In the guitar world there are various sounds that are usually in every guitarist’s toolbox: delays, chorus, flanger, and so on. All effects are built on a base sound that can be divided into two groups: clean and saturated. Today we’ll take care of the latter. Saturating a guitar is quite common these days, but how many types of saturation are there? How can I get them? What is each one for? These are questions of the day and, although the answers are not generally easy to come by, we’re going to try: how do you saturate a guitar? How guitar saturation was discovered is a story involving chance and the deterioration of the gear in use at the time. In the early days of the electric guitar, the fact that something distorted was a sign that something was in poor condition and therefore had to be avoided… until some guitarists and producers began to appreciate the beauty of that ragged sound. For example, Willie Kizart, while recording Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88,” had a tube come loose in the amp he was using, producing a distorted sound. Paul Burlison, the guitarist who recorded Johnny Burnette’s “The Train Kept A-Rollin’,” was playing live when one of the tubes in his amplifier fell out and produced a broken sound; the same sound he got live, he later recreated in the studio, since he had loved the effect. Another link in the history of distorted sound is Chuck Berry, who for his first single “Maybellene” began using not-very-large amps that, when turned up, broke up easily. Grady Martin, back in ’61, used a distortion caused by a faulty channel on the console they were using to record Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry.”

Guitar saturation has been reached in different ways: from slashing the speakers outright, as Roy Buchanan did, or like Link Wray, responsible for tracks like “Comanche” or “Rumble,” who used a pencil to punch holes in his speaker so it would break up more easily. Today, the process of getting distortion has a great many shades and textures: overdrive, fuzz, distortion, and so on. And most importantly, we have many methods for getting that effect. We can use pedals, the amp itself, or even the amp’s own volume. Each way will have its detail or even its own flavor.

TYPES
As we’ve already pointed out, there are different ways to sound saturated, and depending on how you get there you’ll sound one way or another:

• Overdrive
Overdrive is a slight saturation that adds a bit of overload to the sound. This type of saturation comes before the preamp, that is, in pedal format. And it’s very interesting to use both with a clean channel and with a semi-saturated one. Many guitarists use overdrives, practically all of them, regardless of style. There are hundreds of overdrive pedals. Among the most famous: Ibanez Tube Screamer TS9, TS10, TS808, Fulltone’s Full-Drive, and so on.

• Fuzz
Fuzz saturation is characterized by a large amount of distortion or, as it’s colloquially known, by having “a lot of grit.” That is, with fuzz we’ll get sounds with practically infinite sustain, but if we want attack, this isn’t our saturation, since fuzzes tend to compress and thus deliver more sustain at the cost of losing attack. Hendrix used his Fuzz Face for a long time, and it ended up becoming very famous. Electro-Harmonix’s Big Muff is quite well known in all its versions.

• Distortion
Distortions are halfway between an overdrive and a fuzz. They have the sustain and grain of a fuzz, but with the attack of an overdrive, although they can never sound with as much attack as an overdrive on a clean channel. There are many distortion pedals: MXR Distortion+, Boss DS-1, and so on, to name a few.

• Boost
Boost means to amplify. In general, a boost pedal tries to raise the volume, but if we also add treble it can emphasize the higher frequencies. Naturally, a boost will raise the output level up to the maximum the amplifier will tolerate. The action of this element can be summed up as a clear volume increase on clean sounds and a bit more volume, but above all saturation, on distorted tones. Examples of boosts: Xotic RC or EP.

So far, the most representative types of saturation we can get with a simple pedal. Now let’s discuss the possibility of getting more saturation through options other than pedals.

• AMPLIFIER
One of the most powerful tools for getting saturation is using the amplifier itself. In this case, we can say the main saturation comes from the preamp: the preamp saturates well either because it has a gain control and thus saturates the signal, or because it receives so much input level that it saturates itself. Amplifiers can come with a single channel or several, to access clean sounds or more saturated ones. We can also saturate the signal through the power stage, which doesn’t usually deliver especially noteworthy results and, of course, doesn’t reach the optimal levels of meat that a preamp can give us. The speaker we put in the amp will be an important factor, not only as a frequency selector but also as an extra source of saturation, since some speakers break up more easily than others. The saturation produced by the amplifier has a different character from that produced by a pedal. In the latter case (pedal), saturation is treated with different routing. The signal is processed before reaching our preamp. When the saturation comes from the amp’s preamp, however, the path is direct, the bandwidth of the amp’s output stays intact and, ultimately, the result and punch are more forceful.

• VOLUME
Amplifiers, especially older ones, don’t have excessive output, which is why the guitarists who came before us usually ran them with the volume wide open. As is well known, an amp cranked all the way up tends to saturate. Obviously, the result will vary depending on its components, electronics and so on, but the tendency will always be the same: to saturate.

Let’s use an example to see how an overdrive leaning toward distortion can sound: the Fulltone Plimsoul.

Fulltone Plimsoul
We already know Fulltone as a maker of high-quality boutique pedals, since it has starred in an article or two. There are many examples of Fulltone pedals used to get saturation.

In the case at hand we have the Plimsoul pedal, halfway between an overdrive and a distortion, depending on how you set the pedal’s saturation control. Let’s go through each of the knobs to see what they offer.

Technical Analysis
The pedal comes with a series of very interesting knobs, since they aren’t the usual ones. Generally, a high-gain pedal comes with a gain control and several parametric controls. In this case we have:

a) Level: The pedal’s own output volume control. With it we control the pedal’s output, which affects the amplifier.

b) Sustain: With it we can choose how long the notes last.

c) HI cut: A control for regulating the highest frequencies. It depends on the other two controls, Sustain and Stage 2.

d) Stage 2: An extra gain control that may remind you of a slightly more British, tube-amp sound. It also comes with an LED indicating the degree of saturation.

e) The 9V power input common to any pedal.

The pedal comes with a built-in access point for inserting the battery without having to open the whole thing. The pedal is true bypass.

Sound
And what does the pedal sound like? The closest first cousin is the OCD. It mainly sounds like an overdrive that, if you want, can sound very pushed, reaching distortion. It has a great response in the mids and highs, so it will work wonderfully for whichever amp channel is the darker one. In terms of saturation, we’ll have more than enough, since from overdrive to the most aggressive saturation it always respects the guitar’s tone very modestly. When we use the pedal with a clean channel, it’s a completely clear road for raising the saturation, but if we try to mix it with a crunch or relatively saturated channel you won’t be able to push much gain. For this we must control the Stage 2 knob perfectly.

Conclusion
To be very concise, we must say the pedal is a very effective device that you’ll surely find useful, whatever your style. The comparison with the OCD, also from Fulltone, is only natural since the two are alike. In my view, the OCD has a greater low-end boost and the Plimsoul has a greater mid boost. It is a very competitive, high-quality pedal.