This is a brief clip of me playing shook me all night long.
Tone 101 - Distortion
This lesson has no video
Distortion. It’s red hot and it’s awesome. There is hardly an effect more popular than distortion. It’s in most every genre of popular music these days, and for good reason, it’s a killer sound.
Guitarists especially love distortion because it gives us magical sustain. It can let the guitar really sing, or sound huge in the low end. It’s like steroids for the electric guitar. And it’s a ridiculous amount of fun.
Distortion goes hand in hand with our previous lesson on power chords. Fire up some distortion and riff away. It’s pretty hard to beat in terms of having a ball on the guitar.
So what is distortion?
Distortion is literally the sound of your guitar signal being pushed to the point of distorting the sound. It’s a function of gain (sensitivity). This is achieved by adding a lot of signal gain before the sound is amplified, known as a pre-amp. This is typically done in one of two ways:
1. Distortion pedal - external pre-amp
2. Distortion or dirty channel on amplifier (built in distorted pre-amp)
Distortion pedals and channels can be adjusted to you liking in 3 main ways:
- Gain - increase or decrease the sensitivity of the guitar signal. Obviously, more gain yields more sustain and texture, and is typically accompanied by increased volume.
- Equalizer or tone - EQ settings allow you control what “kind” of distortion sound you get. Do you want the mid’s scooped out like 90’s metal? Do you want the high’s screaming like 80’s hair band? Tinker with it. You’ll find stuff you like.
- Volume - most pre-amps (pedals or built in) have separate volume controls. This is so you don’t have to kill anyone to get great tone (like you used to have to)
General tips for when using distortion:
1. Start with all settings neutral, in the middle, or at “12:00.” Adjust from there to find your desired sound.
2. The bridge pickup provides the most bite, while the neck pickup is the smoothest. When riffing it is most common to use the bridge pickup. Also, the bridge pickup tends to be a little “hotter,” so it is also preferred for getting the maximum cut in your distorted sound.
3. Humbucking pickups tend to be most controllable under heavy distortion. While many great singe coil players use heavy distortion, single coil pickups do tend to hum and sound thin, thus the name “humbucker.” Humbuckers are simply two single coil pickups wired together. They are fatter sounding and feed back less.
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Video for the intro to distortion lesson.
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🎸 Adding Distortion & Dialing in Your Tone 🎸
In this lesson, we’re exploring distortion—a game-changing effect that can transform your sound and give your playing more character and energy. Distortion is the foundation of many iconic tones, from classic rock to metal.
For practice, I’m using the HX Stomp’s loop feature to experiment with dialing in the perfect tone. It’s a great way to tweak settings and hear how different adjustments impact your sound.
This video is part of my journey working through Guitargate lessons to refine my skills and tone. If you’re experimenting with distortion, I’d love to hear how you approach it! What gear are you using, and what tips have helped you create your signature sound?
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Here's a little riff I played through the "British Accent" preset on my spark 40 amp. I love the sound it produces (particularly with a little bit of volume); crunchy but not too overpowering.
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A quick exploration of various types of distortion/overdrive, and some noisey single-coil demonstration.
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I do love to overcook things. This was as much a challenge of playing only power chords, which I am un-used to, but also about trying to film and get that track lined up. So, what the hey, let's have some fun!
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Got a bit carried away, sorry!!
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Playing some Pumpkins with my Wren and Cuff "Eye See Pi" Pedal.
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I'm new to effects I don't really know anything about them so any help is appreciated. I usually just try to play as clean as I can when I practice so hear mistakes. I tried to play a couple of things that I thought would be good with distortion.
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Cocaine is fun
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I'm still a newbie with this, so I'm just using a pre-programmed Metal setting on my amp (Fender Mustang). I tried customizing my own settings but it was harder than I expected to get something that sounded okay. I'm wondering how much of that is due to having a single-coil guitar vs. something with humbuckers. I imagine you can still dial a single-coil to sound good with distortion but maybe it's just trickier.
I also don't really know how to "riff" yet, so I just chose a familiar and relatively easy lick for this one.
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My first successful riff created with distortion.
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Distortion Demo. Played in Drop D. Hope you like.
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Don't have a free distortion pedal so I thought I'd try to get some hair on my tone using my equalizer pedal. Not my trick, but wanted to share with the Guitar Gate community.
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An oldie but a goodie, I wrote this song back in 1998ish. Just simply learning to play with clean and distortion channels while being a spaz!!! ENJOY!!! - GB
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Here's my performance of the national anthem when I was in the third grade. The Stratocaster (at least my Staggocaster knock-off) deals easily with distortion. Place the pickup selector switch in the 2nd or 4th positions, especially if you turn off the noise gate, as I did to enable some feedback.
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I point out and illustrate that position 2 and 4 on the selector switch activates hum cancellation on a Stratocaster. I use those two positions a lot with distortion and high-gain amplifiers.
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Last one was wrong video.. oops
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I was wondering if it just comes natural, or how the "squeal" sound occurs??
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Just messing around with a bit of doing the cockroach by modest mouse
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This is my distortion video. I have a Gibson Les Paul guitar, Roland Cube amp & DS-1 Boss distortion pedal. I will say, I appreciate so much how Michael talks through the here’s what it is, here’s what it does, here’s how to dial it in and make it sound like you want it to, so practical.
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