[sdiy] simple nasty clipping?

[Colin Hinz]

On Fri, 5 Mar 2004, gregory zifcak wrote:

> does anyone know of a really nasty really simple distortion circuit? i tried
> the two diodes shunted to ground, and it was nice, but not tearing. do i
> need to somehow boost the level first? i'm trying to build this into a
> pre-existing device, so small and simple = better.

I've been doing a bit of restoration work on damaged recordings, so
currently I've got a heightened awareness of the sorts of distortion
which sound really raunchy.

What if, instead of clipping the signal, you "fold it back", which
is to say, if your "raunch level" is set at 1V, and your signal
peaks at 1.4V, it gets folded over to become 0.6V.

Implementation is left to the analog wizards.....

- Colin Hinz
  Toronto, Canada

| "You know you've been in this business too long when you look
| in the fridge and decide to have legacy food instead of cooking
| something fresh for dinner."  -- Mike Gunderloy