Abstract
This presentation surveys the development of and the approaches to distortion for electric guitars, which plays an extremely important role in modern popular music, particularly in Rock, Blues, Jazz, and Pop. The signal processing for guitar amplification has always included nonlinear effects that are usually heard as distortion, but also lends other important characteristics to the guitar tone. Originally, distortion occurred as musicians tried to coax more volume out of their amplifiers than they were designed to deliver. However, this ‘‘design flaw’’ soon became a tremendous asset. Guitarists discovered that, if handled properly, distortion gave their instruments an expressive, harmonically rich, and highly controllable voice rivaling that of horn players. Today, distortion for electric guitars has been cultivated to the extent that it is deliberately designed into every guitar amplifier. Characteristics of electric-guitar signals and distortion devices will be discussed and illustrated with examples. The reasons why distortion is a desirable artistic tool and related psychoacoustic aspects also will be discussed.
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