In the context of electric guitars, the terms "distortion", "overdrive" and "fuzz" are often used interchangeably, but they have subtle differences in meaning. • Overdrive effects are the mildest of the three, producing "warm" natural overtones at quieter volumes and harsher distortion as gain is increased. The best quality overdrive effects respond to how hard the bassist picks or plucks the bass, producing little or no distortion when the instrument is played quietly, but gradually adding overdrive as the instrument is played harder. • A "distortion" effect produces approximately the same amount of distortion at any volume, and its sound alterations are much more pronounced and intense. • A
fuzzbox (or "fuzz box”) alters an audio signal until it is nearly a
square wave and adds complex overtones by way of a
frequency multiplier. A fuzz bass sound can be created by turning up the volume of a
tube amp or transistor amp to the point that preamplifier tube (or transistor preamp)
clipping" occurs. In practice, when a bass amp is "cranked" to its maximum volume, the fuzz tone will also include some power amplifier clipping. While some musicians seek out the additional "grit" provided by power amp clipping,
audio engineers and
bass technicians recommend avoiding power amp clipping, as it can blow speakers. Fuzz bass can be produced by using an electric guitar fuzz, distortion or overdrive pedal. The downside of using a pedal designed for the electric guitar is that the lower-end bass tone is mostly lost when the signal is heavily clipped. Clipping is a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven and attempts to deliver an output voltage or current beyond its maximum capability. Driving an amplifier into clipping may cause it to output power in excess of its published ratings. Clipping is a
non-linear process that produces
frequencies not originally present in the
audio signal. These frequencies can either be "
harmonic", meaning they are whole number multiples of the signal's original frequencies, or "inharmonic", meaning
dissonant odd-order overtones. 1980s grindcore groups, such as
Napalm Death in the sound clip to the right, used a very heavy, distorted bass tone that resembles the sound of a grinding buzz saw. bass overdrive pedal on a 6 string bass. The simplest fuzz bass pedals have knobs for controlling the volume level, the tone, and the fuzz or overdrive effect. More complex pedals have different distortion effects (e.g., overdrive and fuzz),
gates to trigger the volume at which sounds will get overdriven,
mixers to mix the natural and fuzzed sound in the player's desired proportions, and multiple band equalizers (typically for low and high frequencies). Boutique fuzz bass pedals even have unusual effects such as a "starve" effect, which mimics the distortion sound a pedal gives with a dying battery, a diode selector (either silicon or germanium) for selecting the transistor overdrive tone, and an octave selector (above or below the pitch being played). ==Overdrive built into amplifiers==