Considerations and Examples

• Nonlinear functions are not additive, homogeneous or commutative.

• Order in the signal chain matters:
  • Filtering before a clipping function can be used to suppress the creation of harmonics.
  • Filtering after a clipping function can be used to shape a richer harmonic spectrum.

• Nonlinear functions generate an infinite number of harmonics.

• If $x(t)$ has a lot of high frequency content, the results will likely alias.

• This can be mitigated by:
  • Using a smoother characteristic curve
  • Pre-filtering the signal
  • Working at a higher sampling rate

• Some of the waveshaping functions previously shown in this section are implemented and can be heard in the Matlab script playclipsine.m.

• The Pd patch clipper.pd, shown below, demonstrates a hard clipper.