Electronic Music Producer’s Guide: Distortion
Adam Pollard aka Multiplier, takes you on a journey into the land of distortion, and the role it plays on your signals, sounds and creative explorations.
Videos
• Introduction (00:51) - Multiplier discusses what he will be covering in this series.
• Frequencies & Harmonics (02:35) - To understand distortion we must first understand how we as humans hear sound. Multiplier reveals this info and more.
• What is Distortion? (05:03) - Learn all about distortion, and how it shapes the tone by adding or enhancing harmonics.
• Dynamics (02:58) - Now get an understanding of the relationship between distortion and dynamics, and how they effect each other, for both the good and bad.
• Distorting Kick Drums (04:00) - Apply your new found knowledge of distortion and dynamics and see how to distort a kick drum, using a compressor to shape the dynamics.
• Waveshaping (03:07) - Discover what waveshaping actually does, and get a few insights on how different wave shape types create different types of harmonics (e.g. symmetrical vs asymmetrical).
• Post-Filtering (02:38) - See how it's often useful and beneficial to EQ/filter, after distortion.
• Pre-Filtering (03:41) - Discover Pre-filtering, and modulating a pre filter, as well as the broader concept of how changes before distortion have a bigger impact than changes after.
• Detuning (05:02) - Learn how you can use detuning to fill out the frequency spectrum, more than with distortion alone.
• Sub Bass (04:11) - This video looks at how and why to distort a sub bass, as well as an interesting "2nd harmonic only" distortion mode.
• Energy, Thickness, & Vocals (03:00) - Multiplier reveals tricks focused on distorting for thickness, dry/wet mixing, multiband distortion, and magic settings for male vocals.
• Bit Crushing (07:31) - Here Multiplier reveals what bit crushing (downsampling and bit reducing) is actually doing, and then gives an example on a bass line.
• Oversampling (02:55) - Explore high-quality distortion modes, and learn what it helps correct, and when you might actually need to use it.
• Playback Devices (03:08) - Understand how playback devices distort and how this needs to be considered when adding distortion in your DAW.
• True Peak (02:58) - Discover true peak and how it could be creating additional distortion at the playback stage.
• Distortion Sound Design (03:02) - In this video Multiplier shows you how to get creative with distortion, creating some wild sounds!
• Frequency Shifting Concept (04:31) - Wrapping it up, see how to get creative with frequency shifters and distortion, and explore a powerful concept regarding harmonics.