On an analog synth it uses a capacitor as it charges linearly you get the ramp once it gets to it charge level its discharged by a diode and the process starts again
You get sharp peaks
In additive it uses sin waves
To approximate a analog saw you would need 256 or more partials to sharpen the points
The k5 has 64partial and they are all positive phase so any sounds that use also negative phase cosin it cant do only having 64 it can only approximately do a saw
The partials need linear volume levels but the actual curve of the envelope of the levels is -expo
But if the the k5 use expo volume for the partial level then thats a head ache
Me I use the app by a member Leslie where you can load a wave file and it does the partial volume calculation and you can then dump it
-------- Original message --------
From: "Mehlhaffer@yahoo.com [k5synth]" <k5synth@yahoogroups.com>
Date: 14/06/2015 17:24 (GMT+00:00)
To: k5synth@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [k5synth] Re: basic sawtooth
Last year, I did the same experimentation with a sawtooth wave, since it seems like such a simple waveform to work with. I got very frustrated by the whole process.
One thing to keep in mind is that the amplitude levels for the K5 are not linear.
There is a document in the files section of this user group marked "K5 Harmonic Level Scaling" It will show you how to scale harmonic amplitudes to K5 numbers.
But honestly, I had much better results doing it by ear.
What I found is that the K5 still has trouble creating waveforms like this, simply because it only has 100 increments to work with on the amplitude settings. With the exponential curve of a sawtooth wave's spectra, it doesn't take long for the K5 to run out of amplitude resolution, so the sawtooth wave ends after about 10-12 harmonics. As a result, the sawtooth wave will not be very bright and more organ-like in sound. You can try altering the curve and also cheating in some subtle extra higher harmonics. This will give you a brighter waveform, and a more buzzy sound, but it will also sound brasher and more digital, almost more like a pulse wave. Also, once you think you have a nice bright sound on the K5, the limited spectra of the synth will show up as bright in the upper registers, but duller in the lower registers of the keyboard.
The best piece of advice I can offer, is to look to the K5 for it's own sound. What I found is that It will never give you a classic analog-style sawtooth wave, not even close! Perhaps it was never even designed to do that! If you are looking for waves like that, you might be better off with a different synthesizer. But don't worry! There's lots of good sounds inside a K5! Once I faced the reality of that, I started programming the K5 on its own terms, and I got results I really enjoyed! Here's an mp3 of some custom presets I created, played through external EQ and reverb:
You'll hear some sounds that approximate sawtooth waves. On an oscilloscope, they would look terrible, but they still do the job and I like the sound of them. The string-machine sounds are bright, but more digital/pulse sounding, and the synth brass sound is a bit on the soft side, as well as not truely a sawtooth wave. After a while you have to follow your ears more than a textbook. Also, you might enjoy the K5 for its own strengths, like clangorous sounds, evolving waveforms, and it's own quirky digital style.
If someone else has different results, please let us know.