Oscillator shapes

[Frocktar]

I feel I’ve read on this many many moons ago, prior to owning a P12, but I can not find the thread on this site, so perhaps it was over at GS, but I am curious if anyone knows more about it here.

I’ve been watching the various waves from the P12 on oscilloscopes and most are really weird.  I really don’t care terribly much as I love what I can do with her, but I am curious how they got to be like this.

Of the classic wave shapes only the sine really resembles closely the shape its named after, the saw, triangle and pulse are wwwaaayyyy off traditional shape.
Again I am curious if anyone here knows the reason for this, is it on purpose, is it a limitation of the digital oscillators etc??

For anyone who hasn’t seen them, it’s pretty interesting and worth checking out.

Ciao.

[Frocktar]

I can post some comparison pics if anyone likes?  I’ve been comparing the P12 with the Rev2, Virus Ti and Minitaur. The Minitair obviously only square and sawtooth.

[Frocktar]

Apologies, don't mean to spam this thread but thought id add in the comparisons for those who are interested...

[mIIwaukee]

Apologies, don't mean to spam this thread but thought id add in the comparisons for those who are interested...

Awesome! Of course, would love to see the Pro2 in here.

[Chaparral]

To one side of your valid observation I would like to make a suggestion. If all synths used perfect Square, Triangle and Sawtooth waves then surely they would all initially sound the same. I understand why the Sine wave should be accurate for good FM modulation, but the other waveforms are surely better for being less precise, thus giving the P12 a more unique sound.
 I had assumed all along that the Square, Triangle and Sawtooth waves were just Prophet approximations which were deemed musically "better sounding" than the exact waveforms do. (My assumption was not based on any real knowledge).

[Frocktar]

Apologies, don't mean to spam this thread but thought id add in the comparisons for those who are interested...

Awesome! Of course, would love to see the Pro2 in here.

So would I since that'd mean I had one to play with

I am not bagging the P12 btw, its my favourite synth.  Just would love to know how these ended up like this.  Was it purposeful to make unique tones, some inherent flaw in the code, or something totally different I haven't considered.

[tumble2k]

I remember reading the Mutable Instruments Ambika manual. There sometimes were two different versions of wave shapes depending on whether they were band limited or not. The band limited ones didn't alias as much in the higher registers.

[Soundquest]

I feel I’ve read on this many many moons ago, prior to owning a P12, but I can not find the thread on this site, so perhaps it was over at GS, but I am curious if anyone knows more about it here.

Froctar,  were you referring to the thread under the title "raw oscillator shapes" from last month??    Anyway...I saw the same shape for square on my scope for the P12.  The Sine on  P12 is perfect, yes the triangle is also odd.  But as mentioned before, it does not matter as long as it works    But from a purely curious perspective, I do wonder why it those two mainstay waveshapes would be a departure from "normal".

[Frocktar]

Hi Soundquest, no that thread you mentioned was about the raw oscillator ‘sound’ rather than ‘shape’ and was actually started by me.  It ended in me realising I had an issue with my P12 A outputs being really quiet and a tad dull, which I have resolved since (speaking of which i should update that thread on what happened).

I think the original comments I’d read on the weird shapes were perhaps on GS forum and they were mainly talking about the triangle wave. I was pretty surprised by the rest of them actually.

Not fussed, but definitely curious about it.