RE: distortion, overdrive,fuzz,crunch,special sauce, secret goo

["Rainer Straschill" <moinsound@googlemail.com>]

Although I'm considered to be among those "who don't know the
difference" by some, I found two things to be helpful when working
with distortion.

First of all, a distortion (or overdrive, fuzz, whatever) is by
definition a highly non-linear component. This means that it can (and
will) generate new frequencies (to phrase it simply), and that the
order of effects in a processing chain is of importance.
Taking conclusions from both of these, I found it sometimes to be
helpful to have some kind of EQ both before and after the distortion
stage. Akai once built a stomp box like this, but it was discontinued
rather quickly. When working with multi-effects devices or computers,
it's however easy to get that (e.g. on an Eclipse by using the chain
of 4 para EQ into one of the pre models (which feature a post EQ)).

Bill also mentioned the fact that some of the discussed effects have a
huge effect on the dynamics of your sound - which, basically, is the
nature of a nonlinear component. One thing I found to work rather
nicely when playing those hugely overloaded fuzz/crunch sounds is to
use an envelope follower on your input signal and use that to modulate
the output level of the distortion effect. With that, you get a "goes
to eleven" sound all the time, which still reacts in volume to your
playing.

            Rainer