VA oscillator differences

[r3dnaX]

I was bored the other day so I thought I'd see what my different pure (unfiltered) VAs saw waves looked like in detail.

I used Logic to capture each "INIT" single saw sound at C2 (about 2 seconds in from note-on*) extracted a single wavecycle sample, normalised each wave and pasted each cycle next to the other.

[* note-on cycle is sometimes unpredictable]

Here they all are next to each other.


I was quite surprised by the differences and maybe this explains why different VAs have their own character (i.e you can quite often identify a Virus sound from, say, a Novation sound). It also maybe explains why the Novation analogue modelling sounds a little "rounder" (more polite) than say the Ion which is quite gritty and biting.

Next, I superimposed a mathematically perfect saw wave in yellow to see how far the modelled oscillator differs from it. I assume the convexity and concavity deviations (from mathematically perfect) are intentional to simulate the behaviour of analogue oscillators ?


It's also quite interesting (to me, anyway 8O ) to see that, apart from the MS2000, the up-cycle is not at the same magnitude as the down-cycle. I wonder whether this is intentional or not ?

Has anyone got a real analogue (preferably vintage Moog or Jupiter - rather than the modern analogues) to see how a pure saw wave cycle compares ? I'd be interested in seeing whether concavity or convexity does occur in the real thing or whether it's a "perfect" saw.

r3dnaX