The old school way to do it is to poke holes in your guitar amp speakers! This is one lovely bit of rock n roll history. I heard from my dad on how they used to do it back in the 60's. But I Strongly Advise you DONT DO THIS!

"The earliest uses of intentional distortion that have been recorded were achieved through "doctoring" amplifiers and speakers. Guitarists would use a razor blade, screwdriver or pencil to poke holes into their speaker cones to create a distorted sound"

Now Back to your Guitar and Amp setup

1. Stomp box effect pedal - Buy a Distortion or Overdrive pedal and add it on you signal chain. You step on it to turn on and off. The quick and easy way to do it.

Guitar Amp <- cable-> stomp box <- cable -> Guitar

2. High Gain Pickups - this is more of an advanced way to do it. If you change you weak stock pickups with aftermarket hotter high gain pickups. It will distort the 'clean' channel your amp by simply rocking the guitar volume to 10. Then if you rock the volume down lower you get a cleaner tone. However, you may never get that "crunch" tone distortion. Its more like a light overdrive tone.
Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdrive_(music)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_pickups

Own personal guitar playing experience.


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