Have been playing with the Syntakt for a a couple of months and was recently trying to learn the Dual VCO in depth and I got confused…
Let’s say I select the 2 sines with ring mod (CNFG = 20 or 21) and set detune = 0 so both oscs have same frequency.
Now, if I understand correctly, when BAL is 100% right we hear the second sine oscillator (the one that gets detuned) and when BAL is 100% left we effect of ring modulation (osc1 multiplied by osc2).
And this is where I’m confused: the theory says (if I understand it properly) that when we multiply those two sines of equal frequency, what we get is basically a sine at double that frequency (because the original frequency gets cancelled and we get 2 frequencies, one at 2 * freq and one at 0 which we can’t hear - I confirmed this in supercollider btw).
On the Syntakt however, what I hear (with BAL 100% left) isn’t a sine wave at all! It’s something quite rich, almost a sawtooth, also a bit “distorted”, not sure what is it.
What am I missing here? Did I completely misunderstood what’s supposed to happen?
It’s more like a balance between the two oscs and the result of them modulating, a dry-wet sort of thing. Or more like bringing in the second one brings the modulation as well
I remember there was an excellent small guide with the clarifications on ring mod and FM configurations and what balance value would mean. Since balance does not work as one would expect at first. For example, I believe when doing FM config, balance is in fact “FM amount”, at some point going into feedback.
@taro
wasn’t it you who shared this great short guide? Maybe in this topic here, which seems to be unavailable at the moment: Explanation of Dual VCO
Yeah, that’s a great thread! And that picture is helpful, although it still doesn’t answer my question: in the “R” case it shows that on the left we have “ring modulated osc1” - great. So if the oscillators are both sines, I’d expect on the left to have another sine (the result of multiplying osc1 x osc2), not a… whatever it is that I’m hearing
