AK wrote:Note priority? I'm not sure about specific cause, I'm not working today so I need to do a pile of tests with a number of things. I keep putting them off but I gotta nail these problems once and for all.
Anyway, @ steevio, y'know I don't think I have ever gone for a pulse wave for bass. Absolutely no idea why, I just nearly always choose a sawtooth first and a LP filter. When I read this, I just created a small step sequence on the 101 and shaped the envelope to what I wanted and just used the Pulse waveform and nothing else. With the 101 it's obviously a square when the slider is at the bottom and your typical thin pulse at the top but there's some nice bass with that single waveform alone...I was setting the pulse width to 4 on the slider with no PWM ie: set to manual ( I don't like PWM on bass ) There's a nice rounded tone right there without the need for the sawtooth or sub oscillators.
One thing I just don't get with the 101, is unlike other synths, the 3 waveforms never seem to be out of phase or cause a cancellation of any kind. The main thing with certain software or V/A synths I have used, is that there's only a very small sweet spot where a combination of oscillators maintain any sense of weight for bass duties. Witht he 101, I'm getting the impression no matter what I do with the mix of the voices or the width of the pulse wave, there's always weight and depth. I don't get how this can be in an analogue synth. If it were digitally controlled or running sampled waveforms I could understand how it would be possible to align the waveforms so that you could avoid phase cancellation or something. Just an observation I have found, maybe it's that each waveform can't be detuned or something????
yeah mate, ive been banging on on here for years about using pulse waves for bass, and no-one seems to get it.
saws are no good , because theyve got all the harmonics, so you're always going to get the same sound. with a pulse you can find just the right harmonic mixture to give you the amount of warmth you want by adjusting the pulsewidth.
get an oscilloscope linked up and watch the harmonics come and go as you move the slider upwards, you'll see frequencies completely dissappear and come back again, in a pattern that becomes second nature to you after a while.
for instance say i've got a chord sound on a synth that has a low note say G3 (196Hz) , i can remove that exact frequency from the bass by adjusting the pulse width, if the bass is harmonically related to the chord. this gives the bass room to breath and the chord stands out on its own, this is way way more effective than using EQ which is a clumsy imprecise technique, this is surgical lazer precision ! you are removing one sinewave from a waveform not a band of frequencies.
i think when i tell people i dont use EQ, they think i'm a nutter, if you understand harmonics you can do most things without EQ if you're synthesizing your own sounds.
the waveforms are in phase on the 101, simple as that, and they arent detunable, i might be wrong but i assume they come from the same VCO core.
edit ; same goes for the kick / bass relationship, you can use pulsewidth to remove the kick frequency from the bass waveform, again way more effective than EQ, of course this wont work for you if you use samples, this is a synthesis technique, you have so much more control over everything with synthesis.