multiple clipping stages (and or units)

[Marssound]

Hello DIY world,

I have a question about clipping:
When soft-clipping a sin wave (for example with diode clipping),
the peak will become a little flatter and you can call this a kind of compression but it will also generate a waveform with
extra harmonics. the sin wave isn't a pure sin wave any more.

but what will happen if I clip this new signal again? I think it will not generate the same waveform but instead will
flatten the already flatten peak curve more. and if you do this several times in a row, you will end with a
square wave.

I want to know if this is true and applicable to audio music signals.

see picture with a test I did to show it works that way. well, at least it worked in a software wave editor!

 

[gyraf]

compression would affect the whole curve, and preserve the waveform - clipping distorts the shape because it only act on part of the wave

adding clipping onto clipping and so on eventually approximates a square wave

 

[shabtek]

Square wave = all the odd harmonics of the fundamental

 

[JohnRoberts]

I learned back decades ago when I messed around with some unusual clipping circuits I had zero success predicting what they would sound like.

You need to melt some solder and listen to the results.

JR