Symettrical VS Asymmetrical clipping ?'s (honeydripper is the project)

[H.E.L.Shane]

OK..  So i've been geekin my brains out and learning (and Relearning) a LOT about circuits.

Last night, I successfully fixed an ADA MP-1 that somebody screwed up trying to mod by reading the schamatic and figuring out where he/she replaced the wrong resistors and caps!!  (uuugh.. that thing sounds good now!!)

ANYWAY... right now, I'm building a honey dripper and would like to do the Asymmetrical clipping mod as jimmi photon suggests..

BUT... being that i liek a bunch of switches and other garbage on my pedals.. I was thinking of adding a switch to select from the stock symmetrical 1n914s to the modified 1n34a and 1n914.. 

HOWEVER..   i've been doing the research on the Asymmetrical Vs Symmetrical thing....

Sooooo   in the below piece of the schematic for the honeydripper... I'm assuming that d1 and d2 are the clipping diodes..  correct??

Most of the blubs ive been reading through use 1 diode on one side and two diodes on the other side for the asymmetric clipping,, 

BUT... Am i correct that by having diodes of different types on the positive and negative clipping sides that this is also asymmetrical clipping?? (as jimmy refers to using a 1n34a and 1n914.. 

so, to get assymetrical clipping you could use a 1n34a as d1 and a diffused red LED as D2 or, you could use 1 1n34a as d1 and two 1n34a in series as d2, OR use a 1n34a as d1 and a BAT41 as d2?

[midwayfair]

Asymmetric simply means that one side's Fv is different from the other's. In other words, that they are not matched within a reasonable +/-. Unless you're using matched diodes, the clipping won't be symmetrical.

Of course, you won't actually hear asymmetric clipping unless one side is at least, oh, let's say, 25% different. So something like .3v and .4v might be noticeable, but not very. 2:1 is the usual ratio (this mimics what happens when a triode distorts); 1.6:1 is also pretty pleasant; 3:1 is pretty extreme and LT on DIYstompboxes did a fuzz that was flip-flopable 6:1. You can also do 1:0, where it's just one diode, but this doesn't always have the desired effect and works best as an add-on to something that's already distorted. These ratios are the same whether the extra diodes are in parallel or in series. (Some people think that with diodes in parallel the one with lower Fv will "take over," but this doesn't appear to be true in practice.)

Usually it's just easier to use two diodes of the same type on one side than try to find two different types of diodes with the right forward voltages.

[H.E.L.Shane]

Thank you very much!!

That was exactly what i needed to know.

In all my searching..  I did not find mention of the 2:1 ratio..  But it makes sense why you would use two diodes of the same type on one and one on the other..

That was the ammo i needed to really be a danger to myself and others!!!!