Distortion is a pretty versatile effect.
If you're looking to add in some extra bite or warmth to your sounds, it does the trick.
I'll be talking about Overdrive, Fold-back, Clip, Decimate and Bitcrush, so stick around if
you want to learn what they all do.
[Distortion Effect Tutorial]
Hey, everyone, Jake from Transverse Audio here.
If you have no clue what distortion is, that's fine!
I'll be walking you through all of the knobs and whatever else might be in the
typical distortion plugin.
The first thing I want to talk about is the different types of distortion.
I think it's the most important part of this effect as it determines how it will make everything sound.
Overdrive will simulate overloading the input with gain making it sound more aggressive or crunchy.
Like this:
[Overdrive example]
Clip essentially cuts off anything above a certain threshold of the waveform.
This flattens it out and removes some of the signal.
[Clip example]
Foldback on the other hand usually takes the point where clip would cut it off
and will fold back (or flip) anything above that threshold.
[Foldback example]
Decimate is quite simple, it reduces the sample rate of the signal.
[Decimate example]
Finally, Bitcrush.
This is similar to Decimate as it takes the original sound and usually reduces its resolution
and sample rate.
[Bitcrush example]
One of the most common parameters in distortion effects is the amount option.
From what I understand, the Amount control is quite similar (if not the same) as Drive.
The drive control varies across different plugins.
Typically, drive will either determine the input or output gain.
This will saturate the sound (either more or less) depend on what you have it set to.
At a low setting, it should create a softer sound like this.
[Low drive example]
As you turn it up, you'll start to hear a much warmer and full sound,
adding some harshness like this.
[High drive example].
Having a filter on a distortion effect allows for control over what part of the
frequency spectrum is affected.
This is essentially an equalizer, but usually, will only come as high and low cutoff filters.
Now, this is pretty good as it doesn't make EQ overly complicated, yet still provides
you with the ability to chose specific frequency regions to distort.
You can isolate the effect to only saturate the low end with a low pass filter.
You can also choose where the curve starts to drop off with the frequency control.
[Low pass example]
To do the opposite and distort the higher frequencies instead, you
can use a high pass.
[High pass example]
As per usual, the majority of all software effects have a dry and wet knob.
In distortion plugins, you'll often find it called "mix" which just refers to the mix
of the dry (unprocessed) sound [Dry example] with the wet (distorted sound).
[Wet example] Some will come as two individual controls, while others will be together in
one knob or slider.
[Dry/Wet examples]
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