FL Studio Mobile

Distortion

You will be familiar with distortion as it is typically used on rock/electric guitars (that crunchy rough sound). Distortion can also add punch to drum sounds and generally make any simple sound more interesting. Basically distortion is anything that changes the shape of the input waveform, 'distorting' if from the original. Over the years many types of distortion have come from the audio equipment used to amplify or transmit audio signals. For a background to these styles of distortion see Fruity Waveshaper and Distortion (What's Distortion?).

To load presets tap the 'Default' (upper right) and choose from the Presets List.

Parameters

There are several distortion algorithms.

  • Style - Choose between one of several distortion algorithms.
    • Hard - Hard-style heavy distortion.
    • Tube - Traditional analog style distortion with rounding of transients and peak waveforms due to 'sagging' of the output signal.
    • Soft - Similar to Tube but the distortion occurs sooner and is more gradual in effect as the Drive (input) is raised.
    • Clip - Heavy 'digital' style distortion.
  • Bias - Choose to pass only the upper or lower part of the waveform. Sounds similar to Pulse-width modulation. As the level is increased or decreased to the extreme, only the tip of the waveform may be playing.
  • Drive - Input to the distortion stage. Higher levels cause more distortion. Distortion starts at a certain level (a threshold), and Drive determines how much of the waveform is distorted. A low value will just distort the peaks. A high value will push more of the waveform above threshold and so sound more distorted.
  • Stereo - Pans the input to the distortion. More specifically it controls the Left/Right stereo channel level independently. Since the amount of distortion depends on input level, this means the Left or Right stereo channel can be driven harder, and so have more or less distortion.
  • Bitcrush - Digital bit-reduction style distortion. Reminiscent of 8-bit samplers and cheap toys that can play back audio.
  • Gain - Post distortion level control.