Elektron Musical Instruments

Hello,

Interestingly, it seems that the SuperWave sawtooth and rectangular 
pulses are neither sawtooth, nor rectangular pulses.

http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/def_saw.jpg
http://home.earthlink.net/~erinys/def_pulse.jpg

Both of these are at default values.  Recorded through a Mackie VLZ 
mixer into Wavetool.

The pulse looks like the amplifier cannot maintain the output "dc 
levels".  The Saw?  Really don't know _what_ would cause it to look 
like that.  Maybe the filter is applied to both of these by default?  
They sound great, regardless of how they look.  I was just surprised 
to see them looking like that.

-gerald

By the way, the VO-6 with default settings.  Do other people notice 
that F and F# in the middle of Octave 0 sound different than the rest 
of the notes?

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "oldmanfury" <erinys@s...> 
wrote:
> Interestingly, it seems that the SuperWave sawtooth and rectangular 
> pulses are neither sawtooth, nor rectangular pulses.

Interesting but I just can't believe these pictures are correct.
These waveforms sure won't sound like a pure saw or pulse.
I recorded some waves in wavelab and I'm sure they looked as one 
would expect. When I have time I will test it myself.
Try recording them in a wave editor and zoom in.

Ronald.

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "oldmanfury" <erinys@s...> 
wrote:
> Interestingly, it seems that the SuperWave sawtooth and 
rectangular 
> pulses are neither sawtooth, nor rectangular pulses.

Guess what, I get the exact same results when recording in Wavelab.
Strange?!?! Shouldn't be that difficult to create a sawtooth or a 
square from a DSP, I wonder how or why they look like this. They 
sure sound good enough to get great results but still....

Daniel????

On Monday, December 1, 2003, at 02:15  PM, Roonan wrote:

>
> Guess what, I get the exact same results when recording in Wavelab.
> Strange?!?! Shouldn't be that difficult to create a sawtooth or a
> square from a DSP, I wonder how or why they look like this. They
> sure sound good enough to get great results but still....
>

Actually creating a DSP SAW or Rectangle is hard because they are not 
bandlimited. The sharp edges create very high frequency components. 
These of course cause aliasing so they need to be avoided. Making 
either of these sound both full and without undo aliasing is part of 
the art of DSP-based oscillator design.

I haven't looked at the specific waveforms in question so its hard to 
comment, other than in generalities. But as a rule waveforms with the 
same harmonic content but each harmonic with a different static phase 
sound the same (if the phase is changing this is not true). The 
implication of this statement is that two waveforms can look quite 
different and still sound the same. Perhaps this explains some of it.


drK

www.delora.com/music
drk.iuma.com

--- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "Roonan" <info@r...> wrote:
> --- In elektron-users@yahoogroups.com, "oldmanfury" <erinys@s...> 
> wrote:
> > Interestingly, it seems that the SuperWave sawtooth and 
> rectangular 
> > pulses are neither sawtooth, nor rectangular pulses.
> 
> Guess what, I get the exact same results when recording in Wavelab.
> Strange?!?! Shouldn't be that difficult to create a sawtooth or a 
> square from a DSP, I wonder how or why they look like this. They 
> sure sound good enough to get great results but still....

As someone pointed out in another post, the great art of DSP is not 
to draw exact replicas of the geometrical functions we are naming 
the waveforms from. That would be sounding quite horrible with lots 
of alias. The reason is that in the digital domain we are working in 
a band limited world, and the limiting that is done automaticly in 
analogue equipment from diodes, capacitors etc we need to take care 
of by smart methods of implementing the digital algorithms. 

The SWAVE machines use techniques that will give no alias 
whatsoever, which is kind of special. They might not look like you 
might expect them to, but they will hopefully sound very good, even 
if you are playing the highest note available. By using these other 
techniques we get sounds that should be more pleasant and 
interesting to listen to. Try sampling the output from an analogue 
synthesizer. The waveform you find there will also look distorted in 
some way, even though they sound good. It's when you sample a 
waveform and it looks like you expect it to you should be alarmed. :)

However, to get a better insight what the original waveforms sound 
like you should start by disconnecting the filter follow for the 
high pass filter. Go to kit->assign->key and change the hpf switch.

Hope this helps...

Daniel