Distortion in Music Production offers a range of valuable perspectives on how engineers and producers use distortion and colouration as production tools and provides detailed and informed considerations on the use of non-linear signal processing by authors working in a wide array of academic, creative, and professional contexts

Part I Technology of Distortion 1. A History of Distortion in Music Production; 2. The Development of Audio Software with Distortion; 3. A Browser-based WebAudio Ecosystem to Dynamically Play with Real-time Simulations of Historic Guitar Tube Amps and Their Typical Distortions; 4. Non-linearity and Dynamic Range Compressors; 5. Low Order Distortion in Creative Recording and Mixing; Part II Perception and Semantics of Distortion 6. Understanding the Semantics of Distortion; 7. An Ecological Approach to Distortion in Mixing Audio: Is Distortion an Expected, Rather than an Unwanted Artefact?; 8. Towards a Lexicon for Distortion Pedals; Part III Retrospective Perspectives of Distortion 9. Hit Hardware: Vintage Processing Technologies and the Modern Recordist; 10. Even Better than the Real Thing: A Comparison of Traditional and Software-Emulated Distortion in the Contemporary Audio Production Workflow; 11. 'It Just Is My Inner Refusal': Innovation and Conservatism in Guitar Amplification Technology; 12. A Saturated Market; Part IV Musicology of Distortion 13. The Studio's Function in Creating Distortion Related Compositional Structures in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal; 14. The Distortion of Space in Music Production; 15. Distorting Jazz Guitar: Distortion as Effect, Creative Tool and Extension of the Instrument; 16. 'Got a Flaming Heart': Vocal Climax in the Music of Led Zeppelin; 17. The Aesthetics of Distortion