User Manual

CHAPTER 21. LIVE AUDIO EFFECT REFERENCE 329
21.26 Saturator
The Saturator Effect.
Saturator is a waveshaping effect that can add that missing dirt, punch or warmth to your
sound. It can coat input signals with a soft saturation or drive them into many different
avors of distortion.
An X-Y grid helps to visualize Saturator's shaping curve. The shaper's input and output values
are mapped to the X and Y axes, respectively. The curve denes the transfer function, which
is the extent to which output values uctuate in relation to input values. Because this is
usually a nonlinear process, the incoming signal is reshaped to a greater or lesser degree
depending upon its level at each moment in time.
Incoming signals are rst clipped to the dB level set by the Drive control. The meter on the
right side of the display shows how much Saturator is inuencing the signal.
Signal shaping has six xed modes: Analog Clip, Soft Sine, Medium Curve, Hard Curve,
Sinoid Fold and Digital Clip. There is also the exible Waveshaper mode, featuring six
adjustable waveshaping parameters.
In the Analog Clip and Digital Clip modes, the signal is clipped completely and immediately.
Soft Sine, Medium Curve and Hard Curve modes soften signal clipping to varying degrees.
Sinoid Fold mode can be good for special effects.
The most dramatic effects can be created by selecting the Waveshaper curve, which has its
own dedicated set of controls. To access these six parameter elds, unfold the Saturator
window by toggling the button in its title bar.
The Waveshaper mode's six additional parameters are: Drive, Lin, Curve, Damp, Depth and