Hard Clip

A flat-top clamp distortion: it drives the signal up, slices the peaks off at a fixed ceiling, then pulls the level back down. The result is aggressive, buzzy, and rich in odd harmonics — think fuzz pedals, lo-fi crunch, and slammed drum bus. This is the standalone form of the Distort module's Hard Clip mode, with its two hidden constants opened up as real controls.

How it works

The input is normalized, multiplied by a drive gain of 10^(Drive·1.5), and hard-limited to the Ceiling threshold. A compensation factor of 10^(-0.3·Drive) tames the level so cranking Drive doesn't just get louder — it gets grittier. At the very bottom of the Drive range the signal passes through untouched.

Controls

  • Drive — how hard the signal is pushed into the clipper, 0 to 1. At 0

the input passes through clean; turn it up to slice off more of the waveform and add edge. Default 0.5.

  • Ceiling — the clip threshold, 0 to 1. At 1.0 it matches Distort's

Hard Clip exactly. Lower it to clip sooner, harder, and brighter — squaring the wave off and pushing the tone up. Floors at 0.05 so it never fully collapses. Default 1.0.

  • Level — post makeup gain, 0 to 2x. 1.0 leaves the output at the

Distort level; push past it to slam the next stage. Default 1.0.

Inputs & outputs

  • In L / In R — the audio to distort. Patch only In L and that signal is

clipped once and sent to both outputs — the module runs in mono, exactly as it always has. Patch In R too and each channel is clipped on its own through the same knob settings.

  • Drive / Ceiling CV — modulate Drive and Ceiling. Each is a ±10V input

folded onto half the knob's range, so an envelope or LFO can sweep the grit or open and close the clip threshold rhythmically. Both channels share them.

  • Out L / Out R — the clipped signal. If you feed it stereo but only cable

Out L, the two channels are summed to (L+R)/2 so the right side isn't dropped.

Tips

  • Patch an LFO into Ceiling CV for a pulsing, gated-fuzz texture that opens

and closes the clip window in time.

  • Use a slow envelope on Drive so notes bloom from clean into crunch.
  • Keep Level at 1.0 for a drop-in match with Distort, then nudge it up only

when you need to overdrive whatever comes next.