Diode

A diode-circuit clipper with Drive, bipolar Bias, high-frequency damping, and a high-order processing mode.

What it does #

Diode models unequal upward and downward conduction. Drive pushes the signal into that nonlinear response, Bias changes the balance of the two directions, and Cutoff/LP damps the circuit so sharp clipped edges can be softened.

Controls and ports #

Control	Label	Official description
bias	Bias	Offset for tilting the signal up or down

Practical uses #

• Use centered Bias for clipping, then offset it to introduce even harmonics and asymmetry.
• Lower the internal Cutoff after strong Drive to tame newly generated highs.
• Process control signals as well as audio when you want a voltage-like nonlinear bend.

Things to know #

• Bias changes the transfer curve itself rather than merely adding a DC offset before a symmetric clipper.
• Asymmetry can create DC and even harmonics; monitor or high-pass the result when necessary.
• HQ switches to a separate antialiased diode implementation, not just oversampling of the same direct equation.
• The cheap drum-diode candidate is unrelated to the complete Grid wrapper.

Technical details #

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

The matching grid/shaper/diode_clipper component exposes exactly x, Drive, LP, Bias, HQ, and Out. It converts Bias magnitude and sign into separate upward/downward factors, updates each diode model only when Bias or LP changes, and applies fixed polarity/gain compensation around processing. HQ uses DiodeClipperAA, while the direct path uses DiodeClipper; both contain smoothed low-pass and bias-dependent coefficient state. The wrapper runs four sub-samples and maintains distinct state for the two quality paths.

Nitro port	Type
x	InputAudioPortType
drive	InputAudioPortType
lp	InputAudioPortType
bias	InputAudioPortType
HQ	InputValuePortType
out	OutputAudioPortType

Open questions #

• Measure the static transfer for Bias and Drive, including zero crossing, DC, even/odd harmonics, and gain compensation.
• Recover LP frequency mapping and compare direct versus HQ magnitude, phase, latency, and aliasing.
• Confirm wrapper binding, stereo independence, smoothing, initialization, and extreme-setting stability.

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.