[brandondrury]

I've noticed with my Vintech 1272s that there is a point where the peaks will be rounded off without hearing any "bad" clipping sounds. The sound is a tad fuzzy. You can really hear it on long, loud vocal passages. This kind of thing is pretty cool on some indie rock stuff or maybe if you were going for production like My Chemical Romance. Really, it's fairly subtle what it does, but it does add this low mid thing that could be called a "vintage" sound if you wanted to go that route.

Overall, I don't think it's all THAT usual of a trick. It's nice to have it, but it's not like a singer wanting a "distorted" vocal is going to be happy with it. You are going to need something more drastic to satisfy that sort of person. However, it is the kind of thing that would take a "pristine" vocal and sort of crap all over it. So, it seams like you have more to loose with this trick than to gain.

Also with the 1272 there is sort of a brick wall overload type of deal where it sounds like a digital pop. This has not been good for anything.


Now my Presonus M80 is a totally different story. I have 4 tracks of it being entirely overloaded on every heavy song I've done with the band I've been producing for the past zillion years. I come straight out the DI of my Rivera and into the Presonus. I overload the living shit out of it. I'm talking about full red death. The sound coming from the Rivera is mostly clean, but has all the low end rolled of it.

I find adding this wretched fuzz to a guitar signal in just the right moderation is enough to really make my guitars come to life. On their own, they make the worst sounding tones you've ever heard in your life. However, when blended with some Royer R121 guitar tracks, the end result is quite pleasing to my ears. This is a trick and I don't expect everyone to like it.

That's pretty much my experience with overdriving preamps.

Brandon