Waldorf Blofeld Keyboard - Manual (Page 94)

Sound Synthesis Basics
Blofeld User´s Manual 94
Additive components of the Triangle wave
The reason why the triangle wave is so popular in classic
synthesizers: It could act as a suboscillator wave, to
emphasize certain frequencies or to frequency modulate
other oscillators.
The triangle wave sounds like a woodwind instrument,
i.e. a clarinet. It can also be used for mallet instruments
like vibraphone, xylophone etc.
Wavetable Synthesis in the Blofeld
The sound generation of the wavetables in the Blofeld is
based on wavetable synthesis. Although wavetable
synthesis is not a form of "sample playback", you should
avoid this term because functionality, operation and
results are totally different.
Each of the wavetables contain
single 64 waves.
m
Please keep the terms "wavetable" and "wave" in
mind. Don´t confuse the two.
The following overview explains how the Wavetable
Synthesis works: A wavetable into the Blofeld is a table
consisting of 64 waveforms. Each waveform is classified
by its own special sound character. The main difference
of wavetable synthesis in comparison with other sound
generation principles is the facility not only to play one
waveform per oscillator, but also to walk through the
wavetable via different modulations. Therefore you can
create wavetable sweeps. The results can be dramatic -
much more so than those any sample playback based
system could ever produce. This is a unique feature of
wavetable synthesis.
1 3 5 7 9
Frequency
Magnitude
Time
Amplitude
+
=
1st Harmonic
Magnitude 1
5th Harmonic
Magnitude 1/25
7th Harmonic
Magnitude 1/49
Harmonics
+
+
+
.
.
11 13 15
3rd Harmonic
Magnitude 1/9