What is distortion in music? When and how to use it

Distortion can be a powerful tool for audio engineers. In the right hands, distortion can add all sorts of flair to a track, fill out thinly recorded signals, and help a mix sound loud without reading loud on the meters. But unintended distortion can absolutely ruin a track. That’s why we have so many articles on how to repair tracks with unwanted distortion. 

In this article however, we’ll cover what distortion is as well as how to use distortion, with use cases in the mixing and mastering process.

Follow along with iZotope  Trash , a powerful distortion plugin that can help you mangle and transform your sounds with endless sonic possibilities. 

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What is audio distortion?

Distortion refers to the altering or deformation of an audio signal’s original waveform. Technically, any kind of audio processing (EQ, compression, time-based effects, etc.) alters an audio signal, but in audio production, the term is used to describe either intentional or undesired sonic destruction.

Distortion as a creative effect

Distortion can be used intentionally as a creative audio effect. Think of classic rock guitar riffs or punk rock vocals, and chances are you’re picturing intentional and obvious distortion. Some audio engineers also like to apply subtle distortion to an audio signal to emulate the behavior of famous hardware pieces. Such distortion can make things feel more alive, more dense, more thick, and what have you.

Let’s show off distortion used as a creative effect in both subtle and over-the-top ways using the Trash distortion plugin. 

Here’s an audio loop taken from the artist P4NTL3R.

There’s not much being done here mixwise. But let’s say I wanted to add some subtle, analog-style distortion to the electric pianos. I could do that within Trash by choosing one of the subtle, “saturate” styles.

Trash can let us blend four different kinds of distortion across an X/Y blend pad, so we don’t need to limit ourselves to just one type of gentle saturation. Here I’ve got a blend going.

Take a look at how we’d blend them in the following video: