4 analog waveforms, just 4 damn waveforms! - Page 4

Jon Hodgson · 18th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic ➡️

I didn't say I found my solution, or that the Schmidt nice as it ma be has much alternate waveform possibilities.

Maybe the manual will help

https://gearspace.com/board/10499286-post991.html

As well as different waveshapes, it has a multitude of LFOs (three just dedicated to PWM for example) and a whole load of modulation possibilities just for the oscillators.

So I think it's a pretty safe bet that it will generate waveforms you don't get out of every other analogue synth.

Whether or not you like them and find them usable, that's another matter.

zerocrossing · 18th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gnalvl ➡️

So let's list all the instances where alternative waveforms are available on a non-modular analog synth...

- moogs allow you to blend the typical waveforms together with the waveform knob to form "hybrids"

- the alpha junos have a few different types of PWM sawtooth and some alternative pulse waveforms

- IIRC the Akai AX/VX series have a PWM triangle

- minibrute metalizer

- as I understand it, the Poly-800 sawtooth is actually a stair-stepped pulse wave of some sort

What else? Did I miss anything? Why aren't options like these more common?

The best example I can think of is comparing Serum's metalizer waveform to the Minibrute's version... at least by default Serum's metalizer sounds colder and more controlled, while the Minibrute's is warmer, nastier, and more erratic. I'm sure there are some tricks one could use within Serum to make it seem more "analog", but ultimately then you would be just as guilty of trying to force things out of their wheelhouse. Suffice it to say that waveforms run through the Minibrute have a unique, interesting character which is hard to replicate via wavetable synthesizers.

And if the metalizer can be achieved on such a simple, budget-oriented synth as the Minibrute, just how far out of analog's wheelhouse are these kinds of alternative waveshapes, really? I can't help but think that more analog synths could be exploring waveshaping options like this.

Also, all of the above arguments could be made of Serum's PWM sawtooth compared to the Alpha Juno. Surely these waveforms were born partially out of conveniences of the DCO clock which weren't available on VCO's, but it still seems strange that no one else explored more waveforms like this.

Digital wavetable synths are great, but surely there is some potential for alternative waveshapes in DCO and VCO-based analog synths, due to the alternate innate character of those components.

Well, you lost me there. I had a Minibrute and to be honest, the metalizer waveshaping seemed to just be a way of adding crappiness to the sound and I never found a way of getting it to sound good. Brutefactor was OK, but a bit too touchy for me. I'm into kind of ugly and distressed sounds, but the way the Minibrute did it never sounded ugly in the way I like ugly. Different strokes, I guess. I sold the Minibrute because when I got it to sound good it more or less sounded like other synths I had and I found in my workflow that patch memory is important, so out the door it went. The hybrid Prophet 12 sounds way better to me when doing "broken" than the VCO based Minibrute could.

The cool thing about Serum is that you could import several versions of that metalized Minibrute waveform and have a wavetable synth based on it. Other than Codex, what other instruments are capable of such dark magic? Oh yeah, Mpowersynth too. Great instrument. It has two kinds of oscillator modes. "regular" which is kind of like a Moog style way to sweet though the analog osc shapes (and wave shaping options) and an additive mode. Run it at 3x oversampling and the oscillators sound very nice.

There are digital instruments that do have interesting oscillator options that behave more like you'd expect an analog oscillator to behave, but I think they're all in software. Check out ACE, Mpowersynth, Diversion and Zebra 2 for starters. For bonus, Dark Zebra has Diva's analog filter models in it and it does a very good hybrid impersonation. I think most of the cool analog waveshaping options are going to be in the modular world, and I just don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

bug2342 · 18th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic ➡️

(....), but if the microbrute can have a "metalizer" for under $300 I don't see why other nonmodular synths could have similar but other options.

Well, the MicroBrute was Developed by this guy:
Synth DIY
who is a real DIY modular guy, so the design is rather mad for a fixed architecture synth. Then it was mass produced. Strange mixture. Highly successful, so it might get repeated one day.

More Synths with strange waveforms:
Old: Alpha Juno

Newer: Pulse 2:
- The alternate pulse (very similar to a PWM-pulse, but slightly different). Might be faked by a Ringmodulation/XOR of a non-highpassed PWM wave with a pulse 1 octave below.
- The Unison, poly... waves (cheated, it´s actually several oscillators).

Cwejman S1:

Looks like a bunch of waveforms. I think it´s just the normal ones plus 50/50 mixes of pairs of them.

Gnalvl · 19th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by zerocrossing ➡️

Well, you lost me there. I had a Minibrute and to be honest, the metalizer waveshaping seemed to just be a way of adding crappiness to the sound and I never found a way of getting it to sound good. Brutefactor was OK, but a bit too touchy for me. I'm into kind of ugly and distressed sounds, but the way the Minibrute did it never sounded ugly in the way I like ugly. Different strokes, I guess. I sold the Minibrute because when I got it to sound good it more or less sounded like other synths I had and I found in my workflow that patch memory is important, so out the door it went. The hybrid Prophet 12 sounds way better to me when doing "broken" than the VCO based Minibrute could.

I hear you...the metalizer can definitely be extremely grating on the ears at times, and when I use it I tend to lower the volume of the triangle wave drastically so it doesn't overpower the sound too much. To me, there is still a sweet spot where it can make interesting sounds with a character that digital synths tend not to capture.

Also I think part of the frustration is just the Minibrute being such an imperfect instrument overall. With no patch memory, cheap keybed, touchy controls, and the general limited nature of monosynths I too find that I simply don't use it much even if it's occasionally capable of some unique and interesting sounds. I still think if Arturia introduced an more refined and robust version, or if another manufacturer integrated waveshapers like the Minibrute into a more full-featured analog poly...I think it would have a lot of potential which isn't totally covered or captured via digital means.

If you're going to have features as touchy and noise-prone as the Minibrute's, it REALLY sucks to tweak and tweak and tweak looking for the sweet spot where the nails on chalkboard become magic...and then not be able to save those settings. I agree it's a big workflow issue when you can't sound design separately from recording and composing, because you don't want to spend 20 minutes dialing in sounds at a time when you'd rather be laying down riffs before you loose the inspiration.

raito · 20th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by pottering ➡️

Aren't they all equivalent to a bunch of sine waves anyways?

Yes, in precisely the same manner that all physics is quantum physics.

There's value in abstraction.

steveman · 20th May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic ➡️

This one seems to be pretty cool in the alternate wave moduluation and fm department, but if the microbrute can have a "metalizer" for under $300 I don't see why other nonmodular synths could have similar but other options.

4 analog waveforms, just 4 damn waveforms!

That's 2 oscillators not one. One acts as a modulation source for the other using either FM or AM. The DPO is based on the 70s Buchla idea of dual oscillators where you do timbral changes via FM, wavefolding, ring mod rather than filtering a static waveform.
The metalliser on the Microbrute is a wavefolder - works well on simple waveforms (like traingle...) doesn't work at all on square / pulse. Again been around since the 70s.
Neither of these are offering new analogue waveforms, they're just using already known techniques to create harmonically richer sounds.

BTW Someone mentioned even harmonics - easy, subtract a square from the same freq sawtooth, you end up with a double frequency sawtooth ie. all the even harmonics w/o the fundamental.

HiFiYeah · 21st May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by steveman ➡️

BTW Someone mentioned even harmonics - easy, subtract a square from the same freq sawtooth, you end up with a double frequency sawtooth ie. all the even harmonics w/o the fundamental.

Lots of things are easy in theory, but the topic is doing it in reality on an analog synth. My modular has lots of patch jacks, and none of them are labeled "subtract".

StarfishMusic 🎙️ · 21st May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by steveman ➡️

That's 2 oscillators not one. One acts as a modulation source for the other using either FM or AM.

Yes it is, but when you hear one oscillator being modulated by another you're um hearing one oscillator behaving complexly obviously. Counts enough as a non-basic sawtooth, square, sine, tri for me. All I was gettin at is, I'd love to see stuff like this in more standard (and cheaper) synthesizers. The Schmidt may have stuff like that but at 20k it's slightly over most people's budgets.

Why not have digital oscillators that are for the sake of FMing analog ones? The end resulting sound would be a complex analog waveform. It could be cheap to implement a multi operator stack of say 5 going through a single DA, modulate them in every way an fm synth can, and have them make that analog waveform into a DX7 style complex waveform. Maybe I'm wrong but why would the frequency modulating waveform have to be analog? I mean a little bit of slop could be programmed in. I do wonder if the end result would sound digital from the perfection of the digital oscillator modulation, or would it retain most of the analogness of the sound from the carrier osc?

bug2342 · 21st May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by BendingBus ➡️

My modular has lots of patch jacks, and none of them are labeled "subtract".

You don´t have an inverter/inverting attenuator and a mixer in your system?

HiFiYeah · 21st May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by bug2342 ➡️

You don´t have an inverter/inverting attenuator and a mixer in your system?

Dunno, is that a phase reverse switch? I've tried summing a phase inverted pulse with a saw, but it didn't result in anything usable.

Bio · 21st May 2015

Try adjusting the waveforms levels.

That should be easy.

Another way is to use a rectifier on a sine wave, it give the fundamental and even harmonics.

Bio · 21st May 2015

Quote:

BTW Someone mentioned even harmonics - easy, subtract a square from the same freq sawtooth, you end up with a double frequency sawtooth ie. all the even harmonics w/o the fundamental.

It worth mentionning that this tricks won't work if the square is derived from the triangle (like on some triangle core vco like Plan B Model 15, Zeroscillator etc...), but will work with most VCO.

There is not always need for inverting (or subtraction), it depend on the saw/square phase relation.

monomer · 21st May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by BendingBus ➡️

Dunno, is that a phase reverse switch? I've tried summing a phase inverted pulse with a saw, but it didn't result in anything usable.

For that particular trick the oscs should be synced, best to use a single osc that outputs both saw and square.
You should also check if your particular oscs already outputs the inverted wave, maybe you don't need an inverter at all.
And lastly, as Bio noted, the level balance between the oscs is critical.

Mr Knoch · 22nd May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarfishMusic ➡️

... you could maintain I'm a unicorn.

monomer · 22nd May 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Knoch ➡️

Oooh, almost BBQ weather!

Slap me some love and rainbows on the barbie.

e6400ultra · 9th December 2015

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon Hodgson ➡️

You may well be correct, I've yet to see a close up picture of the 002...if you know of any then I'd be interested to look at them.

modulusboard.jpg

I realize this is an old thread but I'd be interested in your assessment of the 002 voice board(if it's possible make anything out in the not so great photo).

Deleted ce40709 · 29th January 2023

Old topic, but interesting question.

I just fell in love with the APW Waveform of my Pulse 2. APW in unison mode.

Just researching on an analog poly / para that has unison and interesting OSC features.

But for now Pulse seems pretty unique. I guess it´ll be an OB-6.

Snap them · 29th January 2023

I thought the saw wave was the most harmonically rich wave there is, and every sound is basically a subtracted harmonics example of that?

1001001 · 29th January 2023

White noise: hold my beer.

kpatz · 30th January 2023

The real reason analog synths use saw, square/pulse and triangle waveforms is not because they’re the most harmonically rich waveforms or anything, it’s because they’re the easiest waves to generate with simple analog circuits.

To get something with more harmonic content than a saw, requires more complex circuits, whether it be FM, waveshapers/folders, sync etc.

There are other possible waveforms that an analog circuit could create easily, like a trapezoid wave (clipped triangle), but harmonically it’s not much different than a square or filtered saw.

zerocrossing · 30th January 2023

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpatz ➡️

The real reason analog synths use saw, square/pulse and triangle waveforms is not because they’re the most harmonically rich waveforms or anything, it’s because they’re the easiest waves to generate with simple analog circuits.

To get something with more harmonic content than a saw, requires more complex circuits, whether it be FM, waveshapers/folders, sync etc.

There are other possible waveforms that an analog circuit could create easily, like a trapezoid wave (clipped triangle), but harmonically it’s not much different than a square or filtered saw.

Also, I think it’s a bit of a moot point at this stage of things. When it’s a fairly simple matter to generate any waveform you want without any digital artifacts, who cares about the technology that’s generating it?

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