Follower

A symmetric envelope extractor with one shared response time and optional RMS averaging.

What it does #

Follower turns an incoming signal's level into a positive control signal and applies the same transition speed to increases and decreases. RMS mode follows the slower energy or body of the sound, while the normal mode reacts more directly to peaks.

Controls and ports #

Control	Label	Official description
signal_in	Signal In	Signal to have its envelope extracted
time	Time	Transition speed for all level changes
rms	Rms	Uses RMS for signal averaging, which follows the slower "body" of the sound instead of signal peaks

Practical uses #

• Create simple audio-reactive modulation when separate attack and release behavior is unnecessary.
• Use RMS to follow sustained body or loudness-like movement, and normal mode for faster transient response.
• Use the output as a control source for dynamics, filters, waveshapers, or visual analysis.

Things to know #

• The same Time setting applies to rising and falling level changes; use Follower RF when those directions need different speeds.
• RMS is based on signal energy and does not preserve the sign of the input waveform.
• A longer Time creates steadier control but more lag, while a short Time can retain audio-rate ripple.
• The automatic Nitro name matches point to unrelated drum and compressor components and are not used as module mappings.

Technical details #

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

Conceptually the detector produces either a peak-oriented magnitude or an RMS energy value and feeds it into one symmetric smoothing stage. A likely form is state += a*(target-state) using the same coefficient a in both directions, but no one-to-one Follower Nitro implementation is identified. Exact rectification, RMS averaging, time constant, stereo policy, and output scaling therefore remain open.

Open questions #

• Measure step and impulse responses to recover the symmetric smoothing law and visible Time mapping.
• Measure Peak versus RMS response to sine, noise, DC, and isolated impulses, including stereo channel differences.
• Test initialization, silence floor, denormal handling, audio-rate ripple, and modulation of Time.

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.