These explanations take the diode out of its context, view it in isolation from the overall circuit which is always a mistake, the frequency response of what is before and after the clipping has a greater affect. If you want to understand how different types of diodes affect the sound you need to look at the harmonics they create and how the input and output circuitry affect the harmonics created by the clipping.
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> These explanations take the diode out of its context,
Which turns out to be one of the cornerstone of the scientific method: isolate a tiny part of a complex system, understand its behavior thoroughly and in depth if you ever want a shot at understanding how the complex system works and how the tiny parts contributes and interacts with it.
The scientific method is a very lousy way to learn something which is well established and understood. Go learn Maltese through the scientific method, I will get a book or teacher and be conversational in it while you are still identifying diphthongs. More importantly this article is a poor foundation for scientific understanding being built on very subjective language use instead of verifiable data.
Yeah, but how does it sound?
Putting specific hardware in your signal chain is the only way to know.
Knowing requires a breadboard.
Or a trip to a music store…
…or using a plug-in.
Or better yet, include some brief sound clips of notes being played with and without the diode combination being discussed.
Yep. No actual user of a guitar pedal cares about its frequency response over its sound lol