squarewave hollowness.....

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bosonob
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squarewave hollowness.....

Post by bosonob » Wed Sep 14, 2005 1:58 pm

Was recently poking around Analog Heaven and came across an interesting statement

Paraphrased: "Moog 921 oscillators capture that extra hollow squarewave sound"


Sure enough I found a Moog 900 series test file someone did with a squarewave and indeed you get a much more "hollow" sounding timbre especially in the bass area when compared to voyager or my homebrew modular.

What waveshape or property of the Moog modular oscillator is responsible for this?


stefan
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GregAE
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Re: squarewave hollowness.....

Post by GregAE » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:41 pm

bosonob wrote:
What waveshape or property of the Moog modular oscillator is responsible for this?

stefan
I'd guess it's the bandwidth. I remember reading a quote from Will Alexander, Keith Emerson's tech, who said that the Moog Modular was like a piece of lab equipment that would go from DC to 100Hkz. It's why the modular has so much 'sizzle' in the top end.

As good as the Voyager is, it doesn't go to 100Khz. Given that a theoretical squarewave is made up of harmonics that go out to infinity, the system that best replicates a perfect squarewave should sound better. I'd guess the modular (with the wider bandwidth 921 oscillators) does a better job here.

Where'd you see the post on AH?
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Qwave
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Post by Qwave » Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:27 pm

A Moog modular oscillator is not limited in high frequency content by a lowpass being present all the time in the audio chain like on the Voyager. I really wonder if one would get out the pure Voyager's ocillator's sound before they pass the filter and messure it then (who?). Anyway, the Voyager is a well crafted synth. And the Moog Modular was even more special.
keep on turning these Moog knobs

Till "Qwave" Kopper

[url=http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Squarewave/]Squarewave Group[/url] member "waldorfian_qwave"
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GregAE
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Post by GregAE » Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:59 pm

Qwave wrote: I really wonder if one would get out the pure Voyager's ocillator's sound before they pass the filter and messure it then (who?).
Well, actually I did just that last year when I performed a few oscillator
tests on the Voyager (purely out of curiousity, and hardly scientific). I did
a write up and posted it for anyone else who was also curious. It's on the Squarewave site:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Sq ... eforms.pdf

If I can get a sample from a 921, I might be able to make a reasonably
fair comparison between the two using the same measurement approach.
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