Distortion/Overdrive Whats The Difference

[young/young]

Im not new to playing guitars, ive been playing my acoustic for a year but im gettin a new electric for christmas, but iv never known what the difference between overdrive and distortion is, and ive asked my teacher and she doesnt kno, so if ya could tell me it would help out thanks

[HDJ]

Overdrive is a type of distortion.....
I found this website that goes into detail....

http://users.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/ampovdrv.htm

I always considered Overdrive to be a natural distortion that comes from "overdriving" the tubes and Distortion as a "digital" form of overdrive.

Overdrive uses soft clipping.

Distortion uses hard clipping

Soft Clipping: This is usually marketed as "overdrive", where the gain is inversely proportional to the input signal level. This is typically produced either with back to back silicon signal diodes in the negative feedback path of an op-amp, or with germanium diodes or LEDs back to back in a shunt to ground.

Hard Clipping: Usually marketed as "distortion", where the signal level is restricted within a range. This is typically produced with silicon diodes back to back in a shunt to ground. This is the same as the circuit above, using silicon instead of germanium/LED diodes.

[young/young]

K thanks man much appreciated,

i was told that greenday used overdrive alot with there songs so would that be the overxdrive they use for songs like american idiot and minority or would that be distortion

[HDJ]

K thanks man much appreciated,

i was told that greenday used overdrive alot with there songs so would that be the overxdrive they use for songs like american idiot and minority or would that be distortion

Your welcome!!

That I don't know, I'm not a fan of Greenday.

[young/young]

k thanks for the help anywayz

[Kevin Taylor]

I always thought of em as being the same thing.
Sorta like a 'fuzz pedal' from years ago.

[tehplatypus]

the greenday sound is overdrive. at their thickest sound, it's a really high overdrive.

[PRSplaya]

Overdrive is a bit smoother and more tube like, and distortion has more sizzle and more saturation.

[Jerry Dylan]

if greenday is overdrive what would be an example of distortion?

[Slipin Lizard]

Overdrive tends to have a smoother, "sweeter" sound, found in a lot of 70's classic rock, like Neal Schon from Journey. A bit more modern example would be Slash from Gun's & Roses. Overdrive is often an accompanied by reverb and delay, a little or a lot, subtle or really noticeable, especially for solos. Pete Townsend from "The Who" would be a good example of overdrive being used without a lot of other effects.

Distortion has a more brittle, abrasive sound, found more in punk & metal. As PRSplaya has said, a more saturated sound, the idea being to really blend the notes together into one "crunchy" sound. A really good example of distortion is the guitar in "Creep" (I think the band is "Radio Head"?)... that really abrasive rhythm guitar that leads into the chorus. Nine Inch Nails is another good example of an over-all guitar sound that is based more on distortion than overdrive. Marylin Manson "Beautiful People" would be another distortion example. Distortion tends to be used without any other "spacial" effects like reverb or delay, but nothing says you can't use these effects, its just most guitarist using distortion are going for that dry, brittle sound.

You can probably get overdrive to sound more like distortion and distortion to sound more like overdrive, but it gives you and idea what the designers of the amp, pedal, rack or effect plugin had in mind when you see it labeled one or the other.