Phase distortion

Phase distortion reshapes a waveform by varying the rate at which the oscillator scans through it — faster and slower across the cycle instead of at a constant pace.

Introduced commercially by Casio's CZ series, it pushes a sine table through a variable phase curve, and steep sections of that curve translate into added harmonics — one control moves a waveform from pure tone toward sawtooth-like bite. Modern wavetable tools reuse the same math in their warp modes and in formula-scripted frames, since a distorted phase mapping is just another way to compute a frame's samples.