im slightly confused with something.
i understand with clipping anything above the threshold is 'squared off', and with soft clipping there is a curve whereby louder signals are clipped more than quieter ones.
my question is to the point of soft clipping, from my experience with the same threshold you get more distortion than hard clipping, so what do you gain? is the distortion more related (harmonic even?) to the source seeing as the waves dynamics are closer resembled? as oppose to hard clipping where there no attempt to retain their original shape.
regards,
Soft clipping?
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- KVRAF
- 10597 posts since 13 Jun, 2004 from Alberto Balsam
Just a preference thing. Some things sound better through one than the other.
Personally I can't stand pure, hard digital clipping in 95% of cases.
Personally I can't stand pure, hard digital clipping in 95% of cases.
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- KVRist
- 123 posts since 13 Feb, 2004 from Brookline, MA
When you pass a sine wave through them, both kinds of clipping will produce odd harmonics, which is why if you clip a sound hard enough it will turn into a square wave, square waves being made entirely of odd harmonics (some old fuzz pedals just turned the signal into a square wave--very harsh).
The difference between soft and hard clipping is that soft clipping emphasizes the lower odd harmonics closer to the fundamental while hard clipping produces harmonics more evenly distributed between low and high. Most people find the low order harmonics to sound less harsh.
When you clip a complex signal (more than one sine wave) it also produces intermodulation distortion--frequencies not musically related to the original signal. The more complex the signal, the more non-musical frequencies it can generate. This is why a single note or an octave or a fifth on a guitar will sound good though a distortion while a major 7th chord will just sound like a mess.
Soft clipping produces less intermodulation distortion and fewer non-musical frequencies.
The difference between soft and hard clipping is that soft clipping emphasizes the lower odd harmonics closer to the fundamental while hard clipping produces harmonics more evenly distributed between low and high. Most people find the low order harmonics to sound less harsh.
When you clip a complex signal (more than one sine wave) it also produces intermodulation distortion--frequencies not musically related to the original signal. The more complex the signal, the more non-musical frequencies it can generate. This is why a single note or an octave or a fifth on a guitar will sound good though a distortion while a major 7th chord will just sound like a mess.
Soft clipping produces less intermodulation distortion and fewer non-musical frequencies.