Birdie sanders eyes my little clipping diode toolset suspiciously. Weather is nice, so I’m in the yard with the birds and the squirrels ( raccoons and possums too) doing another round of pedals.
One of the features that many pedals have is a clipping stage consisting of diodes. Different diodes have different forward voltages, so you can customize the clipping pattern.
Swapping them in and out is a bummer so I created a set of protoboard plugins to make things easier.
I have: Left to Right
Si ( Silicon) Ge ( germanium )
- Ge 1n34a
- Ge ?? ( from dads garage…unmarked…but Ge)
- Asymmetrical Red LED + Ge diode
- Si 1n4148
- Si 1n4148 Asymmetrical
- Si 1n4148 x2
- Led red
- Led yellow
- Led green
All have different forward voltages and can be mixed for sounds between teeth grinding crunchy and teeth aching gritty. Keeps the raccoons at bay.
Apparently IR Leds have a lower Vf that “red”. That might be that just right place…gonna have to chase that whale another day.