Audio Out

The Grid's audio output terminal, with optional hard or soft clipping and voice-lifetime detection.

What it does #

Audio Out sends its input to the enclosing device's audio buss. Inspector options can leave it unchanged or apply anti-aliased hard clipping or a soft saturating curve at selectable headroom levels; Threshold and Timeout can also keep a voice alive while its output remains active.

Controls and ports #

Control	Label	Official description
in	In	Signal sent out of the device's audio buss
threshold	Threshold	Threshold level to determine if a signal is active
timeout	Timeout	Timeout to determine if a signal is active
clipping	Output Clipping Mode [off, hard, or soft]	Type of clipping applied to the audio output
clipping_level	Output Clipping Level [0, +6, +12, or +24 dB]	Threshold at which clipping starts being applied

Practical uses #

• Terminate the final audio path of a Poly Grid instrument or FX Grid processor.
• Enable output clipping as a deliberate safety or coloration stage while measuring its actual headroom.

Things to know #

• Off is a true pass-through in the recovered body; Hard and Soft are nonlinear and can change tone.
• Voice-lifetime detection tests absolute input level against Threshold and holds activity for Timeout after the signal falls below it.
• The installed +24 dB label does not trivially match the recovered scale factor of 8, so that option needs a live level test.

Technical details #

A high-confidence Nitro implementation candidate supports the technical summary, but the visible-module mapping remains inferred.

The exact grid/io/audio_out body passes audio unchanged when clipping is Off. Soft computes approximately tanhApprox7(in/S)*S; Hard applies an ADAA hard clip to in/S and rescales by S. Recovered S values are 1, 2, 4, and 8 for the four range enums. Activity is true when any processed sub-sample has abs(in)>threshold; a counter holds lifeOut for holdTime*sample_rate frames. A 10 ms recursive energy comparison drives the clipping indicator.

Open questions #

• Measure all clipping curves, latency, aliases, indicator response, the labeled +24 dB range, Threshold equality, Timeout, restart, and stereo voice-lifetime reduction.

Version and sources #

Checked against Bitwig Studio 6.0.6. This page combines Bitwig's module metadata, the existing Grid course and guides, and Nitro analysis where the mapping is strong enough to support a technical statement.

Related material #

• Grid Modules course reference

Return to Bitwig Grid Modules or the Grid Modules course lesson.