Ninereeds Discretize

This effect provides an easy way to vary the timbre of a note over time. It works by...

• Splitting the sound into a heavily discretized (ie low sample quality) component and a detail component.
• Scaling the detail component.
• Adding the detail component back to the original signal.

If the scaling is at 0%, the sound is not changed. If the scaling is -100%, the output is the fully discrete version of the sound.

Discretized, in this context, basically means that the signal is resampled for a very small number of bits.

The level of the effect can be faded in and out. The fading follows a simple 'decay' curve. That is, when a new target level is set, the level of the effect changes rapidly at first but slows down as it approaches the set value. It never quite reaches the set value (unless the initialise parameter is used). The rate of the fade is set as a half life - the time needed to cover half the distance between the current level and the target. Smaller values give faster fades.

If the 'Level [initialise]' parameter is set, the level of the effect will jump immediately to the set value. Also, the target will remain at that level unless the target is explicitly set - any previous target level is lost.

This is basically a rewrite of my older Discretize effect, improved in the following ways...

• The machine name follows normal Buzz naming conventions.
• The processing is optimised to handle fixed effect levels and zero effect levels as special cases, and to avoid triggering Pentium underflows.

If you have any comments, please e-mail them to steve@lurking.demon.co.uk.