Sine Shaper

ATMOSYNTH built-in module

A sine laid across the sound rather than a ceiling put over it. Quiet parts pass almost as they came; as the sound is driven harder the curve turns back on itself instead of flattening, so a peak that goes further comes back down and out the other side. That folding is where the harmonics come from, and it is why they arrive high up and in bunches rather than as warmth spreading gradually upward — a sine shaper folds where a saturator clips. Drive is the gain into the curve and is the whole of the effect: at the low end the sound is barely bent and simply quieter, at the top it has been turned through the curve several times and little of the pitch it went in with is left at the front of it. The curve stops on a crest, so a sound driven past the end of its range leans on that instead of falling through the zero beyond. Dry/wet is the blend: at nothing what came in, at everything only the folded copy, and in between both at once with nothing between them to smear one against the other — which is what lets a fold sit under a clean sound rather than replace it.

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