Distortion
My current favorite is [tanh~], but I also like using Cheby polynomials with the percolate g17 object. Does anyone have any good distortion ideas? I just want to turn a single note (like an open D on violin) into a cacophony of harmonics. Waveshaping is cool, but doesn't give an adequately unpredictable effect. Is there any distortion that will give me the out-of-tune harmonics of a vibrating steel electric guitar string? I see some ring modulators (like in Miller Puckette's book) that require doing 1.5x the frequency of the fundamental, for example, but would it be possible to just do that without using pitch~ or fiddle~ or anything?
I'm trying to understand the theory, so I would rather see math (plus examples, even) rather than just external objects that do it all already.
This was contributed to this list at least half a decade ago. It relies on some third parties.
_
johan
that's wonderful!
It's a compiled external, but you might want to look at lp.nn~ anyway. Think of it as degrade~ on steroids.
It's in the Litter Starter Pack, which is more Max-4 friendly. It will actually run on Max 5, despite some some cosmetic error messages. The full Litter Pro bundle is more conscientiously Max5-friendly.
Best -- Peter
Yeah, I've done plenty with g17, first in ChucK before I realized it was available in MaxMSP. The svf~ object is pretty cool, though, and I hadn't seen that one before. It could make for some nice signal-splitting.
The Litter Objects look cool, but fairly simple in terms of just dithering and down-sampling. I have to admit, I like degrade~ a bit more, just because of the qualities of the sound and the downsampling by ratio. What does lp.nn~ do that degrade~ doesn't? I found degrade~ to be quite offensive on its own.
For some reference, I'm trying to get some sort of glitch-pop electronic sounds programmed for my friend's band--stuff he couldn't do in Logic, controlled with a PlayStation controller. Sort of like Max/MSP evangelism. Probably, a combination of svf~, degrade~, and tanh~ will get me where I need to be, but any other ideas are always welcome.
Pretty cool, Raja, but where is the fucking volume slider ?
best
f.e
sweet patch, raja
That sounds great, but whenever I change the sample name to something else the slider won't play anymore. The button under [edge~] (that bangs every time the sample starts) is constantly banging. I don't know how to fix this. It doesn't happen with all of my samples, so far just a particular one, the beginning of Pithecanthropus Erectus by Mingus. What could be causing this?
I like the beat-timed frequency modulation, though. I'll keep studying this thing.
The big difference in lp.nn~ is that you can specify bit-resolution as a float. Yes, a float, like 8.4653 bits/sample.
This allows you to have a continuous sweep of bit resolution. Degrade~ limits you to steps.
IMS, the original degrade~ didn't do variable sample rate, but that's a long long time ago.
Lp.nn~ also offers you the option to dither, which is a more subtle difference.
One of these days I should write a paper on the fractional bit-resolution technique (actually, two different techniques). They're cute.
@Raja Yes, the Mingus file was a different bitrate, and also .wav. Interesting how that would happen, though.
I'm about sold on lp.nn~, because I'm using the analog joysticks of a PS2 controller with degrade~. It gets steadily choppier then BAM it's just crazy 2-bit noise. So, to have an exponential slope that spends most of its time between 4 and 2.5 would be excellent. And, I suppose with a bit of math the lp.nn~ direct sample rate would be pretty easy to convert to ratios.
Thanks everyone, this is exactly what I was looking for. My favorite Logic effect (before learning Max) was "Bitcrusher," which basically is just degrade~. If anyone wants to/already has reverse-engineered that plugin to get some of the other functionalities out of it, let me know.
Andrew