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Distortion effects create "warm", "dirty" and "fuzzy" sounds by compressing the peaks of an electric musical instrument's sound wave and adding overtones.

Distortion effects are sometimes called "gain" effects, as distorted guitar sounds were first achieved by over-driving tube amplifiers. Distortion has long been integral to the sound of the electric guitar in rock and roll music, and is important to other music genres such as electric blues and jazz fusion.