Bernard Dixon

The problem is… your music does not sound BIG ENOUGH and it LACKS TEXTURE. That is because you don't ADD HARMONICS to make it distinct and flavourful. Here is my basic introduction to HARMONIC CONTENTS, its TYPES & how to use them: (🧵) In this post I'll cover: • Harmonic Content Basics • Distortion • Clipping • Saturation 🐉 Harmonic Content Basics Distortion, Saturation, Clipping, Bit-crushing, Wave-folding... ...are all just different ways of ADDING HARMONIC CONTENT to your sound. Harmonics occur when a signal is transformed in a non-linear way, changing its waveform and therefore its sound. 🔸 Distortion Distortion is a form of adding harmonic content and it usually occurs due to the natural non-linearity of circuits and components of hardware. Manufacturers naturally aim for the lowest total harmonic distortion as a measurement for how "clean" their unit sounds. However, certain kinds of harmonic distortion sound great and make your sound bigger and more powerful. Over the years, both very subtle distortion to enhance character as well as fully distorted guitar amps and vocals proved to be very appealing and successful. 🔸 Clipping Clipping naturally occurs when a piece of gear is fed higher of a signal level than it can represent accurately. The unit can not produce the voltage needed to represent the signal, leading to the tops and bottoms of the waveform to be flattened out. Clipping generally adds odd-numbered harmonics, sounding gritty and more aggressive. This is no surprise if you look at it this way: The more you clip a waveform, the more it resembles a square wave. Square waves, in theory, are the sums of an infinite amount of odd harmonics. "Hard Clipping" We're speaking of hard clipping, when clipping starts abruptly at a certain threshold. Everything above said threshold is clipped, while everything below it remains undistorted. Hard clipping is not the subtlest of ways to introduce harmonic content to your sound and it is fairly uncommon in analog circuits. Keep that in mind when going for "vintage" or "analog" sounds. "Soft Clipping" As the response of analog gear usually becomes progressively more non-linear as you push the unit over a certain level, soft clipping can be referred to as the more "realistic" way of clipping. The sound gets distorted to a certain degree before fully clipping. Clipping distortion can be useful for: ➡️ Single instruments to produce a thicker and richer tone! Beware of the amplified high-frequency content though, as it can mess up the top end of more complex elements, introducing what sounds like white noise. 🔸 Saturation Saturation occurs when a signal exceeds the level at which it can be represented linearly. The peaks are not clipped, but neither are they represented correctly. In the analog realm, this is achieved by overloading a mixing desk, tube compressor or tape machine. Beware that saturation doesn't only introduce harmonic content: It reduces the dynamic range of the signal and for the same reason softens peaking transients. ➡️ Use it to "glue" your mix bus or to "enhance" only a certain frequency band (much like you would do with an EQ). 🐉 This was my basic introduction to HARMONIC CONTENTS & its TYPES. You are very welcome to ask any further questions in the comments or DMs! If you found value in this or you want more posts like this: BOOKMARK this post, so you can go back to it in case you need it! FOLLOW @flohzirkusmusic for more FREE EDUCATION! REPOST this, so your followers don’t sleep on this!