[sdiy] Photocell/LED distortion question

[Robotboy8 at aol.com]

I had a thought a while back and the other day it refined itself in my brain 
enough to actually have some clue how I might execute it and I'm wondering to 
what extent it would be worth pursuing this further (I'll probably end up 
x-posting this to some guitar forums soon, as it's really got more to do with 
guitar pedals than synths I guess).

Basically, take a standard opamp-and-two-diodes distortion circuit, build it 
using LED's, and then use the light from the LED's to control either the gain 
of the opamp or of a simple VCA (any clues which?) so that you can have 
distortion without losing the dynamics of the signal - play soft and it will be 
soft, the shape of the wave changed but not the volume.

Make sense?  Feasible?
       -eric
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