A Brief History of Electric Guitar Distortion 

The 6 dollar headphones i'm watching this video with have distortion included

Distortion is probably one of the happiest accidents ever.

You know you have reached there when people start thinking your music can start gang fights.

My cat was sitting on my lap when i started watching this, when you distorted your voice, he forcefully got up, walked away and puked. You made my cat puke with distortion.

Rumble is a dead serious, it sounds ahead of its time, something like from the late 60's

I had a Maestro Distortion pedal. I learned that it sounded better when it was warm, so I put a christmas light in it and left it cracked on the back where the battery was, so the wire could come out. The bulb burnt out one day so I bought another Christmas light to put in it. That night on stage it quit. I didn't know that those lights came in different wattages and I had gotten a HOT one and it fried my pedal:) It sounded best just before it burnt up:) I was 14 yrs old and it was 1965:)

One of the real pioneers of Distortion is Marty McFly

Soundwaves: It's over, distortion, I have the high ground Clipping: You underestimate my power!

“Chuck! Chuck, it’s Marvin. Your cousin, Marvin Berry. You know that new sound you’re looking for? Great content as always.

1:14 *when that one friend with the Kinect mic joins the Xbox party*

Stuffing a tube amp full of newspapers, yeah that's not a fire hazard.

Back then a gangfight was called having a "rumble"

1940’s dirt tone is still cleaner than my clean sound damn

For some reason I found it unreasonably funny when he said "This was a bad time to be a speaker cone"

Rumble _still_ sounds mean to this day. I can't imagine how scary it must have sounded to old people back in the day lol. Think about it. Imagine some 70 year old hearing _that_ song. A person born in the 1800s, who grew up hearing his parents talk about the Civil War....hearing THAT song. I've always loved how music is SO capable of.....scaring people. Mere sounds, when played just so, can literally _scare_ people. I fucking love that about music. I still remember the first time I heard a song that actually scared me. Oddly enough it was a Michael Jackson song...the song "Why You Wanna Trip On Me" from the Dangerous album. I must have been around 8 years old....and something about his vocal delivery, the gritty aggressiveness of it, the angular rhythms....it just really scared me lol. But in a titillating sort of way. I found it both kinda terrifying...but also very alluring. To this day, I still look for that in music. I know a song is really good if it freaks me out a bit...while also intriguing and mesmerizing me.

"they thought it would insite gang riots" *sounds like a rolling stones jam session*

5:34 is probably the best bass tone I've heard imo. Sounds so fkn good

"A bad time to be a speaker cone" 🔊 Lol

No mention of Charlie Christian, who was almost certainly the actual originator of distorted guitar, back in the mid 1930s. He was playing the embryonic electric guitar in jazz bands, where he had to keep up volumewise with brass instruments. As the amps of the time were limited to maybe 10-15W, and he was soloing, he had to be running his amp pretty much flat out just to be heard. There are live recordings dating back to 1939 of Christian soloing, and while his tone isn't as distorted as many of those who followed, it is by no means "clean".

5:34. Origins of stoner metal. Lol.

"This is crazy, Dewey. Ain't nobody gonna wanna listen to music like this. You're standing there playing as fast as you can singing like some sort of a punk."

I've had a "distorted" understanding of this for years. Thanks for clarifying with another excellent video.

A young man named Jimmy Hendrix picked up one of these and used it on his band's debut album. When Are You Experienced opened with the psychedelic distortion of Purple Haze.. there was no turning back...🔥🔥🔥

i agree that it's kinda weird that they showed a pic of sister rosetta tharpe without even talking about her. she's definitely an unsung god in the history of rock n roll for obvious reasons

I love the distorted sounds that Tony Iommi makes for sabbath

Electric guitar distortion is the original deep fried meme, change my mind. ☕

Me: almost asleep Polyphonic: CrAnK uP mY VoIcE OvEr LiKe ThIs!!

More than any other song, Link Wray's "The Rumble" is THE SONG that influenced British guitar greats to dime up their Marshalls and change history. The story behind Link Ray's "The Rumble" is eerily similar to the sock hop scene in "Back to the Future" when the kids go nuts over Marty McFly and the "Starlighters" introduction of "Johnny B Good". Link and the Wraymen were at a sock hop in Fredericksburg VA in 1957-58 when Link's bandmates wanted to play "The Stroll" but Link didn't know it. They started to play it so Link walked over to his little combo amp and cranked the volume all the way up while someone grabbed a vocal mic and held it up to his amp while Link began power chording what became "The Rumble". The kids at the sock hop went NUTS and kept demanding they play it, so they played over and over. It was eventually recorded in the studio where Link poked holes in his speaker to emulate the dist he got from the amp overwhelming the PA system via a vocal mic. That recording eventually made its way to England where very young aspiring guitarists Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Pete Townsend, Eric Clapton etc all heard it, mixed it in with their American Blues obsession and voila, the genre of late 60's heavy blues rock was born. They have all said that more than any other song, "The Rumble" was THE SONG that influenced the loud, power chording heavy side of rock that became mainstream in the 60's.

Glad to see you demystify the fact the kinks weren't the creators of distortion.

That Marty Robbins Example was really cool. The Beatles Also used a Fuzz Bass on Harrison's "Think For Yourself" McCartney played a normal bass and then a fuzz bass to act as the lead instrument

When you said "length of soundwave" at 1:00 , you meant amplitude of soundwave. Length would be the pitch of the wave.

3:43 Today: Broken Amp - buy a new one Back then: Broken Amp - stuff newspaper in it

Wow Link Wray was ahead of his time.

"A guitarist by the name of Keith Richards" "A young man named Jimi Hendrix"

I was fortunate enough to have caught a Link Wray show by accident at a local nightclub years ago just before he died. He put on a great show and he was one of best guitarists ever. His style was all business. Simple ,nothing fancy, raw and loud. The way rock n roll should be. Great video! 👍

"Vacuum tubes would compress the sound waves so that they wouldn't break" ehhhhh i dont think thats how audio clipping in audio circuits work

That Marty Robbins track is Heavy AF!

Link Wray: The John Wick of guitarists.

I believe Hendrix's first album came with the instructions to the mixing and mastering engineers: "Distortion intentional. Do not correct."

Absolutely love this channel. Glad you have sponsorships, you make incredibly high quality content. Thanks for all the effort you put into these

So glad someone put Junior Barnard on the map, what a hell of a guitar player!

I fully expected the knob at 1:38 to have an 11 on it.

feel like it's worth mentioning that fuzz and distortion aren't exactly the same

Seriously, your channel IS one of the greatest on RU-vid! Bloody brilliant videos.

I wish you would've mentioned Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Godmother of Rock and Roll, since you had her picture up during the segment where you mentioned that nobody knows who started using distortion.

Argh. There's a picture of Rosetta Tharpe but no mention? She was distorting guitar as early as 1944 that we have records of. It's out on youtube and sounds amazing. Also, Rocket 88 was 1949, not 1951, and while it was recorded as "Jackie Brenston", the band leadership and sound production was all Ike Turner. I know it's not PC to talk about Ike Turner these days but you have to give credit where it's due.

5:34 that bass distortion is so unique!

Super cool job. Thanks for putting together the various strands into a neat package.

High quality content. Memes aside tho I mean it

Do a video on "_________" please!!!!

The Beatles had the distortion effect on songs like Cry For A Shadow and My Bonnie in 1961 and Slow Down in 1964.

I love these videos. No bait, no filler. Good stuff

I also like the story of Jeff Beck hooking a wire coat hanger to his guitar and using it to short out the pickups.

Lets have a moment of silence for all the speakers that gave their lives to our music! :P

I've always wondered about this. Thanks for making this video. Good job.

Best music channel on RU-vid. Thanks for another great lesson.

This video gave me like a dozen songs to add to my library that I just never knew the name of! Solid video!

No speaker cones were hurt during the process of this video.

yo poly, im a fan now, got that like and subscribe, you gave me some serious good feelings from jamming to some great hits and talking about pedals, i love guitar pedals

“This was a really bad time to be a speaker cone” lol

I wish I could go back in time and play a modern metal song for people 😂 They would shit a brick to hear what all of this experimentation with distortion would lead to

Now, I believe we need a video on bass guitars. We, bassists, are deeply misunderstood people.

This is a fantastic video and definitely needed to be made, super interesting. I love it :)

Link Wray was absolutely ahead of his time, that sounded so modern. Great video!

My Gibson Les Paul goes up to 11. Chapter 11.

All I want is a rickenbacker bass with distortion ...

Very fun and informative video, loved watching it!

i like how he just name drops so many legends as if they were mere mortals

This is an absolutely excellent video - so much to learn especially pre-1960 - cheers.

Awesome episode....really appreciate history lesson on beauty of an overdriven guitar sound

excellent description, awesome history.

I love these videos. You should have Spotify playlists for each video.

"Guess you guys aren't ready for that yet…but your kids are gonna love it." - Marty McFly

Spirit in the Sky. ............ is worth a mention

What an awesome video. So in depth.

Awesome and informative! Who could dislike this?

"Back then they used vacuum tube amplifiers?" That is the gold standard for today's amplifiers too.

Seems like the guitarists were trying to sound like a tenor saxophone.

That was really good. I wasn’t expecting to like this video as much as I did.

‘It was a bad time to be a speaker cone’ This line makes me so happy, it was not expected and it’s soooooo perfect!

The hendrix camp will come for your ad revenue now that you put a small sample of his music. Watch out.

Why isn't this channel bigger? I've experienced nothing but enjoyment watching your videos.

I nearly fell off of the sofa, when I first heard The Kinks do All Day And All Of The Night! Still love that sound a half a century later. My Telecaster says it all!

Thanks, an informative bite sized chunk of goodness for the layman, that gave me some new guys to check out as well. Nice one.

Do a video on the era of the rock instrumental. Artists like Duane Eddy, the Ventures, Bill Justus and Link Wray ruled the charts in the late 50s/early 60s and, yet, the genre is almost completely forgotten today.

A related note on the history of the Les Paul. Introduced in 1952 as a jazz guitar, the LP was initially an epic failure because of its heavy weight. It was discontinued by Gibson in 1960. LP's could be picked up at second hand shops all over the US and UK for almost nothing. Around that time, a group of teen boys in England discovered that if you plug a Les Paul into a guitar amplifier and turn the volume all the way up to maximum and start playing American style Blues licks, pure magic happens. Gibson resumed production of the LP in 1968. The rest is history.

Great video, Never knew how distortion got started ...... Rock on fuzz face!!

lol wasn't ready for the stereo in rumble! Goosebumps!

Link Wray's Rumble said "SPREAD EAGLE CROSS THE BLOCK"

*OMG* You didn't mention The Sonics! ☹ They were stabbing holes in their amps way before The Kinks! Still; great viddy ✌❤

Hey, great job. The guitar sounds of the Kinks, Stones and Hendrix were, indeed, major milestone in the 60's. And I remember when every garage band in town was trying to get that sound. Before fuzz boxes showed up at the local music store We used a another amplifier and ran it's speaker output into the input of the main amp. That over-drove the signal just fine.

Marty Robbin's "Don't worry" bass solo sounds amazing

Auugghhhhh use the original version of Rumble please, that's a rerecording from like the 90s

Jimmy Page played on a lot of the studio sessions of early 60's songs listed here. He had Roger Mayer build a fuzz box for him long before he went to work for Hendrix. Page wanted a sound like the guitar on a song by The Ventures' 2000 Pound Bee. He was one of the pioneers of fuzz tone on songs by The Who, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, etc. Look it up.

Impressive- this was very obviously very thoroughly researched.

7:24 That’s Ritchie Blackmore in-case anyone’s wondering.

@1:00 it's not the length (I assume you mean wavelength) that is the limiting factor, it is the amplitude of the waveform that causes clipping. Unless you're talking about the length of the curve itself, but that is rarely done when dealing with the math and physics that you're talking about. Edit; timestamp

A video on the genius of John Paul Jones perhaps in the future, please. The guy played bass with his feet while playing the triple neck guitar, I mean come on. He deserves massive recognition for he infused colours into Led Zeppelin's music.

fantastic video my dude

Great video! I appreciate the history.