Re: Great Jumpin Germaniums! (Ge Diode and Transistor Reviews & Discussion)

Posted by Travis on
URL: http://guitar-fx-layouts.238.s1.nabble.com/Great-Jumpin-Germaniums-Ge-Diode-and-Transistor-Reviews-Discussion-tp13256p40972.html

Of course you could experiment with using those diodes for clipping in a variety of circuits, including the tube screamer. If I were using them in a tube screamer I would most likely arrange them for asymmetrical clipping to reduce the compression and volume loss

You could use a transistor instead and of course many circuits like the Big Muff have done that. The tube screamer was unique in the way it implemented the clipping diodes within the non inverting amplifier stage for a more gradual onset of distortion compared to predecessors like the MXR distortion+. If you change this, you no longer have a tube screamer.

The Big Muff has a cool way of soft clipping with transistors by putting the diodes between the base and collector (using common emitter gain stages). You could experiment with one of those clipping stages for more of an overdrive effect. Not a tube screamer, but that isn’t really important