15 Jun
2013
15 Jun
'13
4:51 p.m.
On Sat, June 15, 2013 6:56 am, Aurélien Leblond wrote:
Hi all,
In a tentative of giving more personality to the modular synth modules
of the avw.lv2 set, I have been looking at clipping.
I would like here to discuss here a few assumptions, the fruit of my
research and get a few feedback/comments to decide what direction to
take.
- in some cases (or let say modules of a synth), clipping is
implemented more to copie what an analogue system would do than a
mandatory part of the algorithm... Let's take an example: 2 sin waves
mixed together of amplitude -1/1 will just have an amplitude of -2/2
(as long as they are in phase)... A digital mixer without clipping
would be able to cope with that, but an analogue one wouldn't... and
that's why the analogue system would clip the signal......right?
- What method of clipping is used will give a "personality" to the
module: hard clipping, soft clipping, the method used for soft
clipping, etc...right?
- Hard clipping is something of the digital world - it doesn't exist
in the analogue world... right?
Ya, but before you hear it, it enters the analogue world and frequency
response is limited. All of the hard sharp corners get modified. This
happens even digitally before the DAC as far as I know.
Even analogue there are many kinds of clipping, and to add to the mess
there is limiting as well... another kind of distortion that sounds less
distortion like :) One of the first distortion units I made was just two
diodes shorting off the peaks. It sounded very different from even a
transistor amp pushed too hard. Tube amps are different again.
--
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net