Importance of number of oscillators

[Potatistoppen]

If I want to make a sound with one saw, one square, one sine and one triangle oscillator at the same time I could use Sylenth1 or Spire because they have four oscillators. I cannot use Massive (only 3 osc+noise), or Serum (2 osc)+sub+noise. Or is there a way to do it?

I mean I would probably never have any real use of using the four oscillators at the same time but is it not a limitation with the other synths, or am I completely off?

[BertKoor]

There's no limit. Ever heard of layering? Send the same midi notes to two (or three) instances, can even be very different synths!

But you should ask yourself what does a sine waveform really contribute? It's already the fundamental. Same for other waveforms. Especially with some filter settings sometimes I can't really hear the difference between a triangle, saw or square wave. All those extra high frequencies get filtered out.

[fmr]

I would like to add that summing a square and a saw only produces another waveform, which could be easily reproduced alone and by itself, if the oscillators allow user waves. So, more than piling oscillators, it's much better if the synth allows for diiferent waveforms, something like, for example, the Lin Plug synths allow since ever. And I agree that adding a sine wave, in what concerns timbre, would just result in a strong fundamental partial, nothing else,

What can't be reproduced is the interaction between different tuned oscillators, and/or the cross modulation between them, but this last one is not the field of subtractive synthesis, but more the field of modulation synthesis, like FM. For that, we have plenty of synths, and some of them can even be also used as regular subtractive synths (Blue II, Rhino and Sytrus come to mind).

[whyterabbyt]

I would like to add that summing a square and a saw only produces another waveform, which could be easily reproduced alone and by itself, if the oscillators allow user waves.

Only if you assume the square and the saw are phase-, frequency- and shape- locked. If they're not, if there's even the slightest modulation of one of them, then strictly speaking, a naive static user wave would fall short as a substitute.

[DJ Warmonger]

I could use Sylenth1 or Spire because they have four oscillators. I cannot use Massive (only 3 osc+noise), or Serum (2 osc)

Well, I emulate one Roland supersaw oscillator with 4 Sylenth oscillators or 1 juts single oscillator in Serum. Unison feature is the key here. Depends on how you use it

Most of Sylenth patches I know of, however, use 2 oscillators and this is well enough. More voices are only needed for layered pads, and for these you may still more layers anyway, as well as very different instruments. The main feature for complex sounds become LFOs/envelopes.

Still, you own many different synths for a reason, right? If one synth can't do something, choose the other.

[Apostate]

I have plenty of synths with many oscs, like Largo and Z3ta. But many times I find myself making a great sound with just one osc, and when I try to add more it just detracts (this has happened with me many times in Largo, where it's hard to resist adding with all the available layers).

But as mentioned above, it depends on what you require.