What is it?
This buzz effect is a gain / wraparound-distortion machine WITH INERTIA, featuring:
- +- 24 dB of gain
- Parameterised distortion allowing wraparound effects that change a sound's tonal qualities
- Can be subtle or ... unh ... less subtle
- I N E R T I A !
Revision History
This is version 1.0 of Chimp's PowerConvertor. Please tell me if you think you've found a bug or if you think this effect doesn't do quite what you expected.
Usage - Parameters
| Gain | From -24 db (0x00) to just under +24 db (0xfe) with no gain at 0x80. Straightforward multiplicative gain control. |
| Front | The output amplitude when the input amplitude is zero. Most of the time, you'll want Front to equal zero too. But sometimes you want heavy clipping and squarewave distortion, and the best way to do this is set Front nonzero. |
| Center | The output amplitude when the input amplitude = the amplitude set by Centerpoint (see below) |
| Back | The output amplitude when the input amplitude = 32767 |
| Centerpoint | This is how you set the centerpoint amplitude. Set between 0% ('front') and 100% ('back') to get a three-point distortion curve, or set to 'front' or 'back' to get a two-point distortion curve (see diagrams) |
| Inertia | The time (IN TICKS) it takes for the output to change fully when a parameter is changed. In the case of the distortion controls, linear interpolation is employed, to effect a smooth glide between the old parameter value and the new one. In the case of the gain control, logarithmic interpolation is employed, since this produces the most pleasing smooth volume changes. |
Diagram
Usage - notes
- This version seems to use quite a lot of CPU (on my low-spec PC anyway :) There is a possibility I might release a later version that allows you to choose between logarithmic gain controls (+- dB) or linear gain (-100% to +800% gain). Linear gain will use less CPU but has different results. So I've set aside an attribute to choose between Log or Lin gain controls; currently, it does nothing.
- As another way to reduce CPU load, I was considering specifying inertia 'resolution'. Currently, the parameter interpolation occurs for every sample, which, in the case of logarithmic gain, is what's causing the high CPU load. Instead, if you wish to only calculate interpolated parameters every two or four samples, the CPU load will decrease correspondingly. So I've set aside another attribute to specify the resolution. Again, currently this attribute doesn't do anything. This is only version 1.0 after all!
- In case you're wondering, the original PowerConvertor was not released publicly (only a small release mid 1998) and didn't incorporate Gain or Inertia. So now you know.
Credits - Dave Hooper aka Chimp