Distortion Effect

Audacity includes a wide range of built-in effects, but surprisingly there is no distortion effect. Time to remedy that…

Here is a simple distortion effect with 10 types of distortion. Each preset modifies the shape of the waveform in its own particular way. There is also a slider control to set the amount, or “drive”. At the minimum setting the amount of distortion is the minimum for that preset. At the maximum (100%) maximum distortion is achieved.

The presets include:

  • Smooth Drive,
  • Bright Distortion,
  • Soft Distortion,
  • Peak Noise,
  • Quantize Distortion,
  • Cross-over Distortion,
  • Hard Clip,
  • Peak Invert,
  • Rectifier,
  • Crazy Distortion

The best way to discover what each type sounds like is to try them.

For coders out there, the core of the effect is the “SHAPE” function:

 

Downlad Wave Shape Distortion (right click to “Save As”)

2 thoughts on “Distortion Effect”

  1. Hello.
    I had to edit name of effect, because there is a conflict between Audacity distortion and Your distortion, so I have changed name to wave shaping distortion. This effect is interresting.

    1. Haha, that was not a problem when I wrote this plug-in as Audacity didn’t have a distortion effect back in 2014. In fact, Audacity’s current “Distortion” effect is based on this plug-in.

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