15 circuits documented
What the circuit
actually does
Most pedal writing tells you what something sounds like by comparing it to another pedal you have also never played. This does the other thing: what the circuit is doing to your signal, what you can hear as a result, and where it goes in the chain. Nothing here is for sale.
- Circuits
- 15
- Makers
- 10
- Chain slots
- 11
The circuit, not the adjective
Soft clipping in a feedback loop and hard clipping to ground are different things and they sound different. Saying which one a pedal does is more useful than calling it warm.
Something you can check
Every description says what to listen for, described so you can hold the pedal and find out whether this page is right. That is the standard the writing is held to.
Order, with reasons
The chain page gives the conventional order and the reason behind each position, because a reason can be argued with and a rule cannot. Plenty of good sounds break it.
Start here
All 15 circuitsTube Screamer
Soft clipping and a midrange lift, built to push an amp that is already working.
Fuzz Face
Two transistors that want to be plugged straight into the guitar.
Big Muff Pi
Two cascaded clipping stages and a tone stack that scoops the middle.
Deluxe Memory Man
Bucket-brigade delay whose repeats get darker every time round.
Cry Baby
An inductor-based bandpass filter with the treadle sweeping its centre.
Phase 90
Four all-pass stages sweeping two notches, and exactly one knob.
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