[sdiy] simple voltage controlled clipper/distortion

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 3 Aug 2007, at 14:50, BrightBoy wrote:

>> I want to add a simple distortion or clipper after the VCFs of a
>> polysynth. I want to control it by a single control voltage, which
>> determines the clipping level or (however) the "amount" of  
>> distortion.
>> It should be as simple as possible. Level changes do not need to  
>> be handled.
>>
>> Do you have any suggestions for a circuit?
>
> Here you go:
>
> http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=6207
>
> I've never built it but it looks promising....

I agree, it does look promising. One of the worst things about most  
'raw' clipping circuits is that they're almost perfectly symmetrical,  
giving mainly odd harmonics. This circuit gives you different CV  
inputs for the upper and lower limits, so you could easily arrange  
asymmetrical clipping for more even harmonics in the output. You  
wouldn't necessarily need to use both inputs as inputs.

Regards,
Tom