[sdiy] software wavefolding

[Scott Nordlund]

> From: jon at divisionbyzero.com
> Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2012 09:52:24 -0700
> To: synth-diy at dropmix.xs4all.nl
> Subject: [sdiy] software wavefolding
> 
> i'm looking for some information on wave folding/shaping algorithms. i've read up on the hardware side (and to a certain extent i've been able to apply that to software) but i haven't found much on this via google. can anyone point me to a good resource?
> 
> thanks!
> 
> -jon

The most common software waveshaping technique uses Chebyshev polynomials. You can also use a sine and consider it a special case of FM. I think digital waveshaping isn't done so much since it's often prone to aliasing, and because it's not really very flexible or intuitively controllable. It was explored some in the 60s and 70s, but largely abandoned in favor of FM. Miller Puckette has recently made a guitar signal processor that performs waveshaping on analytic signals (i.e. independent of amplitude), so I think it still has some potential.