Distortion

Figure 15: A plot of the function $y = \tanh (x)$.

• A characteristic curve for the memoryless function $y = \tanh (x)$ is plotted in Fig. 15.

• Such a curve is commonly used to implement effects such as distortion, overdrive and fuzz.

• Clipping is a form of distortion. Two common clipping curves, hard and soft, are shown in Fig. 16.

  Figure 16: Hard and soft clipping characteristic curves.

  

• The time and frequency results of hard and soft clipping a sinusoidal signal are demonstrated in Fig. 17.

  Figure 17: Time and frequency results of ard and soft clipping a sinusoidal signal.