10MM142 Waveshapes

Sawtooth, square and triangle waveshapes are fundamental to contemporary music production, but what exactly are they? Mark Cousins makes waves.

You need only to glance at a typical subtractive synth to realise that waveshapes form the building blocks of sound creation, whether it’s a sawtooth, square, triangle or pulse waveform or even a simple sine wave. But what are the factors that make a sawtooth wave, for example, so radically different from a sine wave? Not surprisingly, a closer investigation of the theory behind waveshapes offers some remarkable insights into both the process of synthesis and, more importantly, into the nature of sound itself.

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 69
Filed under General Features, Ten Minute Masters, Features

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