8,720
edits
Changes
m
→A Brief History of Distortion
== A Brief History of Distortion ==
Early amps weren't designed to produce thick, saturated distortion. Many artists discovered the phenomenon by accident, using amplifiers that were damaged in transport. Some purposefully altered their amplifiers by doing things such as loosening tubes or poking holes in their speakers. Others cranked up their amps as high as they would go, producing a mild overdrive. As the peaks of waveform exceed the amp's maximum output, the peaks would be compressed, or clipped, creating a more square-wave type waveform, which is the equivalent of adding lots of harmonic overtones.
Once artists and manufacturers began to appreciate distorted tones, they found various ways to create them (without irreversibly damaging an amp or speakers). The simplest was to push an amplifier beyond its designed maximum output, creating an ''overdrive'' distortion, by running the amplifier at full volume. This could be pushed further by using a high-output humbucking pickup. These were the earliest ways of achieving overdrive distortion. It would later be revisited in the 70's by using solid-state distortion pedals to boost the signal in front the amp, pushing amps much further into overdrive. Amp manufacturers also realized the potential desirability of overdrive distortion, designing their amps to overdrive more easily and with a smoother, more consistent, less noisy distortion.
Overdrive was originally reserved for a mild distortion, but artists wanted more. Enter early solid-state distortion pedals: ''fuzzboxes''. These things produced a harsh, noisy, "dirty" distortion but offered artists a greater degree of distortion.
== Overdriving the Amp ==