History Of Guitar Distortion

there's no argument that distortion is the greatest effect ever created for the electric guitar so today I'm gonna take you back about 70 years to its origin stories we're gonna go from there and bounce forward through the decades because different technologies and different forms of this effect existed as we move forward I'm really excited because this is the heartbeat of electric guitar so let's jump right into why this effect is so important [Music] okay let's open something up but not just any old thing it's something pretty special today extra extra special so episode seven I did a little thing on boost and I talked about how loud is more good and I said would you guys like a t-shirt and you said yes lots and lots of times did you say yes we've seen that scattered throughout all the comments of all the episodes so in this bag is something that I'm pretty proud of let's open it up it was dropped off to me the other day here it is it is the sample to the first ever EHS blog t-shirt loud is more good what we have here is a dinosaur with headphones on crushing a librarian who just wants things to be quiet but they can't because loud is more good my good friend drew this it's custom artwork just for this shirt and we're gonna do these quarterly so here's how this is gonna work I'm gonna lay it out real simple this is the first ever shirt and you need to click the info in the YouTube section down below and there's a link there you click that link and you're gonna go in and get it on the pre-order you have 30 days to order this once we shut that link down it's over this shirt will never exist again we're gonna do them in limited runs and then in about a quarter you're gonna see a new vlog themed t-shirt real simple real basic and really really exciting I'm pretty pumped I'm gonna go put this on because we're doing an episode on distortion and loud is definitely more good alright let's jump in set some ground rules here because I'm gonna start at about 1950 and I'm gonna kind of come through today with these different technologies of distortion I am not in any way gonna bring up or talk about tube screamers and overdrive pedals I'm not really interested in that for this episode it's important just know it's there around nineteen seventy eight you're gonna see a gaping hole and a lot of you are gonna be like what about the tube screamer well for this episode I just don't care it's another episode I'm gonna focus mainly on distortions and carry that through the decades another thing is that I would recommend that if you liked this episode and this kind of stuff that you go watch my origin of fuzz and then also there's an episode called why you need boost pedals that's where the loud is more good t-shirt came from those lay out some really nice finer details about those stories within fuzz and then how boost pedals and the actual signal from our guitar is the invention of the humbucker some different things right in in that category kind of helped create distortion as well so those are two very valuable things to know with that said let's get right to it the first thing we're gonna look at is a 1949 Fender Deluxe this is a TV front because it kind of looks like a TV and in 1951 Howlin Wolf's guitar player took it an't much like this and cranked it up on a song called how many more years when the amps clean it's clean and that's what it was intended to be but he turned it up people were scared to turn it up but when he did it was pretty awesome and it's one of the first recorded fuzz tones ever and it's actually achieved by distorting the tube amplifier [Music] so from turning up a tube amp we also get into a couple of strange things one of them is that around 1951 the guitarist on a really cool track called rocket 88 supposedly took a pin of some sort and jabbed little holes all in the speaker that was what he says makes the distortion sound on that track one of the most famous stories about how all this got started distorting the guitar is the story of the kinks and for that I have a speaker here so around 1964 you have the Davies Brothers and they argue all the time and apparently didn't get along well and there's two versions of this story ray says that he took the knitting needle that he had why did he have a knitting needle who knows and he stabbed a bunch of holes in the speaker well his brother Dave says that's an absolute lie and he says he took a razor blade basically he did this jabbed it in and just cut a hole in the speaker and that distorted the sound I think it's pretty pivotal and when you listen to you really got me you hear the sound of a knock clean guitar it's a very unique distortion and it's a very unique process let's jump to 1960 into what I think is the story that kind of spearheads everything guitar effect related I think it's really pivotal and I think it's really important and the setting is a mash fill studio recording a country artist named Marty Robbins basically the bass players plugged in to the mixing console and there's a problem with that channel and it distorts out the track is called don't worry and go check it out on YouTube all of a sudden you just hear this crazy distorted fuzzy guitar coming through on this pop-country track it's crazy it's insane it should not be there there's even arguments over do we keep it in the recording well they did and there was a guy in the room named Glenn snotty and he took that sound and made a little box to recreate it in real time and legend goes he had a friend who worked in Kalamazoo Michigan at Gibson and it became the maestro fuzz tone so this guy 1962 is really important it's two years after that accident in a Nashville studio and they release it and they market it to bass players they're telling bass players make your bass sound different well it didn't fly that well so they then market it towards guitars they actually released a little 7-inch vinyl a demonstration thing that you could go pick up and get ahold of and it said to us guitar players hey make your guitar sound like a tuba make it sound like a banjo or a cello and all these weird things but nobody really cared they sold five thousand units originally on its release but nobody bought them and then it said that probably only three to five of these shipped for an entire year in 1964 so this was an epic hashtag fell until Keith Richards in 1965 used it on the song satisfaction and in his biography a actually talks about he just used it to track a horn part that don't uh that was just a horn part and they didn't have a horn player so even when he got ahold of this pedal he was just trying to mimic a horn but that set fuzz on the course that we know today it made fuzz a household name for guitar players everybody wanted forever change the sea [Music] [Applause] [Music] even quoted saying that the first time he heard satisfaction on the radio they were on tour and he's in Minnesota they didn't even know that their manager had released this track and he heard the song over the radio and panicked he freaked out because it sounded so insane put yourself in 1965 and listen to this thing and that riff is crazy wild for the time so much so that the guy who played the riff kind of didn't like it so a few months later late 1965 after the Rolling Stones satisfaction is topping the charts and it's causing fuzz to be a thing that every guitarist wants we have a really cool situation happen in London basically a session guitarist in Soho walks up to a music shop called Macari Brothers and he takes this up to the counter he says this is cool you know it's rare it's American there's not many of them over here but man I wish someone could tweak it can you add more bass and more sustain well an engineer on staff there did just that and he created the tone bender this is such an important piece of rock history and distortion history can you imagine the yardbirds without this can you imagine Jeff Beck and what if Jimmy Page had never plugged into a tone bender we wouldn't have Led Zeppelin it's a massive massive piece of the story and probably one of the coolest moments in this entire Thailand [Music] 1966 brought us yet another fuzz pedal it was Jimi Hendrix fuzz of choice it was the Dallas arbiter fuzz face now this pedal comes right from the tone bender 1.5 it's almost a part four-part replica of it but it was mass manufactured and it's one of the most popular and most well-known because of how many of these were made and because it was at the foot of Jimi Hendrix [Music] [Music] so from 1966 with that arbiters fuzz-face up to 69 we see more and more guitar amps that sound awesome they distort more and more as you turn them up guitarists are wanting the sound and designers are giving it to them in 1969 Mike Matthews asked his friend Bob Mayer to help him invent a brand new product a distortion fuzz box sustainer and it's the big muff version one this is pivotal because it's one of the first pieces of guitar gear that ever markets itself as Distortion that word became the word that everyone wanted and this at the time was the product that everyone had to have most of you have owned a big muff of some sort but this is where it started in 1969 [Music] the early 1970s continued to be dominated by loud amps and fuzz boxes for the most part but around 1977-78 a new form of distortion had kind of entered the scene it was using an operational amplifier instead of single transistors and a method called hard clipping which actually clipped off the signal in a very aggressive way and three famous stompboxes were born in basically the same year the first is the distortion plus by mxr this box is awesome because it works so well and it's so simple just turn the distortion on where you want it to go and crank the volume on an already loud amplifier this thing is a dream it's my favorite for slide guitar [Music] that same year in Kalamazoo Michigan where that maestro fuzz tone was made there's a happy accident and a guy makes the rat pedal the very first ones were just kind of him goofing off and making them for friends there were 12 of them made and then a year later he went to mass production and we all know what happened this thing became extremely popular I would have to say on a desert island this is in my top ten pedals ever on certain days it might be in my top two or three is one of the first pedals I ever got that I really really fell in love with and it's just really hard to beat because it covers clean tones all the way to raging fuzz [Music] third classic that just happened to come out in 1978 is the boss ds-1 and literally is the distortion pedal when you say distortion pedal or at least for me an orange box pops up into my head it's a cultural pop icon to me there's nothing more distortion than this box so 78 was a really good year this pedal I mean they're everywhere I think you've all owned this pedal if you haven't you need to go pick it up because it's exceptional it gets a lot of hate I don't know why that's kind of dumb because it's so amazing it works great on loud and arty dirty amplifiers and it's a go-to for some of the best rock recordings ever [Music] [Music] Here I am I was just behind this half stack it's that big because it's 1980 1980 was all about big big sounds big guitar solos big rock and big distortion and the jcm800 was the culprit of most of that I have two marshals here because it's worth mentioning the jcm 900 it's real easy to understand these and why they're different 800 stood for the 80s because that's when it came out 900 came out in the 90s I think you get it this is one of the most iconic distortion sounds ever this 800 head through a 4-12 cab [Music] [Music] 1982 gave us one of the most awesome distortion pedals ever but it got overshadowed by the ts9 it's the TS 9s younger brother the SD 9 sonic distortion this thing's so cool some of my favorite artists have used it and it's a real sleeper I really love it I've always loved it and I just don't see it anywhere which is such a shame so maybe you can go check it out buy one and own one of the coolest discussions ever made the 1990s had so much gear in it I couldn't even possibly cover the bases but I'll just show you a couple of my favorite distortions from that decade because they're awesome first of all the boss Metal Zone you know whatever I hear I hear you mumbling I hear you murmuring but until you plug this into a good clean loud amplifier and really spend some time with it you have been tricked you have been led astray this is a great pedal and it does the job really well and it's actually super versatile don't take my word for it you need to try it yourself my favorite 90s distortion might be the Supra distortion Xtreme these dod pedals are super cool there's all kinds of variations of this circuit and the dod line was massive in this era but this pedals cool and you know it says extreme like it's not good enough just to be distorted like the 90s you needed like extreme distortion so they gave it to you [Music] the current era of distortion and fuzz it's kind of insane how many there are I couldn't even scratch the surface if I wanted to telling you all the things I loved all the things that are available today some of my favorites though I will toss out there you know like the zvex fuzz factory this was a game changer when it came out what's cool is it's really just throwing back to a fuzz face but it does it in a really creative way then we've got big year companies wood cutter this is basically just an amazing rat it's probably my favorite rat replica ever made and it does the job but once again it kind of throws back to the vintage day of distortion the late 70s the park sound fuzz Earthquaker makes this this is just an amazing tone bender you see the point all these things are throwing back to these classic eras of the 80s the 70's and the 60s and we kind of keep going back to what everything came from everyone loves a good print tube amp everyone loves the classic sounds and so even our new creations toss back to those I'll throw one of mine in there it's the angry charlie and it's really just the jcm800 sound that you heard earlier it's a super pivotal and amazing sound but really it's tossing back to 1982 Marshall and we still love it today and that's why it's one of my best-selling pedals because everybody wants that classic sound that's what's fun about distortion distortion doesn't have to necessarily be new anymore it can just be new flavors of the same thing it can be new takes and new approaches to some of these classic ways to distort so whether you're turning up your guitar or turning up a fuzz pedal there's a way to distort uniquely there's something that you can do with it with your guitar and your amp and your pedals so I challenge you to sit down with your rig and practice making some new distortion sounds turn some knobs in a different way do something a little different you might be really surprised what happens today's record time is brought to you by the 1964 debut album of the kinks now this is a pretty serious record for distortion history because it features the hit single you really got me and you know what makes this album really amazing is that they were like the first original British feuding brothers you have the Gallagher brothers of Oasis in the 90s but way before that you got the Davies Brothers so it's pretty cool to listen to this record it's got a family thing going on a rock and roll thing and you got these really cool overdrive distortion tones happening from the amps the torn speakers and just good songwriting so you've heard you really got me but I challenge you go put this record on listen to the whole thing and then re listen to you really got me put yourself in 64 put yourself at a turntable and think about what that was like to hear distortion in that way for the first time that's it for this episode my biggest takeaway from filming this today is just the big realization that a lot of the things that I create and gravitate towards are just really these original distortion tones from how it all started I think as a player and that way too I think you guys might agree that some of the best tones ever these distorted turned off amps and these primitive fuzz pedals they're kind of what we all want we still gravitate back so maybe it's just one of these cases that you really can't reinvent the wheel that we're always gonna pay tribute back to these origins of distortion I think that's cool so here's what I need from you though I need two things I want in the comments you to tell me your favorite recorded distortion tone just tell me the artist and the song of the album your favorite tone that's a distortion tone on a record and then second I want to know about your distortion tone in your rig tell me about your amp your guitar and your pedals tell me how you get your number one favorite distortion tone that you get currently in your rig I'd love to see that and then last but not least you've got to click the link in the description of this video and get in on this shirt you do not want to miss it go over there get your pre-order in we're gonna let those preorder for just several weeks probably just like four weeks and then we're gonna ship them out once they come in so we're looking at not too long and you'll be wearing the shirt that I have on so don't miss that if you liked this episode hit like subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon that'll give you notifications of future episodes that's all I got for today this is a real blast go turn your guitar up because loud is more good make some distortion annoy a few people because that's rock and roll that's why you started playing guitar just go do it turn it up 2000s there has to be an honorable mention inside this beast is a tiny speaker being pushed by digital madness it's important because this amp has a clean channel a crunch channel it has a metal channel they just skip distortion and then there it is with the push of a button it's called insane [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 1,084,863

Rating: 4.8689771 out of 5

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, Guitar, Guitar Pedals, Electric Guitar, Guitar Effects, Guitar Player, Guitar Playing, Pedal Demo, Guitar Demo, New Pedals, New Guitar Pedals, Josh Scott, Guitar Gear, Music Gear, Guitar Tones, Pedal Tones, Good Guitar Tone, Best Guitar Tone, Best Electric Guitar Tone, Analog Guitar Tone, Guitar Sounds, JHS Guitar Pedals, History Of Distortion, Distortion Pedals, How distortion works, Distortion effects, Distortion

Id: XTGmfsKHcXo

Length: 23min 10sec (1390 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 22 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/imstonedyouknow]

He did an episode of that pedal show where they basically did this same thing. I learned a lot from that video. Never knew why i liked and didnt like certain pedals until then. Most of the ones i didnt like were due to hard clipping, and the ones i like are usually fet transistor based. Really helps me when im doing research for new pedals, rather than buying and selling a bunch of things i think ill like but end up being wrong for me

[u/h0ntor]

I love the JHS vlog! A lot of cool videos on there

[u/BrerChicken]

This is a pretty good summary of distortion. From the first overdriven amp, through mixing board snafus, torn speakers, a scared Keith Richards, the first real distortion pedals, back to amp based distortion, and the tons of classic 80s and 90s pedals, before coming to where we are now--trying to recreate and tweak the classic distortion sounds. He demos most of the sounds he's talking about, and even though he runs a pedal company, he only mentions it once, towards the end.

[u/checkmycatself]

Josh does crazy vIds, check out the wah vid. String sock game.

[u/dschneids_]

I absolutely love Josh's videos!! He explains stuff so well that even a stupid person like me can understand it.

[u/Meeturnewdaddy]

No mention of Link Wray in a video on distortion?

[u/blk-cffee]

I know JHS sketchy and I don’t think I’m interested in buying their products after their homophobic shit. But his videos are pretty informative