Distortion

Introduction to Music Production - Week 4 Assignment!

Francesco Sbraccia - Teramo, ITALY

DISTORTION - FRANCESCO SBRACCIA

Distortion!
Lets start reminding that the dynamical range of a system always has low and high
limitations. The low one is due to noise: we cannot work with input signals below the
noise level because noise would cover it - as simply as that! What the high limit is due to
is different in relation to the field. The limit is called threshold. In digital systems, for
example, is due to the finite number of bits of the Analogic to Digital Converter (ADC):
we cannot raise the signal above the maximum value that the ADC can manipulate. If we
take our signal above the threshold level, it will be brutally dropped down to it. This is
better known as clipping, because the signal gets literally clipped: you can see it in the
picture I put on the initial page of the work. The result is a distortion of our input signal,
meaning that the output waveform shape is becoming different from the input one.
The more we raise the input above the threshold, the more it will be distorted. As you
could have understood, the output level does not change anymore going above the

threshold, but the spectral content will be richer: distortion adds higher frequencies in
relation to the ones of our signal. In the picture is shown the effect in terms of frequency
considering a single frequency input.!
The effect for the human ear is to feel the sound brighter and brighter. This is not
always a negative thing: just think about distorted guitars in rock music! Distortion there
is used on purpose to add brightness and to let the instrument being punchier in the mix.!

DISTORTION - FRANCESCO SBRACCIA

But many times in music we want to avoid distortion. A frequent situation is when
working with vocalist sets: we want the vocals to be as pure as they are before entering
our recording system. In this case distortion could be caused by:!

Microphones. To avoid that, place the mic carefully and use pop filters!!

Microphone pre-amp. Always stay in the green range to avoid pre-amp

distortion, controlling carefully the gain of this stage.!

DAW. When DAW distortion occur, youll see red pops in the indicators. Avoid

that at all costs and youll work without this kind of distortion.!

!
These are the basic rules about avoiding distortion: its kind of simple when
technology helps us, and in other cases just use our main instrument, the ears! Sometimes
its cool to experiment something new too. Try to distort something on purpose: it could
be a surprise to create something that your ear could find pleasing. Rock music started
distorting guitars when distortion was the worst thing in musicand see what is
happened after that!!
Thank you for reading. Its been a pleasure writing this short review and I hope
youll find it interesting. !
All the best!

DISTORTION - FRANCESCO SBRACCIA