Printable Version of Topic

Click here to view this topic in its original format

GMC Forum _ PRACTICE ROOM _ Noob Question: What Is The "overdrive Channel"?

Posted by: Brady Oct 29 2008, 03:47 AM

I'm a total beginner. What's the overdrive channel? I heard Ivan mention it in his Guitar Tuning Tutorial...and I don't know what it is exactly. I know what overdrive sounds like! Just not exactly what it is or how to use/utilize it.

Posted by: Fullmetal_Tmd Oct 29 2008, 04:40 AM

The overdrive channel is the channel that has a higher output (distortion). You use it to play most of the stuff in today's rock and metal music. If you have a 2-channel amp, switch to your second channel, and thats the overdrive (first is usually clean)

Posted by: Jesse Oct 29 2008, 07:08 AM

It's crunchy! It's also sometimes called, crunch channel or just distortion channel, or lead channel.

Posted by: Ivan Milenkovic Oct 29 2008, 10:13 AM

overdrive channel is the type of a channel that has overdriven type of sound. overdriven sound is achieved when you put more voltage through tubes or solid state transistors then they can actually handle, so they clip the signal a bit, creating overdriven sound. Overdrive is generally referred to tube type of clipping, and distortion i referred to solid state type of clipping. Both is different, mainly due to the characteristics of the clipping, and producing transient tones. You can check out wiki article about it, it is explained nicely.

So on amps in the older days they had only one channel. As amps evolved, manufacturers started to put more channels to the amp, so that the player could control the sound of an amp via footswitch, by switching from clean to overdrive type of sound instantly, instead of going to the amp, and turning knobs in the middle of the gig. In todays amps you can find 3 and 4 channels each with a different amount of clipping the soun, and they usually have different names. Often the first channel is clean that has voltages that components can handle well, and it is called clean. Then you have the CRUNCH, or RHYTHM channel that has slighlty higher voltage for producing a small degree of clipping, and then you can have one or two more even more clipped signals on separate channels, that are usually called OD, OVERDRIVE or LEAD.