Difference between Overdrive and Low Distortion?

[Let's all laugh at Rangers]

I know fuzz sounds well, fuzzy, but to my ears distortion and overdrive tend to sound as fuzzy/smooth as each other. I know some effects allow you to effect the distortion level with how hard you hit the string, and from playing distorted slide that various combinations of tone, pickup and distortion can effect how rattly the tone sounds. So what's the deal with overdrive? Can you effect the distortion level with how hard you play, better than you can with a distortion pedal? Does it sound less fuzzy with just as much distortion (with the knob turned higher up than the knob on the distortion pedal), or is it just a distortion pedal with the distortion knob turned down? Thanks for any feedback.

[tragabigzanda]

There is a wolf in me . . . fangs pointed for tearing gashes . . . a red tongue for raw meat . . . and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fox in me . . . a silver-gray fox . . . I sniff and guess . . . I pick things out of the wind and air . . . I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers . . . I circle and loop and double-cross.

There is a hog in me . . . a snout and a belly . . . a machinery for eating and grunting . . . a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.

There is a fish in me . . . I know I came from salt-blue water-gates . . . I scurried with shoals of herring . . . I blew waterspouts with porpoises . . . before land was . . . before the water went down . . . before Noah . . . before the first chapter of Genesis.

There is a baboon in me . . . clambering-clawed . . . dog-faced . . . yawping a galoot's hunger . . . hairy under the armpits . . . here are the hawk-eyed hankering men . . . here are the blonde and blue-eyed women . . . here they hide curled asleep waiting . . . ready to snarl and kill . . . ready to sing and give milk . . . waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.

There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird . . . and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want . . . and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.

O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head, under my red-valve heart—and I got something else: it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart: it is a father and mother and lover: it came from God-Knows-Where: it is going to God-Knows-Where—For I am the keeper of the zoo: I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work: I am a pal of the world: I came from the wilderness.

[Ello Sailor]

I think mf or Spenno would probably be the ones to ask, but my understanding is:

Overdrive pedals will offer a more dynamic response to softer/harder playing than distortion pedals, as it is essentially a signal boost, with gain being the biggest factor. The former were designed to give the tone of a tube amp turned up to 11, which would result in clipping & harmonic overtones, without needing a fancy tube amp, or risking blowing out your windows. Distortion pedals add texture somewhat independent of the original signal. They're designed to hard clip and will operate largely the same at any volume/intensity of playing.

I would recommend watching loads of pedal reviews on Youtube to give you a better idea.