Phase Distortion: The halfsaw waveform. Useless. ?

[Sendy]

For what it's worth, PlastiCZ also has the halfsaw waveform and it's a "half-ramp". If you chain it with the saw you get a sort of pulse, which is what you'd expect.

[Halma]

Maybe it is useful in Ring modulation which was already possible in the original CZ synths.

How funny you mentioned it. Because in the book of A. Schlesinger there are 20 patch examples with more indepth techniques and he is using [1:0] in dco1 and [5:0] in dco2 in RM mode for an ethnic percussion sound.

Regards
Sebastian

That's really interesting. I wonder how different these patches would sound if you replaced the halfsaw with the regular saw? I'm going to check out some more VST PD implimentations. I still have ReFX's PlastiCZ because I think it has a really unique "chompy" sound.

If you haven not tried out Kassiopaia 2.0 yet you should give it a try. Though I don't own the hardware (friend has a Hohner one) this one comes closest I guess because of the multi stage envelopes available.

My goto PD synth because of that.

Regards
Sebastian

[pdxindy]

I don't know anything about this subject... but I have observed in Bazille that saw and half saw get more varied results once one is using FM. THe half saw does not turn to noise like saw does...

[Halma]

I don't know anything about this subject... but I have observed in Bazille that saw and half saw get more varied results once one is using FM. THe half saw does not turn to noise like saw does...

Not quite sure how deep you are into PD but think about it that way: the original CZs synths have no filter. Imagine a filtersweep on a saw wave. If you close the filter from totally open to completely closed you transform the saw slowly but surely into a sine wave.

You can do the same with PD when you modulate your osc eg the saw from max to min (max = saw wave -> min = sine wave). It is basically the same. The problem is the missing resonance of a filter. This can be done the same as before: modulate a second oscillator that has one of the three Resonance waveforms. They act exactly like eg. the saw. At minimum every oscillator is a sinewave but as soon as you start to modulate it with an envelope you have 100% control over the sound of it. Similar like wavetable sweeping. Different sounds at different stages that can be modulated.

Regarding to the FM thingy: that could be because the saw introduces even more frequencies than the other one. I think only noise can drive FM faster into distortion than a saw wave.

Regards
Sebastian