difficulty understanding wavetable

[technomonster]

i think i am now getting confused.

whats the definition of wavetable .

i guess its diffrent from sampled waveforms, although i have heard and read the term wavetable used for both.

now so many softsynth VAs give you up to 30-50 different waveforms their oscillators can choose to do., unlike the older usual sine, square, saw from the older synths.

in what way is wavetable different from the new oscillator generated 30 or so waveforms.

i am asking because because i have just heard the Z3ta+ demo, which boasts wavetable synthesis, and of course the spunky lookin TI has them.

[Tomer=Trance]

wavetable are digitaly generated waveforms.
nothing realy to understand about it,they can be sampled or ever drawed.

[ben crosland]

In the TI, a wavetable is a collection of different, single-cycle waveforms.

Some tables only have a few waves, some have more than 40. Some tables contain waves which are very different in character, whilst others only contain subtle changes between adjacent waves.

The TI has the following parameters for each Wavetable oscillator:

'Wavetable' and 'Index' (in addition to all the standard parameters, of course).

Wavetable chooses the group of waves, whilst Index chooses which wave is played back when the key is pressed. However, it can not only point directly at each wave, but in the 'spaces' between them, in which you get a blend of the two waves either side.

Things start to get interesting when you choose the Wavetable Index as a modulation destination. Then you can assign an LFO or an envelope (or both) to sweep the Index point over the course of the note. All of a sudden, what was a cold, static digital wave, becomes a living, pulsating soundscape.

Waldorf made wavetable oscillators both famous and popular in their synthesizers, although they switched between each wave as you swept through a table, whilst the TI smoothly blends the waves into each other.

[MADSTATION]

Posts like that get me excited again about the TI.

Damn you Ben!

[Smag]

I've got a Microwave XT, I hope I can help.

A wavetable is a list of digital waves that the user compiles. I think my microwave allows you to choose from 500 waves but each wavetable only allows up to 60 waves to be compiled.

You can have 2 waves in a wavetable or 10, or whatever, I think my microwave allows up to 60 waves per table.

say you have 2 waves, a square and a saw and in the table they are positioned at locations 1 and 60 respectively.

You can then turn a knob and "mix" from the sound of your square wave into the saw. Not massively exciting but it gets good when you have several different waves in the table and set LFOs to sweep them. When people say "wavetable sweep" they just mean to cycle through these different waves.

Add filters, fm, LFO's and FX and you're laughing. Wavetable synthesis has got quite a glassy, crystal sound because of the digital waves.

[ben crosland]

Originally Posted by Smag

I've got a Microwave XT, I hope I can help.

A wavetable is a list of digital waves that the user compiles.

Maybe in the XT, but the TI tables are pre-defined.

[hatembr]

Originally Posted by ben crosland

Maybe in the XT, but the TI tables are pre-defined.

so the wavetables in the TI are static ? one cannot change their waves?

[ben crosland]

Originally Posted by hatembr

so the wavetables in the TI are static ? one cannot change their waves?

There is certainly no facility to do so as yet. To be honest, it doesn't bother me at all - there are about 70 tables in there now, and this should be more than enough to be going on with. The facility to re-arrange the waves may sound cool in principle, but I seriously doubt that many would bother with it after a few attempts, as it would be a very laborious process.

Anyone remember the Wavestation? I was *so* excited about the possibility of making my own wave sequences when I got that, and just as disappointed by how difficult it was to make new ones that were any good, or sounded significantly different to the preset ones.

Really, with all the variety that will be available in the release version, I wouldn't worry too much about this apparent limitation - there is so much to explore already!

[Smag]

Ben's right. The ability to draw and load your own waves into your synth sounds good in principle put it is time-consuming to the extent that you'll forget the reason why you got a synth in the first place. The waves in the Ti should provide loads of depth to work with.

[hatembr]

after all, i agree, i know how hard it is to create custom wave sequences on the wavestation. It is a really tedious and hard task.