ABSTRACT
Distortion in Music Production offers a range of valuable perspectives on how engineers and producers use distortion and colouration as production tools. Readers are provided with detailed and informed considerations on the use of non-linear signal processing, by authors working in a wide array of academic, creative, and professional contexts.
Including comprehensive coverage of the process, as well as historical perspectives and future innovations, this book features interviews and contributions from academics and industry practitioners. Distortion in Music Production also explores ways in which music producers can implement the process in their work and how the effect can be used and abused through examination from technical, practical, and musicological perspectives.
This text is one of the first to offer an extensive investigation of distortion in music production and constitutes essential reading for students and practitioners working in music production.
Part I Technology of Distortion 1. A History of Distortion in Music Production; 2. The Development of Audio Software with Distortion; 3. A Browser-based WebAudio Ecosystem to Dynamically Play with Real-time Simulations of Historic Guitar Tube Amps and Their Typical Distortions; 4. Non-linearity and Dynamic Range Compressors; 5. Low Order Distortion in Creative Recording and Mixing; Part II Perception and Semantics of Distortion 6. Understanding the Semantics of Distortion; 7. An Ecological Approach to Distortion in Mixing Audio: Is Distortion an Expected, Rather than an Unwanted Artefact?; 8. Towards a Lexicon for Distortion Pedals; Part III Retrospective Perspectives of Distortion 9. Hit Hardware: Vintage Processing Technologies and the Modern Recordist; 10. Even Better than the Real Thing: A Comparison of Traditional and Software-Emulated Distortion in the Contemporary Audio Production Workflow; 11. ‘It Just Is My Inner Refusal’: Innovation and Conservatism in Guitar Amplification Technology; 12. A Saturated Market; Part IV Musicology of Distortion 13. The Studio’s Function in Creating Distortion Related Compositional Structures in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal; 14. The Distortion of Space in Music Production; 15. Distorting Jazz Guitar: Distortion as Effect, Creative Tool and Extension of the Instrument; 16. 'Got a Flaming Heart': Vocal Climax in the Music of Led Zeppelin; 17. The Aesthetics of Distortion
