ember

ember is a reverb + delay with warm clipping diodes, three delay voices, and three reverb voices. prioritizes warmth, musicality, and lo-fi character over pristine fidelity. signal chain: input → clipper → echo → reverb → output.

clipping stage

three runtime-selectable diode models at the input:

• germanium (1n34a): soft, asymmetric clipping. even harmonics. clips early. 1.1:1 polarity ratio.
• silicon (1n4148): medium-hard, symmetric clipping. odd harmonics. clips later.
• mosfet (2n7000): soft, open, spongy feel. exponential saturation. touch-sensitive.

echo engine

shared delay buffer (2 seconds at 48khz). three modes:

• tape (echoking ep-2): tube preamp waveshaper (asymmetric tanhf), record/playback/feedback lpfs (per-pass darkening), wow/flutter lfos (drift, nested modulation), smoothed parameter changes.
• pt2399: dark, warm digital delay. input lpf darkens with delay time (longer = darker). repeats lose highs each pass. no wow/flutter — stable but warm.
• bbd: clock jitter (xorshift32 prng), anti-aliasing lpf on input, reconstruction lpf on output. gritty, analog character.

all modes use a tanhf soft clipper in the feedback loop to prevent runaway.

reverb engine

three modes:

• plate: short-to-medium delay lengths, moderate feedback, bright damping. smooth, dense, controlled decay.
• hall: longer delay lengths (1.4× scaling), higher feedback, dark damping. large, dark, ambient.
• modulated: medium delays, chorused comb taps (0.15 hz lfo, 16-sample depth), dark damping. evolving, living tail.

shared features: pre-delay, lpf + hpf damping in comb feedback, denormal protection on all feedback paths. mode switches crossfade over 64 samples.

sweet spots

• warm tape echo: time 400ms, repeats 0.6, decay 0.4, size 0.5, mix 0.4, tape echo, plate reverb, germanium clip
• dark ambient: time 600ms, repeats 0.8, decay 0.8, size 0.9, mix 0.6, pt2399 echo, hall reverb, silicon clip
• lo-fi scatter: time 200ms, repeats 0.9, decay 0.3, size 0.4, mix 0.5, bbd echo, modulated reverb, mosfet clip
• clean spring: time 300ms, repeats 0.4, decay 0.5, size 0.6, mix 0.3, tape echo, plate reverb, germanium clip
• self-oscillation: time 500ms, repeats 1.05, decay 0.6, size 0.7, mix 0.5, pt2399 echo, hall reverb, silicon clip