Why does overdrive sound like AM radio?

[neshel]

I noticed this a long time ago, and was reminded this morning listening to the guitar part on the Rockford Files music. Especially emphatic there, but listening to, say, Love at First Feel, it's similar. I've researched and read about clipping and all, but no one has ever mentioned hearing this phenomenon/aspect.

Also, if this belongs somewhere else, by all means move it.

[Silvio55]

It happened to me the same thing when I was starting in the world of electric guitar, the overdriven sounds reminded me AM radio. Itīs because AM is a mid heavy sound, with some highs and little bass, pretty much like a classic guitar amp overdriven, also when you listen AM radio with little portable radios, and you turn it up it starts clipping the output, and more it sounds like an overdriven guitar.

[Alan0354]

Is this a statement or a complain?

It's quite normal like Silvio55 said. You lower the highs so it does not sting, you lower the bass so it does not fart, you left with mid heavy sound and a lot of people like it that way.

[Loogie]

I seem to recall years ago Neil Young saying that a song isn't any good if it doesn't sound good on an AM (car) radio.

[The Dude]

^^^^^^ What Alan said. It's quite often a choice. When you put together a mix, (GENERALLY) you don't want the guitar taking up the whole frequency spectrum. You have to leave room for everything else. I think "AM radio" is a bit of an extreme way of describing it, but if it trips your trigger...... In the old days when AM radio was king, engineers often mixed purposely so that mixes would sound good and translate well on the limited bandwidth of AM. It's a good part of why the mid heavy Yamaha NS10 studio monitors became so popular. If a mix sounded good on NS10's, it would probably sound good on AM radio. Personally, I hate the things, but they did/do serve a purpose. This thread also illustrates why you should keep MOST guitar players out of the studio when you're building a mix.

[neshel]

^^^^^^ What Alan said. It's quite often a choice. When you put together a mix, (GENERALLY) you don't want the guitar taking up the whole frequency spectrum...

I'm not sure that's what I meant. I hear this standing in front of an amp. Any 'distortion' circuit, however hot, has this characteristic. It can be EQd, but there's still this sort of....artificialness in the sound....that is not the same, for example, as a synth square wave.

[Dave H]

The Rockford Files, was it really all that time ago? RIP James Garner.

[neshel]

The Rockford Files, was it really all that time ago? RIP James Garner.

Yeah. I was just a kid when that was on the original run.


Anyways, maybe it's just the compression, that sort of smears the sound, which to my ear has some kind of phase element.....