I just picked up a new walnut AE Voyager. I love it to death, but can someone tell me how to get a simple, thick, PWM sound? I’ve gotten variations of it, but it sounds different than the PWM sounds I get on my other synths, which leads me to believe I’m missing something on the front panel to give me that “sound”.
Thanks.
You’re probably sweeping the waveshape from full CCW to full CW, or triangle to ramp to pulse. You don’t want waveshape sweep to ramp/triangle if you just want PWM.
Try setting the oscillator WAVESHAPE to about “7” (the square shape).
The LFO is bipolar so it modulates the waveshape above AND below the waveshape “7” setting, that is why you want to use a square wave “7” as an initial PWM starting point.
Now set your modulation AMOUNT to zero and gradually increase it. You have too much if you hear the LFO try to sweep the waveshape past full CW, you can hear it “max out”. You also have too much if you hear narrow pulse sweep “morph” through ramp. You want just enough modulation AMOUNT so that the waveshape remains a pulse when using PWM.
Of course you can use any initial WAVESHAPE other than “7”, just compensate the modulation AMOUNT to maintain a pulse waveshape.
Well, I would guess that a simple PWM sound would result from one oscillator as MC describes. As for a thick PWM sound, you might try adding a second or third oscillator (both PWM) slightly detuned, or possibly set one oscillator an octave down from the others. “Thick” is a difficult term to interpret. A thick sound from another synth could be the result of a single oscillator but with stereo chorusing applied, plus some EQ running through an amplifier/cabinet simulation. Since the MMV has no built-in effects, you might have to resort to some external effects processing to really get the sound you’re looking for.
I’d also suggest downloading and auditioning the availble soundbanks from the Moog web site and see if there’s anything that gets you close to the sound you’re after. If nothing else, it’ll give you some alternative sounds to experiment with.
Good luck!
Greg
Whenever I try and get PWM I get sounds that are more like a tremolo. The sounds cut off completly. ON OFF ON OFF. I do set the waveform all the way CW to the narrow PW.
Is this correct?
PWM can be done on a Voyager - try this:
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Init. Parameters.
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Set Osc. 1 Wave control to somewhere between 8 and 8 1/2
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Set Ped/On Mod Buss Source to triangle
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Set Ped./On Mod Buss Dest. to Wave
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Set Ped./On Mod Buss Shaping to ON/PGM - (no PGM Shaping Offset)
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Slowly turn up Ped./On Mod Buss Amount - you’ll probably get the best results when the Amount control is set somewhere between 2 and 3. If you add to much modulation here - the Pulse width is driven to 0% which = no output. Similarly, too much Modulation will drive the waveform past the square wave and start adding sawtooth harmonics.
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Set LFO Rate to taste and simmer…
Whenever I try and get PWM I get sounds that are more like a tremolo. The sounds cut off completly. ON OFF ON OFF. I do set the waveform all the way CW to the narrow PW.
Is this correct?
Nope, that’s not the right approach if you don’t want the sound to cut off. You need to back the wave knob up to maybe 3 o’clock. And turn your mod amount off to start with, and creep it up 'til you hear the wave modulating nicely.
Since the Voyager has the ability to modulate/morph smoothly between all of its waveforms, in order to hear a true PWM sound, you’ll need to “center” the Wave control around a pulse wave.
-Hoax
Hey guys I just tried out some settings after reading over this thread. I’m really happy with this sound from these simple steps:
Osc1 8.5 maybe even closer to 8.75 32 Vol:255
Osc2 8.5 32 Vol:255
sync 1-2 ON
Pedal Source :Tri
Pedal Dest: Wave
Pedal Shaping: On
Amount: 2
Resonance 2
LFO .6
Env Att O
Env Dec: 12 o’clock
Env Sus: 0
Env rel: 0
Amount to filter 1.1-1.2
VCA att: 0
VCA Rel: 12 o’clock
VCA Sus: 6
VCA rel: 12 o’clock
Keyb track 0
Filter Spacing +5 on screen display.
I’de been looking for a similar sound for a while so I was happy to stumble upon it. Although its probably in the factory patches somewhere! hehe.