[sdiy] Making my own Signal Processing in VHDL

[harrybissell]

Sumanth Peddamatham wrote:

> Hello All,

Hello you :^P

>
>
> IThe Distortion block is a basic peak and
> trough clipper.  I hear that an asymmetric distortion is more pleasing
> than a symmetric distortion.  Why is this?

symmetrical distortion has no (or very few) even harmonics. It will sound
like a square or triangle wave. Some even harmonics are good.

The down side of asymmetrical distortion is that you almost always
generate
a DC component that might cause thumps as the signal changes. For guitar
you know the input frequency range so you can make tradeoffs.

I'd say you would want both symmetrical and asymetrical clipping.  Also,
you
should experiment with full and half wave rectification.  In some cases,
full
wave rectification will give an octave-up sound.

H^) harry