KOMON EMITTER

Common Emitter Colour Stage for Max for Live

KOMON EMITTER is a free analogue-style colour device from Lomax Signal Works, built around the behaviour of a simple common-emitter transistor stage.

Rather than using a generic saturation curve, the device is designed around the relationships inside the circuit: transistor drive, bias, emitter degeneration, supply voltage and emitter bypass behaviour all interact to change how the stage responds.

The result can move from subtle harmonic colour and transient shaping into compression, asymmetry and heavily driven transistor behaviour — while still remaining useful on real material.

It works especially well on drums, bass, 808s, synths and anything that benefits from a little extra density or movement.

CONTROLS

DRIVE

Controls how hard the virtual transistor stage is driven. Lower settings remain relatively clean, while higher settings increase harmonic colour, compression and saturation.

DEGEN

Controls emitter degeneration — effectively the amount of local feedback around the transistor stage. Lower values allow more colour and compression. Higher values restrain the transistor and preserve more of the original transient shape.

SUPPLY

Sets the virtual supply voltage from 5 V to 18 V in stepped positions. Lower voltages reduce available headroom and push the circuit into more obvious nonlinear behaviour. Higher voltages give the stage more room to operate cleanly.

BIAS

Moves the transistor operating point. Around the centre gives the most balanced behaviour, while moving toward the extremes introduces increasing asymmetry and changes the way the stage clips and compresses.

EMITTER CAP

Switches the frequency-dependent emitter bypass behaviour. This reduces degeneration at higher frequencies while leaving the low-frequency feedback largely intact, changing the way the stage responds without simply applying EQ.

OUTPUT

Post-stage attenuation for level matching.

WHAT IT IS

KOMON EMITTER grew out of the LSW Nonlinear Lab — an ongoing series of experiments exploring real nonlinear circuit behaviours and translating them into practical audio DSP.

The aim is not to reproduce one particular piece of vintage hardware. It is to take a known analogue building block, understand what gives it its behaviour, and turn that into a useful musical tool.

No giant control list. No mystery “analogue” knob.

Just a small transistor stage with a few meaningful ways to push it.

KOMON EMITTER is free.

Requires Ableton Live + Max for Live.

Lomax Signal Works

Bristol, England

LSW NL-003