Follower RF

An envelope extractor with independent Rise and Fall times and selectable Peak or RMS averaging.

What it does #

Follower RF converts the level of an incoming signal into a smooth positive control signal. Rise determines how quickly the envelope reacts to increasing level, Fall determines how quickly it relaxes after level drops, and Peak/RMS selects whether it emphasizes fast transients or slower signal energy.

Controls and ports #

Control	Label	Official description
rise	Rise	Transition speed for increasing levels
fall	Fall	Transition speed for decreasing levels
avg_mode	Averaging Mode [peak or RMS]	Switch between faster- and slower-moving averages, respectively

Practical uses #

• Follow a drum signal and use the result to open a filter, increase distortion, or animate another Grid parameter.
• Use short Rise and longer Fall for fast transient capture with a smooth decaying control tail.
• Choose RMS for the body and perceived energy of a sound, or Peak for faster reaction to individual transients.

Things to know #

• Follower RF extracts amplitude; it does not reproduce the positive and negative waveform cycles of the source.
• Different Rise and Fall settings make the response intentionally asymmetric.
• Peak mode reacts more directly to short maxima, while RMS averages squared energy and therefore usually moves more slowly.
• Long timing values smooth modulation but also delay its response relative to the source.

Technical details #

No Nitro implementation has been confirmed for this visible module. The behavior is described conservatively from module metadata and editorial research.

The expected structure is a level detector followed by asymmetric smoothing: conceptually choose target = abs(x) for Peak or target = sqrt(average(x^2)) for RMS, then use a Rise coefficient when target > state and a Fall coefficient otherwise. A typical one-pole update is state += coefficient * (target-state), but no dedicated Follower RF Nitro body is mapped, so detector window, coefficient formula, stereo combination, and exact time interpretation are not claimed.

Open questions #

• Measure impulse, step, sine, and noise responses in Peak and RMS modes to recover detector and timing equations.
• Determine stereo linking, rectification, RMS window length, output normalization, initialization, and parameter smoothing.
• Verify whether displayed Rise/Fall times describe a fixed percentage, -60 dB settling, or another convention.

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.