3.5

78MainStage Effects
Distortion effects
MainStage Distortion effects overview
Distortion effects simulate the distortion created by vacuum tubes, transistors, or digital
circuits.
Vacuum tubes were used in audio amplifiers before the development of digital audio
technology. They are still used in musical instrument amplifiers today. When overdriven,
tubes produce a musically pleasing distortion that has become a familiar part of the sound
of rock and pop music. Analog tube distortion adds a distinctive warmth and bite to the
signal.
There are also distortion effects that intentionally cause clipping and digital distortion
of the signal. These can be used to modify vocal, music, and other tracks to produce an
intense, unnatural tone, or to create sound effects.
Distortion effects include parameters for tone, which let you shape the way the distortion
alters the signal (often as a frequency-based filter), and for gain, which let you control how
much the distortion alters the output level of the signal.
Warning: When set to high output levels, distortion effects can damage your hearing—
and your speakers. When you adjust effect settings, it is recommended that you lower the
output level of the track, and raise the level gradually when you are finished.
Included are MainStage Bitcrusher, MainStage Clip Distortion, Distortion, MainStage
Distortion II, MainStage Overdrive, and MainStage Phase Distortion. You’ll also find some
great guitar pedal distortion effects in Pedalboard.
MainStage Bitcrusher
Bitcrusher is a low-resolution digital distortion effect. You can use it to emulate the sound
of early digital audio devices, to create artificial aliasing by dividing the sample rate, or to
distort signals until they are unrecognizable.