Distortion (music)

Distortion and overdrive are "gain" effects used to alter the sound of amplified electric musical instruments, most commonly with the electric guitar but also with other electric instruments. Blues guitarists playing electric blues originally obtained an overdrive sound by turning up their vacuum tube-powered guitar amplifiers to high volumes. While overdriven tube amps are still used to obtain overdrive in the 2010s, especially in genres like blues and rockabilly, since the 1960s, a number of other ways to produce distortion have been developed, such as distortion effect pedals.

The effects alter the instrument sound by clipping the signal, which adds sustain and harmonic and inharmonic overtones, leading to a compressed sound that is often described as "warm" and "dirty" depending on the type and intensity of distortion used. The effects are popular with electric guitar players in the blues, rock, heavy metal and punk rock genres. The terms distortion and overdrive are often used interchangeably: where a distinction is made, "distortion" is used to denote a more extreme version of the effect than "overdrive". Fuzz is a term used to describe a particular form of distortion, originally created by guitarists using faulty equipment (such as a misaligned valve tube, see below), which has been emulated since the 1960s by a number of "fuzzbox" effects pedals.

Distortion

Distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of something, such as an object, image, sound or waveform. Distortion is usually unwanted, and so engineers strive to eliminate distortion, or minimize it. In some situations, however, distortion may be desirable. The important signal processing operation of heterodyning is based on nonlinear mixing of signals to cause intermodulation. Distortion is also used as a musical effect, particularly with electric guitars.

The addition of noise or other outside signals (hum, interference) is not deemed distortion, though the effects of quantization distortion are sometimes deemed noise. A quality measure that explicitly reflects both the noise and the distortion is the Signal-to-noise-and-distortion (SINAD) ratio.

Electronic signals

In telecommunication and signal processing, a noise-free system can be characterised by a transfer function, such that the output can be written as a function of the input as

When the transfer function comprises only a perfect gain constant A and perfect delay T

Music

Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound and silence. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound). Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and with vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping, and there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces and pieces that combine singing and instruments. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses"). In its most general form, the activities describing music as an art form include the production of works of music (songs, tunes, symphonies, and so on), the criticism of music, the study of the history of music, and the aesthetic examination of music. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound."

Turn It Up

Turn It Up may refer to:

Film and television

Music

Albums

Songs

Dance, Dance, Dance

Dance, Dance, Dance may refer to:

See also