筑波音響 / TSUKUBA ONKYO
Not imitating the shape of distortion with a curve, but solving the circuit itself, sample by sample. That one idea is the whole workshop.
Our line of plug-ins for DAWs. So far there is AD-1, a saturator that solves five real circuits one sample at a time. Free, full version.
See the products › Rosso Circuit Simulator · Windows / macOSA circuit simulator: draw a schematic and hear it immediately. It runs the same solver that works inside the plug-ins. Free.
See Rosso ›If you approximate saturation with a curve such as tanh, output becomes a one-to-one function of input level. Real circuits do not behave that way. Charge stored in a capacitor, magnetic history in a transformer, a valve's operating point drifting — what you hear now depends on what was playing a moment ago.
A curve cannot carry that dependency. Feed it the same level and it returns the same output, no matter what came before. The better the curve, the more convincing it is on a single quiet note — and the more clearly it parts company with the real thing on chords and decays.
Our software solves the circuit equations numerically, one sample at a time. Low notes and high notes distort differently not because we built that in, but because the circuit does that. Since it is not built in, behaviour we did not anticipate turns up as well. That is not a defect — it is part of the circuit too.
There is one circuit solver, not a separate one per product. That is why a circuit you build and check in Rosso, the free simulator, is the same circuit running inside the plug-in — the same implementation. An accuracy fix made on the simulator side lands in the plug-ins as well.
Built in Japan, by one person.
We don't write down anything we cannot measure. Every number in the manual was measured here. Where we cannot honestly say that the highest setting is the best one, we say so. Where a host is not supported, we say it is not supported.
Get in touch at support@tsukubaonkyo.com. Product questions are collected on the support page.