What LFO settings needed to emulate analog synthesizer drift?
 

Hi, all. I'm trying to find ways of generating more life in my patches. One thing I would like to do would be to emulate the pitch drift commonly found in analog synths. Now, I'm guessing (hence my post title) that an LFO would be perfect for this. I'm guessing the LFO rate would have to be slight and it would have to be modulating the pitch of the oscillators. Am I missing anything here? Also, just to be sure, the only way to assign one of the 3 LFO's to Oscillator 3 is using the modulation matrix, correct? Thanks beforehand.

Hope is asked this question appropriately and it's not confusing. Let me know.

Modulate 'Osc1' and/or 'Osc2' destinations via LFO1. (Keep intensity low and understated, otherwise the pitch modulation is too much).

Or modulate 'Assign' [with destination = 'Osc2Detune' or 'Osc3Detune'] via LFO1. (More subtle than using 'Osc1' or 'Osc2' destinations).

Choose LFO rate/speed to taste (slow and understated is best). Try using a polyphonic sample+hold or sample+glide waveform for the LFO, so that the pitch modulation differs with each key press.

I prefer to set the LFO1 to modulate 'Osc1' by a negative value (say -6) and 'Osc2' by a positive value (+6).

You can do all of this from within the LFO menus themselves (modulate 'Osc1', 'Osc2' and 'Osc 2/3 Detune' [via 'Assign'] all together) if you wish to keep the main modulation matrix sources/destinations completely free for other duties.

Make sure that the 'PhaseInit' setting from within the oscillator settings is switched Off.

Bear in mind that PureTuning already does this analogue-like detuning to a degree. - The last time I measured it I found that the fully 'Tempered' setting gave a random 4-cent deviation on each note every time you pressed a key.

I follow your idea, and use this technique a lot to simulate that sort of ''instability'' that you get with analog synthesizers.
Using subtle and longer LFO rates to modulate pitch is one way to get that, but you can apply that to other parameters to get more life into your patches as well.

Modulating Pulse Width is always a great one, and it does also give a slight detune feel when you modulate it .

Using the Matrix, you can indeed use the different LFOs to modulate different Oscilators, and their parameters.
Some parameters I like to modulate like that using slow LFO rates, or other subtle settings are:

-modulating independent volumes of each oscilators, gives this unstable kind of movement.

- Ring Modulation amount, gives nice movement to the tone..

- Modulate the Oscilator Balance knob.

- Using white noise to modulate pitch is also fantastic

- Modulate distortion amount can sound really interesting as well.

Add these up and use subtle modulations wisely and they can mean the difference between dull sounding patches to really sophisticated sounds.

:cool:

Thank you both for your suggestions. Valuable information, as always.

ow... I thought that there was a button on the ascilator page to simulate the drift????????? not???