Moog Music Forum

I was just wondering why there is no sine wave on the Moog, also notice sin wave is not on a lot of other synths?

Sine waves are by nature much lower perceived volume at similar amplitudes. Less musically useful in a keyboard synth than in a modular for example.

Stephen




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You can easily obtain a good approximation of a sine wave by passing a triangle waveform thru a lowpass filter.

A sine wave as mod source might be interesting. But as audio source on a subtractive synth does most of the times nothing, you would really enjoy. Try to filter some sine wave. The result: you just changed the amplitude a bit. No sonically new content.
And this is why it is not available on most analog synths I ever encountered.

Ahhh, I thought that is how they got all those deep bass drops on the old drum machines. What you guys were saying is making since now though. Thanks for the feedback!

I believe Moog employ's are a highly religious bunch in general and as such that would be and unforgivable sin

O yes I had to go there

a sin a sign how do you pronounce this anyway?

pronounced like sign.

Yeah, sinusoidal isn't that easy to pronounce...

The Vermona Perfourmer has sine wavex...and very beatiful ones too!

Wouldn't you just turn the resonance up, and use the filter to self-oscillate as the sine wave generator? Many uses for that, from whistle sounds to sci-fi efects, to drums. The original Minimoog manual claimed this was the sixth sound source in a Mini, three oscillators, noise source, external input, and the filter self-oscillating.

CZ Rider wrote:Wouldn't you just turn the resonance up, and use the filter to self-oscillate as the sine wave generator? Many uses for that, from whistle sounds to sci-fi efects, to drums. The original Minimoog manual claimed this was the sixth sound source in a Mini, three oscillators, noise source, external input, and the filter self-oscillating.

That's correct, you can make sines (kinda) by maxing out the filter keyboard tracking knob, holding a note (or set the envelope switch to on/ext. so you don't have to hold the key down), start cranking up the resonance/emphasis until you can hear self-oscilation starting but can also still hear the main oscillator as well. Adjust the cutoff frequency knob until it's in both are in tune with each other, turn the resonance/emphasis up completely (you can also turn the keyboard envelope gate back to normal) You "should" have a decent Sine Wave going, Though it may not be perfectly in tune as you play up and down the keyboard.

Marc Doty does a good example in his Roland SH-09 video, http://youtu.be/jFvsyArUEOE

How dare the Voyager not have the most difficult to synthesise waveform with a rock solid 1V/oct performance oscillator. *Outrage*

HNY Moogs,
B

LivePsy wrote:How dare the Voyager not have the most difficult to synthesise waveform with a rock solid 1V/oct performance oscillator. *Outrage*

HNY Moogs,
B

I'm having a hard time understanding your sarcasm.

Is the sine wave the most difficult wave to synthesize? Also I notice when I did the self oscillating trick on my analog 4 it didn't scale right? So is that part based in facts? Do you know of any sites that would help me understand this a little better?

Lastly, If I were to use something like Kontakt, and imported a sine wave, would it scale right because of the cpu power.

I can appreciate your humor, just trying to understand it a little bit better.

n2design wrote: Is the sine wave the most difficult wave to synthesize?

There are several sine wave core oscillators, none of which are easily and accurately controlled by voltage. But the more common triangle or saw wave core oscillators can be very accurate and much more useful for synthesis. It is possible to shape a triangle wave to a more sine-like waveform, but it is never perfect which is why I called it "the most difficult to synthesise waveform". To be honest, a sinewave is occasionally useful, but has little use in the whole palette of subtractive synthesis.

n2design wrote:I notice when I did the self oscillating trick on my analog 4 it didn't scale right?

Jealously for you having an Analog 4. A filter is a less accurately tuned device just because it isn't usually necessary to have such high trackability like an oscillator. It can be done but isn't considered worth the extra cost and temperature stability. Self oscillating the filter is a trick which often works, but actually the 'out-of-tuneness' can be a creative advantage. My Voyager is a little flat over the 3.5 octave keyboard at maximum keyboard tracking and the tuning is way too coarse with the filter cutoff knob. The CP-251 can be used to correct both problems. No idea for your A4 though.

n2design wrote:If I were to use something like Kontakt, and imported a sine wave, would it scale right because of the cpu power.

If you loop the sinewave for 1 cycle, it will play in perfect tune across the entire keyboard range. This is an easy solution for a sampler. There may be digital artifacts with some high frequencies.

All posted in good humour,
B

Awesome, many thanks for the info. Guess I'll just stick with kontakt.