Amplifier, Distortion, and The Wailing Guitar

[Luminax]

Greetings folks, I'm new to the board and would be very happy to discuss a few things that caught my interest.

I just recently dismantled/operated on one of my two guitar amplifier (the analog one, the digital I dare not touch without proper instruments)

**broken link removed****broken link removed**

From a glance, looks like a single, at most dual op-amp pre-amplifier setting with a pre-set overdrive line, feeding a three-band simple filter, feeding a Class A? Class B? Transistor Power Amplifier(the big gray ribbon cable attached to the Transistor attached to the casing).

Now, I'm quite fond of experimenting with op-amps and power-amps, and filter circuits, and usually I put it as :

Input -> Filter(active/passive) ->Preamp -> Power.​

With the distortion/fuzz/effects/etc either between the filter and the preamp, or between the preamp and power, depends on the setting.

Any thoughts on this ? I do not know the details of Fuzz/Distortion waveform but from theory, they're just mostly ovedriven/clipped waveform, right ? and if so, wouldn't the filter circuit (bass/middle/treble) be best put BEFORE the overdrive?

 

[audioguru]

They usually distort the sound with fuzz first then filter it.
If you filter it first then distort it, the output will be full of high frequency harmonics that might not be wanted.

 

[Luminax]

Good point, but the 'filtered form' distorted, and the 'distorted form' filtered carry a different form of sound, don't you think ? for one, the usual high-bass+very-low mid+ medium-high treble setting of filter run through high-gain overdrive pre-amp setting usually sound a bit better (imo) than running the high-gain pre-amp output through the same filter.

 

[audioguru]

I think that the distortion of a guitar's fuzz circuit sounds awful. I hate distortion.