Or both?
Amateur’s understanding: has to do with internal voltage regulation and how EQ is handled in the circuit design. For example, how the Ages has bass control before clipping means that adding bass will increase clipping specifically done by the diodes as more voltage/output is going through part of that circuit. Adding bass post clipping will result in a different effect and (in my general opinion) make the tone a bit muddier. Another aspect is overall internal voltage. For example one the largest differences between 1981 DRV and a ProCo Rat is that the 1981 has differentiated its circuit with an internal voltage doubler. Unless I’m mistaken, more available voltage means you can still route voltage through the diode clipping but with extra available voltage results in more overall headroom. This is why the 1981 cleans/tightens up at lower gain settings. Of course, not an expert, this is just my understanding and I would be glad to be corrected. You can see an example of the impact of circuit design using the same not components by taking EQ, volume/boost, compression and drive and simply rearranging the order of effects.
Eq both before and after the distortion, combined with different diodes being used. 95% of guitar tone (other than the player and physical properties of the guitar) comes from eq in one way or another.
@@lobsterbark JHS has demo of that in one of his vids where he uses a Boss GE7 and just maxes out certain frequencies to use it as an overdrive
Im fond of that one. Like is find my fave n then months later find a new fave
I do stack drives at times n i think the dry blend would be nice. I think the klon type pedals also put a mix of dry and clipped out
Dude! I genuinely love your channel and so much appreciate you and your teaching method... thank you for these videos. I just wished I could wrap my head around center positive, center negative and 9V and 18v and why everything can't be universal... if you have any videos on that - please let me know 🤘🏻😎🤘🏻
at 2:07 you say that the excess voltage clipped by diodes goes to ground. I always figured the harmonics that clipping provides comes from the Law of Conservation of Energy, in that the difference in wavelength is put somewhere else in the wave, adding "hair" to the shape, so to speak. Does this still happen to a more limited degree, or is it really the square shape of the new crest/trough that provides the perceived harmonics?
Thanks for the explanation of how clipping diodes and how soft and hard clipping work as well as symmetric v. asymmetric. The Ages seems like a nice pedal, but I've already decided my next pedal will be an Iron Horse V2. Walrus still gets the money, tho.
Really love your animations
Hey Colin, have a TATA question.
Maybe you could answer as a reply to this comment because I’m not sure it would make a great video.
I see a lot of guys use humidifiers in their guitar rooms to prevent the wood from drying out.
This seems counterintuitive to me for a couple of reasons...
1.) Older acoustic guitars usually sound better in large part because the wood has completely dried... so doesn’t a humidifier slow the “aging” process of the wood?
2.) With regard to electric guitars and amps and pedals (if they’re in the same room, which they almost always are), I would think that the humidity would be bad for the electronic components... so wouldn’t a humidifier do more damage than good over time?
3.) Lastly with regard to strings... wouldn’t the excess humidity cause uncoated strings to die more quickly?
Seems to me like a humidifier would do more harm than good, but maybe my understanding is incorrect or there’s something I’m just not considering.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks so much!
You're asking very much the wrong person. Living in Scotland I'd never have any need for a humidifier. It's always wet all the time.
This is a question for someone in Arizona who needs to add moisture to the environment to prevent wood cracking and warping. I'm sure they'll be able to tell you exactly why humidifiers are useful.
No worries, mate!
Thank you for your reply.
Maybe I'm just simple but it all sounds great to me. Still cool facts to know. Keep killing it friend!
Great video thanks!!
9:20 instantly sounded like something I want to dial in!
Great video topped off with a memorable line from the film Gregory's Girl ! It's a well known fact. 😊
Maybe this is just me but the Walrus Audio Ages in and of itself is already a good drive/distortion pedal. If that is the only drive pedal on my board, I'd be more than happy with it. But would really go to town if there is another overdrive pedal to go with it, that's for sure!
How did you get the sound at 10:46? Did you roll back the tone control or volume?
Thanks This was a big help. 🙂👍
These vids are class
Rampaging Pachyderms! Ok, this video at leas let me learn some details on what is going on beneath. Thanks!
That art design on the pedal looks so cool. I'm curious if this is similar with the plumes by eqd?
The plumes is a modified tubescreamer circuit so probably not
I have both of them. The Plumes is fatter and has more pronounced, slightly brighter clipping.
The Ages is good bit tighter and has a smoother and darker clipping profile. It never reaches that fuzzy territory when gain is maxed like the Plumes does even when the dry knob is all the way down. And obviously the Ages has wayyy more headroom. Can be used as just a mid boost more or less with low gain on mode 1 and dry all the way up
So they are somewhat similar in that they are both mid gain ODs with multiple clipping options but the actual sounds are somewhat different
Exactly what I was looking for. I want to buy a Friedman JJ jr but I wasn't sure that it would have enough compression so to make it a little more flexible I wanted to boost it with KHDK ghoul jr wich has soft and hard clipping but the mids are a little strange for me on that pedal so the Ages is the perfect solution.
Nice video and explanation dude. Have a question for you. Does the amp SUNN BETA EAD its a Soft cipping amp or the clipping its different becaus of his MOSFET system ? Also the same question for the EHX Hot tubes pedal ?
Its distortio. Applies for this explanation or its differenet the matter of using MOSFETS ?
Colin, I have a Marshall JCM 900 100 watt dual reverb with the diode clipping feature built in. Can you tell us how that may be the same or contrast the clipping discussed here? Also how does the JCM 900 compare/ contrast with let's say a JCM 800 or a plexi?
You talk faster than my wife, and she's Welsh ffs. Good post dude. :)
BTW, I'm not being racist, I'm also Welsh lol. I just thought it was time for a funny comment :) The good post part, was straight up.
You think that's fast talking? You should spend some time in the Dominican Republic.
@@rickc2102 some kids in one of my classes' families came from some part of South America, and one of them was named Joanna, so when they said her name really fast my brain always thought they were getting my attention
Wasn't expecting him to go so 80s with that demo haha
Great stuff, as always. This may seem like a stupid question, but when you rotate a gain/distortion potentiometer on a pedal, are you increasing the forward voltage, thus increasing the part of the wave that gets clipped? And then with the volume pot, is this increase caused by some secondary amplification after the clipping diode circuit?
The gain control usually sits in the negative feedback look of the op amp and controls how much of the the output is fed back into the inverting input.
This literally dictates how much gain the op amp can generate and is entirely independent of the clipping diodes.
The forward voltage of a diode is defined by the materials it is made from and cannot be altered by any external process.
The volume control in pedals can be either passive or active: If passive it's simply a potentiometer right before the output which bleeds a percentage of the signal to ground, making it quieter.
If active then there will be a secondary amplification stage that will either increase or decrease the signal generated by the gain stage.
@@ScienceofLoud- Thank you!
I wonder how this would compare to the Fuzzrocious LunaReclipse pedal. It has 12 different clipping options ranging from LED to 2 different silicon pairs to germanium to combos of diodes.
Seeing the animation for how clipping reminds me of the differences between how square and sine waves look and sound
I've always wondered what a clipping diode was all aboot!
What's the difference between an inverting and non-inverting op-amp? I hear the terms used a lot but have no idea what it means
Hello....can you make a video on the difference between Feedback Clipping in Non-inverting mode (Tube Screamer) vs Feedback Clipping in Inverting mode (Blues Breaker)...I don’t think both are the same!! It will be great if you explain the same!!
Thank you for a fantastic explanation! My initial thought was that the difference between settings 1 & 3 (or 2 & 4), was the number of diodes arranged symmetrically in the feedback loop. You mentioned that the higher gain soft clipping settings (3 & 4), are the result of more voltage travelling through the opamp. Any idea how this is achieved? Maybe the voltage in those settings is diverted into a charge pump before the opamp? Thanks again for such a great breakdown of this!
Are there any kinds of standards whatsoever for guitar pickup sizes, or do you pretty much have to always cut into the pick guard and maybe even the wood if you wanna change them? I have a Fernandes with P90 soap bar pickups for example, can I buy ones made to fit in a Gibson and use them?
Most aftermaket pickups will be sized to fit into most standard guitars without modification. That is that humbuckers are typically of one size (although they will have different string spacings), P90s will be typically of one size, and so on.
There are always exceptions, certain guitars and brands will have their own propitiatory electronics and hardware, and especially so if we are talking about vintage instruments which were being made before the industry settled on a standard.
Always check your sizes, but in most cases any modern pickup will be the same size as any other of its type.
@@ScienceofLoud My Fernandes was made in the late 80s, were there some kind of ad-hoc standard at that point?
I see you are a fan of The Slow Mo Guys, excellent taste sir.
How work the Overdrive and Distortion Blending? like in the pedal Boss- Os2 Overdrive/Distortion
Im so subbed
I know this is an older videos, but I’d be damned interested in seeing a collab between you and Paul Davids. The Dutch and The Scot; The Theory and The Science. It’d be so infotaining that both channel bases would love to see.
Can you do a tldr on how to read those diagrams you post as visual aids or maybe point me in the right direction to research on my own? Love your videos, and I've learned so much about the science of loud from you.
What is an Attenuator? How do I know which one to use on my amp?
All the gain!!! :)
if you speed the jam at 5:42 up it sounds straight outta sonic adventure
Colin, I believe the artwork on the Ages Pedal is "not a mammoth"
What about crossover clipping, like what is done on the Boss HM-2?
can soft clipping done on transistor based circuits like electra?
I just happened to pause at 0:15 and it looks like Colin "has the vapours."
How does sustainer system works is kind of a cool topic to discuss too
Such a cool topic that I already made that video: ua-cam.com/video/XVojBfrT_qM/v-deo.html