L.E.D clipping

[myron tataryn]

Has anyone tried a bi-colour l.e.d as either hard or soft clipping in anything? Please let us all know your findings if so.

[motterpaul]

I tried one once - didn't find it to be that great but it also depends on the circuit.  The best thing is to use sockets in the board so you can try a lot of different diode combinations.

I have all kinds of LEDs; 3mm, 5mm, square ones, multicolor. They all have a slightly different sound in different circuits. For that matter, you can also try different diodes in those sockets and even mix them up.

I have one where I took out the 4148s and use 3mm blue and green LEDs together. There is another circuit where the original designer swears by yellow LEDs.

Do whatever you want.

[nocentelli]

I suspect they would sound like the single versions. Most of the difference in "sound" of LEDs of different colours is due to the Vf: I just tested a three colour common cathode RGB led, and the Vf is similar to what you'd expect from the individual single colours with green and blue being around 2.6v and the red at 1.7v. Higher Vf means only louder signals get clipped, so when the clipping occurs it sounds more aggressive. I guess red LEDs tend to be used for clipping due to either their lower Vf and softer clipping, or the fact they are historically more common and therefore more available and cheaper.

Bicolour are no more convenient than single LEDs for clipping, since you can't use a single bicolour in antiparallel due to the common cathode and would have to use two anyway. If you found a BC with a large difference in Vf (they're most frequently red/green iirc) you could use a pair of bicolours and have switches to give a variety of different clipping options from only two discrete LEDs.

[myron tataryn]

I have some two lead bi-colour l.e.ds which means they are antiparallel and on my atlas dca they suggest asymmetric clipping.Thank you for your input,Myron.

[nocentelli]

myron tataryn wrote

I have some two lead bi-colour l.e.ds which means they are antiparallel and on my atlas dca they suggest asymmetric clipping.

I've not come across these before: That's pretty cool. They ones I found just now are red + green, may I ask what colour are yours and what are the Vfs?

[myron tataryn]

2 of them are red/green and one is yellow/green, can't remember fV at present as my dcc is at workplace