In Faust, we can describe the cubic nonlinearity as follows (contained in effect.lib distributed with Faust):
//--------------------- cubicnl(drive,offset) -----------------------
// Cubic nonlinearity distortion
// USAGE: cubicnl(drive,offset), where
// drive = distortion amount, between 0 and 1
// offset = constant added before nonlinearity to give even harmonics
// Reference:
// http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/pasp/Nonlinear_Distortion.html#18254
//
cubicnl(drive,offset) =
+(offset) : *(pregain) : clip(-1,1) : cubic : dcblocker
with {
pregain = pow(10.0,2*drive);
clip(lo,hi) = min(hi) : max(lo);
cubic(x) = x - x*x*x/3;
};
A simple test program is as follows:
// tcubicnl.dsp
import("effect.lib");
// GUI Controls:
O = hslider("even_harmonics",0,0,0.5,0.01);
D = hslider("distortion [midi: ctrl 0x70]",0.1,0.01,1,0.01);
g = hslider("level [midi: ctrl 0x7]",0.1,0,1,0.01);
process = ramp(0.01) : cubicnl
with {
integrator = + ~ _ ;
ramp(slope) = slope : integrator - 2.0;
};
distortion = cubicnl(O,D); // effect.lib
process = ramp(0.01) : -(1.5) : distortion;
To plot the output signal, say, in a shell, for example,
faust2octave tcubicnl.dsp