[PD] throw~/catch~ headroom

[Martin Peach]

brandon zeeb wrote:
> Hey PD-List,
> 
> Has the throw~/catch~ system been designed to have a different available 
> headroom than standard [+~] and [*~] objects?
> 
> I've been designing a few polyphonic patches and have decided to use 
> throw~/catch~ instead of hard-wiring the summing bus.  I've found that 
> when the signal approaches 1.0, distortion occurs.  Has this been 
> designed as such for a reason?
> 

Yes, [throw~] and [catch~] and all the other dsp objects can handle 
signals up to the limits of the float type in the c programming 
language. However 1.0 is designed to correspond to the highest voltage 
the dac in your sound card can send to your amplifier. Any sample value 
above 1.0 or below -1.0 will be clipped to those limits.
The output of a summing bus with subsequent processing will start 
clipping before any individual signal actually reaches 1.0.

Martin