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Table Of Contents
Square and Pulse Waves
Hollow and woody-sounding, a square wave can contain a wide range of odd harmonics.
It is useful when creating reed instruments, pads, and basses. It can also be used to
emulate kick drums, congas, tom-toms, and other percussive instruments—often blended
with another oscillator waveform, such as noise.
The square wave can be reshaped to make the waveform cycles—or pulses—more
rectangular on many synthesizers, using a pulse width modulation (PWM) control. The
more rectangular the wave becomes, the more nasal it sounds. When modulated in this
way, the square wave is known as a pulse wave, and contains fewer harmonics. It can be
used for reeds, basses, and brass sounds. See Reshaping Waveforms.
Triangle
Like a square wave, a triangle wave contains only odd harmonics. Because a triangle
waves higher harmonics roll off faster than the ones of a square wave, the triangle wave
sounds softer. It is ideal for creating flute sounds, pads, and vocal oohs.”
356 Appendix Synthesizer Basics