What is a glitch effect?

A glitch effect is the deliberate use of digital errors, stuttering artifacts, and unpredictable sonic disruptions to create weird textural elements. It’s a form of controlled chaos — distorting, stretching, chopping, and resampling sounds to create something unexpected.

Glitch sounds first emerged as a happy accident from malfunctioning CD players, digital distortion, and corrupted audio files. Over time, producers started replicating these unpredictable elements with sampling, granular synthesis, and creative editing. Now, glitch is a staple in electronic subgenres like IDM, glitch-hop, and experimental music. They are also used in films to create strange sci-fi effects.

You can hear some glitchy rhythms and digital artifacts in “Bucephalus Bouncing Ball” by Aphex Twin:



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