Difference Between Overdrive and Distortion?

[AndyBob09]

Hey all,

I'm sorry if this has been brought up before. I've searched around but can't find exactly what I'm looking for.

I'm a long time bass player but never been in to pedals but am looking in to them to get different sounds.

The first thing I'm after is looking to add an overdriven/distorted sound but not sure if it's overdrive or distortion I'm looking for.

I want to add warm fuzz to my sound, nothing too too harsh sounding which really pulls the high overtones out.

Is what I've described "overdrive"?

Sorry being an utter noob!

Cheers!

[xgsjx]

Yes. Although Overdrive & Fuzz are both variations of distortion.
I have a distortion pedal on my board that never gets the gain past the 9 o'clock mark as it's just too high gain scratchy (my guitarist would love it). I also have the drive knob turned up a little on my Bass Murf to get the warm fuzz that you're talking about.

[Lozz196]

Yes, the description is how I would put overdrive,

[jazzyvee]

I used the names to mean the same thing until about a about a year ago when I was looking for a distortion/overdrive pedal to use on guitar. I was told this by the guy who makes Twinstomp pedals.
Overdrive pedal is designed to give you a high enough output that will "Over drive" your input channel to distort.
A distortion pedal provides a distorted signal from the pedal to your amp input. So you would be more likely to use an overdrive on a valve amp and not a solid state amp because when you over drive a tube amp it distorts in a more musical manner.

Hope that helps

Edited June 19, 2013 by jazzyvee

[Musky]

[quote name='jazzyvee' timestamp='1371678231' post='2116986']
I used the names to mean the same thing until about a about a year ago when I was looking for a distortion/overdrive pedal to use on guitar. I was told this by the guy who makes Twinstomp pedals.
Overdrive pedal is designed to give you a high enough output that will "Over drive" your input channel to distort.
A distortion pedal provides a distorted signal from the pedal to your amp input. So you would be more likely to use an overdrive on a valve amp and not a solid state amp because when you over drive a tube amp it distorts in a more musical manner.

Hope that helps
[/quote]
True enough, although manufacturers confuse matters by producing pedals that are low gain distortion units designed to mimic an overdriven amp channel and labeling them overdrive.

By the sound of things the OP is looking for something in low gain territory, which may or may not be labelled as an overdrive. Trying to find exactly which one hits the spot is opening the doors to a world of pain. Got any links to examples of the sort of thing you're after?

[paul_5]

Overdrive is a smoother, more gentle sort of clipping whereas distortion is a really rough sound - imagine they're different grades of sandpaper. Distortion would be the one that gouges at the surface but the O/D would be used for a smoother finish.

Fuzz is the bastard offspring of those two grades of sandpaper...and a chainsaw.

[eddiehoffmann]

It looks like you need a good overdrive pedal. My search came to and end when I acquired one of these:

http://youtu.be/tFfqWnybHEM

[AndyBob09]

Thanks for the input so far.

I like the bass sound on this. Around 1:32 is where I can hear that nice fuzzy sound I like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1R64-ZWVoM

[Dad3353]

[quote name='AndyBob09' timestamp='1371681521' post='2117048']... Around 1:32 is where I can hear that nice fuzzy sound I like...[/quote]

Whoa, there..! That's not overdrive, that's Fuzz..!

[xgsjx]

Ahhh, but is it fuzz or gated fuzz?



I can't listen to the clip just now.

[paul_5]

[quote name='eddiehoffmann' timestamp='1371680179' post='2117020']
It looks like you need a good overdrive pedal. My search came to and end when I acquired one of these:

[media]http://youtu.be/tFfqWnybHEM[/media]
[/quote]

I had one of those a while ago - definitely one of the best I've had.

[Sibob]

All three terms tend to be interchangable.
Distortion is the effect in my eyes, the clipping provided by the circuit is 'distorting' the signal. Overdrive I think comes from how old amps would distort the signal by the user 'overdriving' the tubes, because of the nature of the act in the early days, the result was usually fairly low gain.....hence lower gain pedals being referred to as overdrive as opposed to distortion, which often relates to higher gain circuits. Fuzz tend to be more saturated, with mid cuts, sometimes more squarewave sounding.
All of these overlap at some point with some pedals having multiple mods, options, gain stages, clipping options etcetc.
Its all about what sounds good to your ears in the mix

Si

[AndyBob09]

You've all been really helpful and I hadn't even considered "fuzz" as something that even really existed.

Having watched a few videos online, I've come to like the MXR fuzz deluxe but I'm gonna go to a music shop and try out different pedals for myself and see what I like.

Cheers!

[Sibob]

If you can, try pedals in the context of your band....it changes things expidentially

Si

[Low End Bee]

[quote name='Sibob' timestamp='1371737644' post='2117552']
If you can, try pedals in the context of your band....it changes things expidentially

Si
[/quote]

Absolutely. The wonderful sound I got from a Big Bass Muff caused my bass to vanish once the guitar and drums turned up to rehearsal

[Happy Jack]

+1

Few things are more dispiriting than choosing & buying a really great pedal, working out exactly the sounds you want, taking it to rehearsal where you have to endure five minutes of mickey-taking ... and then completely dropping out of the mix the second you stomp it.

Having supportive band members is good.

Rare ... but good.

[Happy Jack]

SNAP!!!

[Sibob]

This is why I think it's a completee waste of time trying anything at a shop or at home, certainly for sounds. Sure, try a bass in a shop or set it up at home to get the feel right, but whether you like the sound will be determined within the context with which you intend to use it.....same with pedals.

Si

[Grissle]

I think of Overdrive as emulating power tubes being pushed hard. Distortion when both the preamp and power tubes are being pushed.

[jessiesdad]

First off, you will quickly realise that I'm a bit of a nonce when it comes to overdrive or distortion effects pedals. About a year ago I bought a Behringer BOD400 overdrive and after playing with the darn thing at home for a few weeks, I concluded that 'it' was not capable of producing any interesting sound with my Fender Jazz. So it was consigned to its box. I certainly wasn't going to embarrass myself with it at a rehearsal. This week, having read/watched some reviews of the EHX Bass Big Muff, I bought one, thinking that maybe it's 'distortion' that I'm looking for. Well, a day of experimenting with that led me to a similar conclusion and - worse still - that the pedal was faulty as it would only produce any hint of fuzz (and not particularly pleasing at that) with the 'sustain' (harmonic distortion) knob wound up to near maximum.

Some of you already know where this is going.

Well, it was back to the stomp box shop, where the extremely nice and patient guys successfully tested the unit hooked up to a passive bass (like mine). Of course the BBM sounded bloomin' gorgeous, with warm fat fuzzy tones. In answer to one of their questions, I said that I 'always' played with the amplifier volume set at 6-8 (the gain, similar) and the guitar volume at about 3 or 4. Their polite suggestion was that I might like to try to switch around the two volume settings. Of course, a whole new world has since opened up and controllable distortion is the name of the regime. Not only will I be letting all this loose on the guys at the next rehearsal but I am wondering what further delights are in store for me with the overdrive pedal. If you haven't tried one of these BBMs before, you have to experience the 'dry' setting. Beautiful!

[Sibob]

Yup, always have your bass on full volume if using pedals.
Guitar output is a huge factor. My new US Jazz & old Precision drive pedals wonderfully, nice high output. My old Jazz has a pretty low output and can't really push pedals the way I want without a compressor in front.

Si

[M-Bass-M]

I'm finding this thread quite useful, as overdrive / distortion is something that would help my band, but I've never really worked out how to use it.

The biggest problem I have is that using a pedal, I can get a big, thick crunchy distortion sound. As soon as the rest of the band plays, I just get lost in the mix - specifically I lose the big deep bass rumble that adds to the sound.

My question is, how do I solve this? It's almost like I want to keep my normal bass sound, and then just layer over the distortion, instead of changing the whole signal. Is this a wet/dry mix thing?

Cheers

Mark

[Happy Jack]

Pedals often have a Wet/Dry control. If yours has one, experiment with that for a while ... it's designed precisely to allow you to [color=#b22222][i][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]keep my normal bass sound, and then just layer over the distortion[/font][/i][/color]

Failing which, you can always fall back on the bass players Swiss Army Knife, the Boss LS-2. Run your signal clean into the LS-2, loop one channel through your distortion pedal and the other just a patch cable from Output --> Input. You now have a Dry channel and a Wet channel, with completely independent control of each.