What makes overdrive, distortion and fuzz pedals different?

PEDALS
(Image credit: Future)

Reverb's Joe Shadid invites Daredevil Pedals' Johnny Wator to break down the anatomy of dirt pedals in this new video, and it helps explains the key factors that give individual overdrive, fuzz, boost and distortion pedals their characteristics. 

Wator explains terms like hard clipping, tone stack and variable resistor actually mean for your tone, with pedal examples. It's an accessible guide from a designer's perspective that could be useful to anyone who would like to get into designing or modding their own effects pedals

Rob Laing
Reviews Editor, GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars

Rob is the Reviews Editor for GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars, so spends most of his waking hours (and beyond) thinking about and trying the latest gear while making sure our reviews team is giving you thorough and honest tests of it. He's worked for guitar mags and sites as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years but still winces at the thought of restringing anything with a Floyd Rose.