Your coolest single cycle waveform based sounds/tricks

Hi everyone,

no news here, there’s huge potential in single cycle waveforms. DT is very well suited for using them. In this thread it would be great to collect tricks people use. I have yet to record something myself, but I’ve had some cool results with using different detuned waveforms on different tracks to build up chords and tonight I’ll further explore, e.g., throw phase-shifted LFOs into the mix to modulate the weights the individual waveforms have in the final output. Really interested to read what others are doing and where it takes them.

Cheers,
Hans

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i havent tried yet, but i did want to lfo the sample slot , and load up a load of wave forms that are cycled through.
I dont fully understand how the lfo might work yet (would the initial sample slot need to be in the middle ? , and the lfo goes minus and plus either side of it ?).

will try at the weekend.

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Having a ton of single cycle waves in a chain and using p-locks to change the start and end point is pretty neat. I’ve only got a Rytm but i’m sure it would work exactly the same on Digi, plus you could try using a lfo on the position for interesting changes.

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The most important thing I’ve learned is this: the best results on the Digitakt have come from me loading in acoustic instrument samples and single cycle waveforms. A single cycle of cello is particularly useful.

As for synth waveforms, my favorites so far are the combination waves like rounded square, saw-pulse, etc.They tend to lead in interesting directions.

I think that most people are going to use them for making chords to resample. You can make a nice pad with 2-8 single cycle waveforms with different filter envelope settings.

I’ve been going through thousands of single cycle waveforms and sorting them into folders and renaming them appropriately for the Digitakt. Until that job is complete, I’ll just keep playing around with the handful that are already on it.

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Remember too you can create a 33 second “wavetable” of different single-cycle waveforms back-to-back and then use the trim/plocks and/or LFO to glitch your way through them in various forms.

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Ive been messing with the tools alot to much success, but I will be doing the same with the Adventure Kid Wavs soon enough.

I would be grateful for concrete examples, samples, settings, and tips. Although I saw the discussions for the OT and AR, it would be nice if some of you can share things here again, DT adapted, if possible. Is it at all possible to describe some design procedure, say working towards a Moog bassline, or some pluggy sound, lead etc.? If someone has a DT suitable file/chain with some cycles that can produce certain, or a range of sounds, pls share it here :slight_smile:

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Hey there… Trying to find the answer to this while using the search function brought me here… Did this trick work? This would be dope af. :slight_smile: Thanks.

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it works fine , i loaded in all the waveforms that come with it,
from what i remember.

put the default waveform in the center of the list, and lfo up/down from that value.
if your depth is something like 3 , it’ll cycle up/down three sample slots , though its a little more guesswork sometimes.
it may be better to use a chain of waveforms to keep the sample slots free , but experimenting was very quick to select all / load all into project.

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I use http://polymer-app.com/ with the Digitakt. Use the Digitakt as an 8 voice single dco synth or a 4 voice, 2 dco synth. Use the lfo on each of the 8 samples to detune each ever so slightly. With all 8 a tad bit different. The resulting sound is rather good!

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Gonna download this tonight. Seems easy enough to play with.

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I have mixed experiences with single cycle waves. The waveforms provided with the DT work well, 3rd party waveforms (e. g. some from Adventure Kid) often have a “wrong tuning”.

I’ve been looking for single cycle waves of chords for a long time, but I haven’t found any. Any advice on where I can get some?

^ Chords tend to be difficult to wrap up into single cycle because each note would be a different length, therefore the loop point would need to be different for each note in the chord, the length of the loop determines the perceived pitch.

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Setup as a 4 voice, 2dco synth…

If you feel a scwf has the wrong tuning, simply send it out into a tuner and tune it appropriately or compare it to a reference…

Exactly. But the loop point can be calculated. Maybe someone will write a cool piece of software that can generate a chord and calculate the exact loop point. For instance, a perfect fifth would be 2 cycles of the original wave and 3 cycles of the fifth wave in the same timeframe

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Yes that would be cool. Working with single cycle waves in the past I have managed to get loops that sound like a chord, I think it was commonly divisible ratio that gave the illusion as the original waveform was noise.

I don’t get this. Are you talking about a sample of a chord acting like single cycle, or creating chords FROM a single cycle?

A single cycle sample that when looped sounded like a chord, even though it was just a noise sample. It was a few years back but I was editing loop points in the OT audio editor to create tonal sounds from noise and discovered it by accident.

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