Hey all,
Anyone else noticed that the Amplitude Modulation doesn’t work right if the modulating waveform is a Saw or a Triangle?
It does something but not much and only if the modulation Saw/Tri is very low freq.
Using an input signal L or R seems to have no effect either.
Cheers
Ross
Doubtful. Background #A4tip info from Elektron …
From the manual:
Regardless of what waveform is selected, it’s always the oscillator’s Pulse wave that AM-modulates the other oscillator. In other words, this modulation simply means that the Pulse signal switches the other oscillator’s signal on and off.
If the Pulse wave has around 50% pulse width, the effect is normally easily heard, since the modulated waveform is chopped up quite a bit. But if the pulsewidth is at or near its extremes (0% or 100%), it results in either unaffected or completely muted sound, since the signal stays either on or off. This is why it’s not always obvious what the AM does, if you just engage or disengage it and listen. Therefore the manual says that the pulse width setting affects the result.
So what is the pulsewidth when Pulse is not selected as the waveform? Is it the same as the PW knob says, so that it would be the same as if Pulse were selected?
In fact, no! It is more confusing than this. And therefore the manual says that the waveform choice also affects the result.
For instance, the pulse waveform is also used internally to create the PW-modulatable “double saw”. In order to have a normal Saw waveform in the middle of the PW knob setting, the actual pulse width of the Pulse wave changes from 0% to 100% and back to 0% when turning the PW knob with Sawtooth as the chosen waveform. This is different to the 0%-to-100% behaviour when Pulse is selected. (The reason is that the mid position of the PW knob should always give the normal version of the waveform selected. Selecting between basic waveforms shouldn’t have to include setting the PW parameter differently.) A side-effect of this is that turning on the AM might sound identical if the PW is set to mid position when Saw or Triangle wave is selected.
[quote=“Jon9”][quote=“exuviae”]It has a “thing” and learning it is the key to finding out all the amazing things you can do with it.
That’s well put.[/quote]
Yes, the AM is an example of something that isn’t instant gratification. Find the useful combinations of all the dozens of parameters that affects the sound of this complex modulation, don’t expect magic to happen just by switching it on!
(The AM modulator might be a bit restricted and illogical due to all this, but note that the AM-modulated signal is whatever waveform selection done on the oscillator page. It’s not restricted to the oscillator waveforms, it can also be the Ext inputs, the Neighbor synth track, or the filter feedback path!)[/quote]
