Nonlinear process

A nonlinear process is one in which changes in the output are not proportionately linked to changes in the input. Most systems in nature are inherently nonlinear.1 We love saturation in part because it’s imperfect, as I wrote about in Natural beauty is imperfect.

Dynamics processing like compression and expansion are also nonlinear. Compression and expansion attempts to do nonlinearity without distortion.2

A system is linear if is both homogenous (output is proportional to input) and additive (e.g. a high-pass filter and low-pass filter = a band pass filter = a low-pass and a high-pass filter).3

Modulation and automation turns any linear system to a nonlinear system.3

  1. Nonlinear system ↩

  2. WTF is a Non Linearity? ↩

  3. [Meaning of System Linearity in Audio Production Tokyo Dawn Knowledge Base](https://docs.tokyodawn.net/meaning-of-system-linearity-in-audio-production/)

    ↩ ↩2

Notes mentioning this note

All about compression
All about compression Compression is a [[Nonlinear process]].
All about saturation
All about saturation Saturation is a [[Nonlinear process]]. Saturation changes the shape of a wave, and for this reason is...
Audio vocabulary
Audio vocabulary [[What is gain?]] [[What is noise?]] [[What is the noise floor?]] [[What is clipping?]] [[Volume units]] [[Nonlinear process]]...
Parallel compression
Parallel compression Parallel compression can add energy.1 It produces a very similar effect to [[Upward compression]].2 Hugh Robjohns breaks down...