Talk:Overdrive (music)

Is overdrive often used in a more general sense of driving any audio signal too loud, resulting in clipping distortion? One example of such a use is on this page, in the third paragraph under "Circuit Description":

http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/micamp.html

Other string instruments
Has overdrive ever been done on other electrically amplified instruments?

It's frequently used on electric organ and electric bass, too. - anonymous

Curious musicians have probably used overdrive on every known instrument, even instruments that aren't usually amplified such as vocals and percussion.

What's the difference between "overdrive" and "distortion"?

Note that there are different pedal/effects for these two things, and you sometimes hear the term "clean overdrive" as opposed to "distortion".

The naming of the pedals is just a marketing decision - they refer to the same thing. There is no difference between overdrive and distortion. As for "clean overdrive"... This just refers to the fact that the overdriven (distorted) signal sounds good to the ear, not scratchy. More likely, the "clean overdrive" referred to is a choice between the two, as in a clean/overdrive switch, or the amplifier settings of clean, overdrive, super overdrive.

Overdrive is completely different than distortion, although it is similar. The overdrive is more of a lighter sound, whereas distortion is a full-on, smoother effect.

Merging with Distortion
Perhaps this page should just be renamed "Distortion Musical Effect" or something like that. I disagree with the proposed merge because this type of distortion is special and deserves a separate discussion. Overdrive is a bad term for this page, because it requires disambiguation (from e.g. overdrive gears in a transmission) and secondly, it's not a generally accepted term that distinguishes guitar distortion from other types of distortion. Often, just the term "distortion" is used. Moreover, guitar overdrive units are sometimes nothing but preamp stages inserted between a guitar and an amplifier to boost the guitar's signal and obtain distortion from an amplifier which has none. Sometimes the term overdrive refers to a lighter "crunch" distortion used in rock'n'roll and blues. E.g. the kind of distortion used in heavy metal music wouldn't be referred to as overdrive.

--KazKylheku 03:56, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Overdrive is not the same as distortion and it should remain on a separate page. I strongly disagree with the merge too.

I think changing the name of the page will make it more confusing because, although the sound effect "overdrive" also exists, the word was originally describing the sound a power valve amp at high volumes where the sound started to become dirty.

Both guitar effects "overdrive" and "distortion" are just attempts to recreate the desirable overdrive sounds with various non-linear preamplifier designs. The overdriven amp sound has been classified as "soft-clipping" and "hard-clipping" which were then labelled "Overdrive" for the soft-clipping and "Distortion" for the hard-clipping and marketted as different effects.

In any case, I feel that the page "overdrive" should stand on its own and be left as it is.

--prslover 18:38, 14 JUNE 2006

I agree with prslover. Speaking as a guitar player, overdrive and distortion are two similar but seperate effects. They are more than just a marketing tool.


 * And what, specifically, makes them different? — Omegatron 01:51, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It is difficult to describe what makes them different to the uninitiated, but overdrive is distortion originally created through fiddling with the amp (mainly tuning the volume(gain in later models) higher than the Master Volume), and Distortion (as the effect) is usually credited to a pedal. Distortion is a sound like Slipknot, or Metallica, while overdrive is like Velvet Underground's "Sister Ray".

prslover explained it fairly well. Overdrive refers to soft clipping, where the peaks of the waveform are slightly compressed, making for a smoother sound. Distortion refers to hard clipping, where the peaks are cut straight off. Fuzz is an even more extreme version of distortion, where the waveform approaches a square wave. See for more information. As for the merging, I agree that overdrive deserves a separate article. Indrek 20:18, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The difference between "overdrive" and "distortion" being quantitative, I think a merge is justified. The only reason I visited this page was to learn if there was a specific difference between the two (I suspected there wasn't.) If someone can come up with a better rationale than: overdrive is just light distortion, it might deserve it's own entry ... or maybe the overdrive page could be about the Boss pedals and other gear that uses the term.


 * +1 I agree! Given that overdrive and distortion are varying degrees of the same physical phenomenon (tube or transistor clipping), I think they should be the same topic. Steve CarlsonTalk 00:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and boldly merged this article with Distortion (music). There was really no content here that wasn't duplicated in significantly more detail in that article.  Please read that article in its entirety before making the decision to revert!  Steve CarlsonTalk 17:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)