So i’ve been testing the beta firmware of the Minitaur, and today i succesfully created pulsewidth modulation sounds via the lfo thanks to the upcoming sync feature… Minitaur PWM! you guys are in for a treat 
Aanywhoo, i’m off to tell Nick 
If a static CV could be used to create variable pulse, that would be so cool. Nice to have square waves in the Minitaur, but I really like the variable pulse waves in my Source.
Really interesting trick, thanks for sharing
first, you need to set the two osc shapes to square
the trick is to set the mod amount to about 1/3 up ‘(not more than half) so the dial is pointing to around 10 o’ clock. then sweep the pitch of osc 2 all the way down. you will hear no sound.
slowly raise the pitch and you will hear a stuttering sound, the silences are when the pulsewidth is zero, so keep raising just until there are no silences any more;
now you have a pwm cycle going from a very thin pulse up to a square.
In theory without the modulation from the lfo, the pitch has effectively become the pw dial, so you could do this via cv as well.
if you go beyond the first square shape you will hear the more typical sync style sounds.
you can do this with any synth that has a sync possibility.
i find you get better results if you have a soft sync option as well
What’s the difference between soft and hard sync, BTW?
Soft synth locks the VCOs together so they both produce exactly the same pitch.
Hard sync prematurely resets the charging cycle of the cap that is generating the pitch. The charging cap generates the ramp waveform, from which other wave shapes can be derived. When the charging cycle is premature reset, the VCOs are at the same pitch but as you increase the frequency of the hard sync’d VCO it introduces new harmonics.
One must read soft sync and not soft synth in your post, right ?
Thanks for explaining soft sync, that’s the one I did not know. Hard sync indeed introduce new harmonics because the waveshape gets interrupted.
yes, soft sync makes the waveform start at the exact same moment in the cycle every time you press a note, without this a note can begin at any given point in the cycle, giving a more diffuse sound which can sound quite pleasing and is often one of the carcateristics people call ‘analog’, but soft sync can make bass sounds more punchy because all osc start at the same point in the cycle, creating optimum attack every time.
for the sync trick i was talking it helps to make sure the pulswidth shape change happens regularly
(it is the start offset between the two square oscs that creates a narrower pulse)