Distortion - is an effect that heavily alters the sound by intentionally breaking the shape of the waveform, making it aggressive, dirty, and extremely saturated.

<aside>

Imagine a clean sheet of paper. Now you crumple it, tear the edges, maybe even cut it up a bit — all for the sake of texture. What used to be boring is now raw and interesting. That’s distortion.

</aside>

Fun fact:

The first distortion effects appeared by accident — in the 1950s, guitarists would literally break their amps or slash their speakers with razors to get a “dirty” sound. That’s how rock ’n’ roll was born!