Cool article. Pretty straightforward but very cool to see the interactive examples. Interestingly I found the simple "clipped" and "clipped/boosted" function

Cool article. Pretty straightforward but very cool to see the interactive examples. Interestingly I found the simple "clipped" and "clipped/boosted" functions by far the most pleasing. I doubt it's a coincidence that's what most analog FX are doing. The distinctions between these are usually murky but in guitar FX: Boost - Boost Overdrive - boost + soft clipping Distortion - boost + hard/soft clipping Fuzz - boost + mostly hard clipping All the effects are generally doing one or more of the following: - Boost signal through a transistor till the transistor saturates/cuts off and clips - Do the same with an OP-AMP - Use diodes to do an extra clipping stage In analog audio the signal is literally an alternating current... the "values" in digital audio correspond to +/- voltage levels. So his transfer functions are trying to mimic what electronic components do when they hit their limits. The transfer functions can also do things that are probably impossible in the analog world. There's a lot of weird non-linear stuff that seems to bring out harmonics as well.