son écrasé

10:58 Oct 12, 2021 

I've got a couple of people in the music biz I could ask...out of pure curiosity.

10:44 Oct 12, 2021 

Thanks! The problem in my view is that 'saturation' is the term usually used in FR for (presumably intentional!) distortion, so it is difficult to know in this context whether the writer is using the technical term incorrectly, or is actually trying to describe a different kind of effect. There is an audible differnece between the distortion caused by true 'saturation' in an amplifier stage, which causes 'clipping', a much harsher sound; or simply a degree of non-linearity produced at levels below clipping, which would produce a 'softer' distortion that might legitimately be termed 'crushing' — this kind of 'soft' distortion was something much appreciated with the user of valve amplifiers.
Things are complicated by the fact that both terms 'clipping' and 'crushing' are also used to describe the same kind of phenomenon in video terms!

10:34 Oct 12, 2021 

Tony, I like your "saturation" in one of your comments. Describes the process and not the result, but still, it works well.

16:20 Oct 3, 2021 

Looks like Tony might be right...but with "distortion" in the body of his answer:

"Mais ceux qui ont vu Spooky Tooth sur scène, savent qu’ils jouaient devant un mur d’amplis. Ils savent qu’ils avaient un gros son grave, lourd et lent. Ils ont contribué à poser les fondations de ce ***son écrasé***, de la culture de la ***distorsion***."

https://journals.openedition.org/volume/539