Free custom waveforms for use in synths?

[Music Engineer]

in the product section of my site, you'll find the "CyclePack.zip" - it's at the bottom of the straightliner product info (because i created it mainly as a supplement to the synth). however, the files can be used with any synth that supports import of single cycle files.

[do_androids_dream]

have you considered using a synth that lets you draw your own waveforms? oatmeal has this function - the possibilities suddenly become endless!

Certainly endless but different compared to single cycle waveform assembled into a scannable wavetable ( wich is the basic principle behind Wavetable synthesis )

with all due respect i know what a scannable wavetable is and how it is assembled - the op was asking for single cycle waveforms.

the developer of the atlantis synth (jeremy evers) put up a small pack of single cycle waveforms on his site.

http://jeremyevers.com/?page_id=15

[sagetone]

This topic is interesting to me. I have downloaded a couple of the waveform folders from the links in this forum thread, and have tried to bring them into Absynth as samples. But I realize they are not "samples", they are single cycle wave forms, as you guys have said and as the OP asked for. So, is it possible to "import" a wave form into Absynth?

Thank you for your help,

Todd

[olepro]

http://www.galbanum.com/products/archit ... forms2010/

Just bought your collection for Alchemy

This is INSANELY many waveforms !!
My goal is to bould around 50 patches from every waveform NOT

One bad thing though is that alchemy can't see subfolders so right now it's quite a mess if i drop all the files in there !
The best thing is if i could have a folder named Galbanum with everything in there but this is not possible right now. This is an Alchemy update thing

Regards

[Andrew Souter]

Just bought your collection for Alchemy

This is INSANELY many waveforms !!

Ya.

My goal is to bould around 50 patches from every waveform

If you can proove it, I will give you a full refund, plus a free product... Let's see, that would be 1,286,200 presets.

To be perfectly honest, it starts to become too large and diverse for a single person to use all of. I had been hoarding some of these for use my preset expansion products such as:

http://www.galbanum.com/products/piscis/
http://www.galbanum.com/products/secondcoming/

...and I have been working on something for Alchemy and NI as well.

But then our 2CAudio Aether project exploded and all of my time was directed towards it...

So now I am sharing the full library with anyone who wants to explore it. And I am open to licensing parts of it for other sound-designers to make presets from if they like and would like to redistribute some part of it... It's really a very deep and fascinating field, so I wanted to share. Hopefully it inspires the inner-nerd in all of you.

One bad thing though is that alchemy can't see subfolders so right now it's quite a mess if i drop all the files in there !
The best thing is if i could have a folder named Galbanum with everything in there but this is not possible right now. This is an Alchemy update thing

Regards

...yes an update thing. We are already in communication about how to make navigation a little easier in future versions...

[Aloysius]

To be perfectly honest, it starts to become too large and diverse for a single person to use all of. I had been hoarding some of these for use my preset expansion products such as:

http://www.galbanum.com/products/piscis/
http://www.galbanum.com/products/secondcoming/

I have both 'piscis' and 'second coming'. Is there some planned update to same? I don't really understand the single cycle waveform thing. Thanks . . .

[Andrew Souter]

I have both 'piscis' and 'second coming'. Is there some planned update to same?

I hope to do some more presets/content for Rapture at some point yes. Rene is very talented and he did a lot of things very, very well in Rapture. It is enjoyable to develop for. No ETA yet...

I don't really understand the single cycle waveform thing. Thanks . . .

Here is a good way to start to understand these:

Download the demo Wavs from here:

http://galbanum.com/products/architectu ... eforms.zip


Unzip.

Open Rapture.

(I use Rapture as the example here b/c you mention my preset expansions for them. For others reading, the following general idea works in all supported synths as well, though the specifics vary...)

Goto Program Handling Menu. (top bar, right of the preset name display, "paper sheet" icon)

Select "Init Program"

The waveform display will now read "Empty" and everything will be off.

Click on the text "Empty" to load a new waveform.

Navigate to wherever you unzipped the demo waveforms to.

Load the first of the Wav32 wavs: Add Partials Odd 01-17.wav

Play something via MIDI.

You are now listening to the Raw waveform. Play entire 88-note MIDI range. Notice how the waveform does not alias and remains perfectly clean even at high notes.

Click on the display of the waveform (not the text) or press the up arrow on the keyboard. This will change the waveform. Scan through the various demo waveforms in this manner and play some MIDI stuff.

Note all the differences in timbres ("tone color" or spectrums).

In this example the differences in waveforms are 100% responsible for the differences in the sound you hear.

On the right of the waveform name you will see "Multi" which is set to off. Click on it and it will change to 3v.

Now Rapture plays three sightly detuned versions of the waveform and this gives a thicker chorused stereo sound. But the spectrum remains the same.

Turn on the Filters in the DSP section and apply envelops to them.

Now you are becoming a sound-designer...

Professionally completely synth patches are rarely simply raw waveforms. Raw waveforms are the raw ingredients. They are the starting point. Sound-designers will apply filters and DSP, and modulation etc to these to create dynamic and musically inspiring sounds that are responsive to performance.

Raw waveforms provide starting points that can easily span vast ranges of timbres that would hard or impossible to recreate with only applying limited filters and DSP choices to Saw/Square/Sine/Triangle waves.

In many synths waveforms can also be used as LFOs and be assigned as modulation sources to control various synth parameters. Complex LFO shapes is a fairly novel area of sound design. Architecture waveforms excel at this use as well.

You can try the same thing in Absynth, Alchemy, MetaSynth, etc etc.

Ok, that's my starting summary... I hope it is helpful...

[Andrew Souter]

Another tip:

For musicians, producers, composers, hobbyists, and anyone who is not inclined towards or has no time for more advanced sound-design, a simple "cheat" to get good "bang for your buck" with using the Architecture Waveforms is to load some professionally designed synth patches (i.e. factory sounds or sounds from a preset expansion or similar), and then simply start changing the oscillator and/or LFO waveforms used with some of the Galbanum waveforms. In many cases this changes the character of the preset noticeably. It offers a very simple way to customize a synth preset to make it unique so that you don't sound like everyone else. This can be subtle or drastic depending one what you want to achieve.

This is a good way to start exploring the waveforms if you are not already proficient at sound-design. You will be surprised at how quickly you will gain an intuitive understanding of how various classes of waveforms will behave in different scenarios.

...that's all for now...

[Aloysius]

This looks great Andrew. Thank you very much. I've downloaded and will copy the instructions to a text file to try out at a more earthly hour (it's 02:40 here). This seems very exciting!

[sagetone]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for these demo waveforms. The *.gly files work great in Absynth. But can Absynth "read" *.wav waveforms? I haven't been able to get that to work yet.

Todd

[sagetone]

But can Absynth "read" *.wav waveforms? I haven't been able to get that to work yet.

I should have added - I know that Absynth can load *.wav files as samples. Just not sure how to load single waveforms that are not in *.gly format.

[sagetone]

I just figured out how to do it, in the waveform window, import from audio file. I'll be experimenting for a while! Thanks again Andrew!!

[pheeleep]

Thanks for the links and for the interesting discussion.

[PietW.]

Hello.

Just wondering if there are good free custom single cycle waveforms to use in synths. I'm finally starting to make presets from scratch and trying to experiment with waveforms other than the traditional sine, square, etc..

Would you be so kind to share any ressources you may have (links). Thank you for your time.

With the programme Rndwave you can make your own Waves. The programme makes the Waves with Randomize. It makes in one hour up to 500 Waves.

[Andrew Souter]

But can Absynth "read" *.wav waveforms? I haven't been able to get that to work yet.

I should have added - I know that Absynth can load *.wav files as samples. Just not sure how to load single waveforms that are not in *.gly format.

Absynth CAN load .wav BUT, only for use as Oscillator, NOT for use as LFO or Waveshaping transfer function. Additionally, loading .wav is a one-at-a-time via file dialog ordeal. So using this method to browse 25000 waveforms is not fun or cool or heathy on the hand/wrist.

GLY format waveforms go into Abynth's "Libraries" folder, and then you can use "Load Wave Template" to browse them and use the keyboard to browse through them as you are auditioning them. MUCH BETTER!

For details see here:

http://www.galbanum.com/products/archit ... InstA4.pdf
http://galbanum.com/products/architectu ... lation.pdf

(the old doc will be merged into the new one today hopefully...)

For Absynth Use, GLY is VERY STRONGLY recommend for these reasons. If you need Wav also for other synths, do yourself a favor and spend an extra $20 and get both, trust me. I make additional formats cheap to make it easy for people to do this...