The myth of

Many people talk about "high gain" and "low gain" pedals and refer to different circuits which are really either harder clipping or softer clipping. In this video I'll take one circuit and change nothing but the diodes to explain how "clipping" often gets confused as "gain".

Of course, the gain knob generally IS adding gain, but it's the limitations of the circuit or another component such as diodes that's causing it to clip more.