[sdiy] simple nasty clipping?

[Scott Gravenhorst]

I've done my share of research into distortion sounds and found that it's not
necessarily an easy thing to get right.  Some distortion types sound thick and
harmonically correct whereas others sound like pure crap (or "death" as Harry
put it).  Are you looking for something that sounds really nasty?  Or just
looks nasty on a scope?  Hard clipping is one of the things that can sound
rather nasty, along with have wave rectification (or other asymetrical
clipping).  If I were to design my own, I'd want it adjustable so I can noodle
up something that sounds "right" to me.  Clipping will have at least a set
point above (and/or below) which clipping occurrs and this can be made
adjustable, even voltage controllable without much effort.  As previously
mentioned, there is also wavefolding for distortion, several schematics exist
on the web.  There are also more subtle methods that you may find sound better
than "nasty", such as vacuum tube soft clipping (MOSFETs can do this too). 
Nonlinear feedback in a filter can also produce interesting results.

Diode clipping is not my favorite method.  Especially my first attempt (many
many years ago).  I put a diode across the speaker terminals of my guitar amp.
 The diode actually lasted a few minutes...
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