But there are lots of other kinds of distortion too, including overdrive, saturation and tape saturation. So far, I’ve used the term “distortion” in a generic sense, though it’s also used more specifically to describe heavy, fuzzed-out distortion like you get from a high-gain guitar amp or fuzz box. Overdrive, Saturation and Tape Saturation Most DAWs, such as Steinberg Cubase, come with a range of distortion plug-ins, offering a variety of different sonic flavors. These closely emulate the sounds of tube, tape and transistor devices. Unless you own outboard analog gear, you’re likely to get your distortion from analog-modeled plug-ins in your DAW. For example, here’s an audio clip that demonstrates the sound of tube saturation/distortion on guitar: Tubes, tapes, transformers and transistors each distort differently when you overdrive them. The type of circuitry in the analog gear will determine the nature of the saturation. But, when used in moderation, the result is likely to be a pleasant distortion known as saturation or soft clipping, which adds overtones, harmonics and a gentle degree of compression to the original audio. Levels above 0dBu do overdrive the circuit. Here, you can push the level above 0dBu (dBu is the scale typically used by analog meters) without creating hard clipping. It’s a different story with analog hardware. Soft Clipping Is A Totally Different Story A guitar waveform (above) that has been clipped (below). The tops of the waves get clipped off, which is why it’s referred to as clipping. Instead of continuing to go up, it just flattens out against that ceiling. Once the level reaches 0dBFS, it’s as if it’s hitting an immovable ceiling. 0dBFS is as high as you can go before clipping occurs.

This is a phenomenon that occurs in digital audio when you push a signal higher than 0dBFS (decibels full scale), which is an absolute maximum that’s represented by 0 on the level meter in your DAW’s mixer. If you turn the input or output levels of a track up too much in your DAW, the result is clipping. In this column, we’ll focus on the creative aspects, but for context, first a brief word about unwanted distortion.

Examples include a distorted guitar, a gritty vocal track or a mix tinged with light saturation to soften it around the edges. Then there’s creative distortion, which you intentionally apply to an audio signal. There’s unwanted distortion, also known as hard clipping, which occurs when you inadvertantly overload the input to a digital device (either hardware- or software-based). In the audio world, the word “distortion” has more than one meaning.

How to distort audio