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In the world of guitar music and guitar amplification, distortion is actively sought, evaluated, and appreciatively discussed in its endless flavors. In many types of music, distortion is applied to guitar and other instruments, particularly within Rock, Punk and Metal. Guitar distortion can provide a sustaining tone for playing solos or leads, or a rough, crunchy tone suitable for rhythm guitar. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
This page is about amplifiers for musical instruments. ...
A distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. ...
Left: Rosa Hurricane, a heavy metal-style solid body guitar. ...
Rock and roll (also spelled Rock n Roll, especially in its first decade), also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. ...
A group of punks at a music festival. ...
Heavy metal is a form of rock music characterized by aggressive, driving rhythms and highly amplified distorted guitars, generally with grandiose lyrics and virtuosic instrumentation. ...
// Rhythm (Greek Ïυθμός = tempo) is the variation of the duration of sounds or other events over time. ...
Edge-of-breakup as the baseline Rock sound The central point of reference for dialing-in Rock distortion sounds is not a clean signal, but rather, a tube power amp that is running on the edge of audible distortion, so that as the guitar strings are plucked harder, the amount of distortion and the resulting volume both increase, and lighter plucking cleans-up the sound. Special effects are then dialed-in to complement and preserve that baseline foundation of edge-of-breakup.
Guitar amp modelling is about various guitar-specific distortion qualities, rather than pure amplification or special effects. Amp modelling is about reproducing several popular varieties of distortion that serve as common points of reference. Guitar distortion is produced by using effects pedals in conjunction with a guitar amplifier, and thus bridges the two subjects, while also including guitar pickup selection and windings, guitar volume, and how the guitar is played.
Physical approaches to creating distortion The earliest uses of intentional distortion that have been recorded were achieved through "doctoring" amplifiers and speakers, intentionally misusing them by removing some of their vacuum tubes or punching holes in their speaker cones. Later distortion and fuzz effects were achieved through electronics. An amplifier is a device which changes a small movement into a larger movement. ...
Closeup of a loudspeaker driver Wall-mounted loudspeaker. ...
In electronics, a vacuum tube (U.S. and Canadian English) or (thermionic) valve (outside North America) is a device generally used to amplify, or otherwise modify, a signal by controlling the movement of electrons in an evacuated space. ...
A 1965 Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1A, one of the first commercially available fuzzboxes. ...
The field of electronics is the study and use of systems that operate by controlling the flow of electrons (or other charge carriers) in devices such as thermionic valves and semiconductors. ...
The band Smashmouth has used aluminum foil vibrating against a speaker horn driver to produce a rattling fuzz sound.
Clipping in signal processing In fuzzboxes and solid state distortions, the signal is boosted, and the tops of the waveform clipped off. In vacuum tube distortion, or tube modelling distortion, the top of the wave form is compressed, thus giving a smoother distorted signal, that retains more of the original waveform. This is generally considered more pleasing to the ear (see tube sound). This is commonly referred to as overdrive, as it was originally (and often still is) attained by driving the tubes in an amplifier a little harder than they can handle without affecting the signal. A 1965 Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1A, one of the first commercially available fuzzboxes. ...
In electronics, solid state circuits are those that do not contain vacuum tubes. ...
The word Boost can refer to a number of things: Look up boost in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Clipping is one form of distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven, which happens when it attempts to increase voltage or current beyond its limits. ...
Valve amplifier (British English) means the same as tube amplifier (American English). ...
In the field of rock music, overdriven is a term used for an electric guitar amplifier when turned up, usually deliberately, past its maximum possible output, to the point where distortion (clipping) is clearly audible in the output signal. ...
Many solid state distortion devices attempt to emulate the valve sound of overdriven vacuum tubes. This article is about emulation in computer science. ...
Valve sound is the sound either from a valve amplifier or a specially designed transistor amplifier. ...
In electronics, a vacuum tube (U.S. and Canadian English) or (thermionic) valve (outside North America) is a device generally used to amplify, or otherwise modify, a signal by controlling the movement of electrons in an evacuated space. ...
Distortion voicing through alternating EQ and clipping stages Rock guitar distortion is obtained and shaped throughout the standard signal processing chain, including multiple stages of preamp distortion, power tube distortion, power transformer distortion, and guitar speaker distortion. Much of the distortion character or voicing is controlled by the frequency response curve before and after each distortion stage; this dependency of distortion voicing on frequency response can be heard in the effect that a Wah pedal has on the subsequent distortion stage, or by using an EQ pedal to extremely favor the bass or treble components of the guitar pickup signal prior to the first distortion stage. Similarly, a guitar amp's tone controls shape a different power-tube distortion voicing if the tone controls are set to extremely emphasize the bass or treble. An example of a typical high-end stereo preamplifier. ...
Packaging of power-tube distortion capability Power-tube distortion can be produced in a dedicated rackmount tube power amp. A modular rackmount setup often involves a rackmount preamp, a rackmount tube power amp, and a rackmount unit containing a dummy load and guitar speaker cabinet simulator filter (Palmer's PDI-03). A similar alternative is to use a rackmount dummy load (without a cabinet simulation filter), followed by additional line-level rackmount signal processing, and then use a rackmount solid-state amplifier to re-amplify the signal to drive a guitar speaker.
Some effects pedals internally produce power-tube distortion, including an optional dummy load for use as a power-tube distortion pedal. Such effects units use a preamp tube such as the 12AX7 in a power-tube circuit configuration (as in the Stephenson's Stage Hog), or use a conventional power tube, such as the EL84 (as in the H&K Crunch Master compact tabletop unit).
Obtaining preamp or power-tube distortion Preamp distortion can be produced entirely within a distortion pedal, floor preamp/processor, or rackmount preamp/processor designed for guitar. Or, a non-distorting level booster such as an equalizer pedal can be used to push the guitar amp's preamp stages into distortion. Similarly, a floor guitar preamp/processor or an outboard rackmount guitar preamp/processor with built-in preamp distortion can be the sole origin of the preamp distortion. Guitar effects are electronic devices that modify the tone, pitch, or sound of an electric guitar. ...
A Signal Processor is an electronic circuit that removes information from an analog signal as quantifiable units for further analysys. ...
During the 1960s to early 1970s, distortion was primarily created by overdriving the power tubes. During the 1980s and 1990s, the Master Volume feature was standard on almost all guitar amplifiers, enabling conveniently generating high distortion levels in the guitar amp's preamp section while blocking most of the resulting signal from going to the power tubes, keeping well within the linear region of the power tubes and thus keeping the sound level down to the desired level. A wide selection of distortion and overdrive pedals became available then, including preamp-tube based distortion boxes, so distortion was popularly created by preamp distortion.
Preamp tube distortion can't produce all the classic tube distortion sounds; it sounds relatively buzzy, thin, fizzy, and dynamically flattened.
Power attenuation for volume-independent power-tube distortion Power-tube distortion is becoming available at lower volumes by using power attenuators, power-supply-based power attenuation, built-in attenuation in tube guitar amps down to the milliwatt level, lower-wattage tube amps (such as a quarter-watt or less), speaker isolation boxes, and low-efficiency guitar speakers.
Amp modelling for distortion emulation Amp modelling, typically using digital signal processing, produces refined flavors of distortion that attempt to emulate the combined sounds of preamp, power-tube, and speaker distortion in famous guitar amplifiers. This digital signal processing to produce a wide range of famous distortion sounds can be in the form of realtime software running on a computer, or it can live in hardware such as a compact pedal, oversize pedal, rackmount processor, desktop or floor processor, or in a guitar amp head, including a tube amp. Digital signal processing (DSP) is the study of signals in a digital representation and the processing methods of these signals. ...
A Lego RCX Computer is an example of an embedded computer used to control mechanical devices. ...
edit Visit the Guitar Portal Image File history File links Commons-logo. ...
Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ...
Image File history File links E-Guitare-horiz. ...
See also
In the field of rock music, overdriven is a term used for an electric guitar amplifier when turned up, usually deliberately, past its maximum possible output, to the point where distortion (clipping) is clearly audible in the output signal. ...
A 1965 Gibson Maestro Fuzz-Tone FZ-1A, one of the first commercially available fuzzboxes. ...
Guitar effects are electronic devices that modify the tone, pitch, or sound of an electric guitar. ...
It has been suggested that Effects pedal be merged into this article or section. ...
External links - Amptone.com Amptone: How to dial-in guitar sounds independently of volume level
- Tons of Tones !! : Site explaining non linear distortion stages in Amplifier Models
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