510 Wavewarper Thoughts
2004-04-24 by alt-mode
Paul graciously sent me the prototype 510 module to take to AHNE. I held onto it for a few days afterwards so I could spend a bit more time with the module and report my findings. Initially, I wasn't very impressed. The "quick start" settings yielded some somewhat interesting waveshaping effects somewhat akin to PWM effects but it didn't do much for me. I applied three different audio signals and got some interesting PWM/ringmod-like effects. However, once I applied a low frequency signal to the Z input, things started sounding much more interesting! The effect was a very fat PWM/Tremolo/Distortion effect that was quite pleasing. I started getting a hang of how the knobs interact but it is not always intuitive. I found the most dramatic results with the switch in the "power" position rather than "root" or "unity". One of the things that can happen when turning the knobs is that the signal will just disappear at some settings. However, this is very dependent on the input signals and the other knobs! This can be a bit of a challenge at first but I found it interesting and something to work within. Also, the "offset" knobs affect the sound without any input signal so make sure you play with all the knobs! It is still very hard to describe the effects I got with the wavewarper. Paul said we wanted weird and that's what he made. It certainly is. I would put this module in the "random spice" category. A little bit in certain patches will go along way but it may take you awhile to figure out just what flavors it can produce. It can also warp CVs which might be interesting to play with using a sequencer output or something similar. I didn't have a chance to try that out. Thanks again to Paul for sending out the module for folks to play with. Gee, I wonder what we'll have for AHNE 2005 ;} Eric [Paul: the module will be going back to you tomorrow morning via priority mail.]