ABSTRACT
Distortion plays a foundational role in creating form, movement, and progression in many heavy metal and hard rock compositions, as I demonstrated in my article “The Structural Role of Distortion in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal. While the article focuses on compositional structures resulting from the distortion produced by guitar amplification, it only tangentially focused on the contribution made by studio recording and production techniques that either enhance the distortion effect or create additional compositional structures not possible outside the studio environment. This chapter explores how studio and production techniques contribute to the generation of distortion effects produced by guitar amplification and the functional role studio techniques play in creating formal additional compositional structures from guitar distortion by combining my Dist-space analytical tool with Allan Moore’s concept of the sound-box. Viewing many hard rock and heavy metal compositions through the Dist-space/sound-box analytical lens demonstrates how distortion or saturation applied to the mixing sound stage either enhances the effect of distortion and its aesthetic goal and/or creates additional compositional structures not possible outside the studio environment.
