3.3 - Wavetable Manipulation Guide

[Hez]

Also just to clarify - you can do all this stuff with the other Bitwig oscillators too (except the Sampler... yep that's a request if you're reading this Bitwig ).

You can do it with the sampler:

1 Enable the Freeze button on the sampler

2 Route your phase signal (or any audio-rate signal) to a Modulator Out, and use it to modulated the sampler's Pos parameter

3 Attach a trigger or button module to the Sampler's trigger input and click it to enable its playback. Or route the phasor to it so it'll just keep firing if it stops for some reason.

BTW, the Swarm oscillator is a fun source for phase, with the spread set to around .02 or less.
And the Quantizer shaper can be fun with a phase signal too.

True, I've messed around with that a bit but it tended to sound quite horrible in my experience. I guess there's probably a lot of code that needs to happen under the hood to get that 'sample scanning' type behaviour to work correctly. Maybe I need to experiment with it more though!

Good tip on the Swarm oscillator, I've used that as a pseudo-random LFO source in a few patches before - it would be super cool if we could somehow get outs for the individual sines before they are summed for the output, to use as correlated but weird LFOs

I'll look into it.

This is great work you've put together mate, well done.

Thanks very much, glad you're finding it useful

I had a little mess around in Serum trying to generate some bend waveforms similar to the PhasePlant one - I hadn't thought of achieving wavetable warping via Phase Modulation with specifically designed waveforms before but it seems like a really good approach.

This patch looks very close to the one in the video you linked (and therefore to Serum's Bend+- behaviour):

[foosnark]

True, I've messed around with that a bit but it tended to sound quite horrible in my experience.

It's very dependent on the samples you use, the wave you drive it with, and the range of modulation... definitely one of those things where it's easier/more likely to sound nasty than good.

I'd expect the wavetable to be a lot easier to work with and generally cleaner.

[pdxindy]

The wavetable osc is sweet!! Haven't even tried importing any wavetables yet... The modulation possibilities are plentiful!

[carlca]

Seriously, thanks a lot for this guide! After I've popped downstairs for some supper, I shall study this carefully

I didn't get on to it until today, but I've managed to get the basic patch as described by Hez, working.

Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 22.03.11.png

I then thought it would be handly to map the Phase devices to remote controls to make it easier to experiment with their effect. However, it seem that the remote control pages only allow the controls from the AD, Wavetable and Sine devices to be exposed. The phase devices seem to be relegated to second-class status. I've tried adding Macro modulators mapped to the Shift and the Formant phase devices, initially, but I still do not appear to be able to control them using the Device Page controls.

Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 22.24.49.png

I hope I've explained the issue adequately. Any clues as to what I am missing here?

[carlca]

I hope I've explained the issue adequately. Any clues as to what I am missing here?

Okay, it seems that what I was missing, as explained elsewhere in this forum, is that you can only use controls in the Preset Page as opposed to the Device Page.

Now I'm up against a problem that I've never managed to master, namely how to map the controls correctly. To give you an example, I've managed to map the macros for the Shift and the Formant device, but I cannot get it to work on the Bend device. I suspect that this is because controlling the bend device does not involve twisting a knob, but just mouse dragging over the device.

Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 23.11.21.png

Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 23.13.05.png

Any clues, anyone?

[pdxindy]

I hope I've explained the issue adequately. Any clues as to what I am missing here?

Okay, it seems that what I was missing, as explained elsewhere in this forum, is that you can only use controls in the Preset Page as opposed to the Device Page.

Now I'm up against a problem that I've never managed to master, namely how to map the controls correctly. To give you an example, I've managed to map the macros for the Shift and the Formant device, but I cannot get it to work on the Bend device. I suspect that this is because controlling the bend device does not involve twisting a knob, but just mouse dragging over the device.


Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 23.11.21.png



Screenshot 2020-10-16 at 23.13.05.png


Any clues, anyone?

I just tried mapping the Bend module and it worked just fine. I tried it directly and via a macro modulator knob... in both cases it works, but via the macro knob, the bend module doesn't display the bend module moving, but it is still working. Mapping the preset page parameter directly to the bend, then the bend moves when the knob moves.

[carlca]

I just tried mapping the Bend module and it worked just fine. I tried it directly and via a macro modulator knob... in both cases it works, but via the macro knob, the bend module doesn't display the bend module moving, but it is still working. Mapping the preset page parameter directly to the bend, then the bend moves when the knob moves.

Aha! Cool, thanks very much. As you say, it works perfectly mapped directly. It's interesting that via the macro, the visuals do not change, and also the text value displayed when you click the Bend device does not change. I thought, for one horrified moment, that this was going to be a "restricted feedback" situation reminiscent of the envelope display fiasco of Massive X v1.0

[pdxindy]

I just tried mapping the Bend module and it worked just fine. I tried it directly and via a macro modulator knob... in both cases it works, but via the macro knob, the bend module doesn't display the bend module moving, but it is still working. Mapping the preset page parameter directly to the bend, then the bend moves when the knob moves.

Aha! Cool, thanks very much. As you say, it works perfectly mapped directly. It's interesting that via the macro, the visuals do not change, and also the text value displayed when you click the Bend device does not change. I thought, for one horrified moment, that this was going to be a "restricted feedback" situation reminiscent of the envelope display fiasco of Massive X v1.0

It also could be a bug...

[carlca]

Perhaps! In any case, that's the first part of this mission completed. I don't suppose there is anyway to control the selection of the actual Wavetable remotely... But that's a job for tomorrow

Screenshot 2020-10-17 at 00.42.42.png

[x.iso]

Also just to clarify - you can do all this stuff with the other Bitwig oscillators too (except the Sampler... yep that's a request if you're reading this Bitwig ).

You can do it with the sampler:

1 Enable the Freeze button on the sampler

2 Route your phase signal (or any audio-rate signal) to a Modulator Out, and use it to modulated the sampler's Pos parameter

3 Attach a trigger or button module to the Sampler's trigger input and click it to enable its playback. Or route the phasor to it so it'll just keep firing if it stops for some reason.

BTW, the Swarm oscillator is a fun source for phase, with the spread set to around .02 or less.
And the Quantizer shaper can be fun with a phase signal too.

True, I've messed around with that a bit but it tended to sound quite horrible in my experience. I guess there's probably a lot of code that needs to happen under the hood to get that 'sample scanning' type behaviour to work correctly. Maybe I need to experiment with it more though!

you just have to add a bit of math modules to account for frame size, assuming you're using sample as WT. something like this for example

image_2020-10-17_163046.png

problem is, there's a bit of 'tearing' happening at the edges of the given frame, it jitters back and forth a bit, so you have a bit of buzzing going on, but dialing down calculated frame size just slightly can deal with that for the most part. either way, when I asked support if it's a bug that Sampler can't seem to scan manual position precisely enough, they answered that it's indeed not designed for that kind of precision and they would be making WT instead, which they did now.

[polarity-dnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s64FIgzF5Y

[Tj Shredder]

Got a better way for that warp mode than exporting from Serum. As I don't have Serum, that video showed me what this is all about - get this damn saw into that warp form.

BitwigSerum WarpMode.gif

The second bend object helps for more extreme warping and if its moved to the opposite direction turns into warp on stereoids...

[x.iso]

yes, for simple bending it's better to just use Bend module. although in your example you're doing Phase modulation, not Phase bending, simply because you forgot to set numerator of the target osc to 0.
pair WT osc with Phasor for more complex phase shapes, just don't forget to drive everything with Phasor.

[catzilla]

Снимок экрана 2023-04-25 003524.png

Now that we have the Transfer module, I wonder if we can use it to make any possible phase bending using this approach with the Uni -> Bi and Bi -> Uni modules for converting phase to bipoolar signal and back. I've tried to recreate @Bend and @Pinch with Transfer, it sounds identical to me. But maybe I miss something?

[forever880days]

Hey, sorry to dig up this post again, I found that after I used this method, Unison doesn't seem to work anymore, how can I fix it?