Re: [LAU] (Modular) Synth and Clipping - Linux-audio-user

15 Jun 2013

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