SOLVED: LFO waveforms are incorrect

[MarkP]

I've noticed a couple of comments on LFO waveforms in other posts. My experience so far is that SQ80 V does not map them correctly when historical SQ-80 or ESQ-1 programs are imported. Here's how they seem to be mapped:

Original - SQ80 V
TRI - triangle
SAW - square
SQR - sine
NOI - saw

EDIT: These waveforms are specified by two bits in the ESQ-1 or SQ-80 program structure, so only four settings are possible: 00, 01, 10 and 11. I am not sure what the order is, but I am guessing:

TRI 00
SAW 01
SQR 10
NOI 11

I have found that the SQ 80 V specifies them with decimal values:

triangle 0
ramp 0.2
square 0.40000001
noise 0.60000002
sine 0.80000001
saw 1

Is it that in the SQ 80 V, 00 (0) to 11 (3) is mapped to a scale of 0 to 1, and a combination of rounding and different ordering is causing the problem?

[aurelienarturia]

Thanks for your feedback, we've already tracked this bug and we are working to fix it !

Aurélien

[MarkP]

I've just noticed that there has been a revision of the SQ80 V. The version number is now 1.1.1.1783. I tested the LFO waveform import and there has been some improvement. They are now mapped as follows:

TRI - Triangle
SAW - Ramp
SQR - Square
NOI - Noise

I haven't been able to check whether the SAW-Ramp mapping is a problem. I don't know why they didn't map it SAW-Saw, which would appear to make more sense. Maybe someone from Arturia can explain. I will try to compare sounds using SAW when I get a bit more time, and see whether this matters.

[MarkP]

I found some time today to do a few comparisons of programs that use the SAW waveform on LFOs, played on both my ESQ-1 and the Arturia SQ-80 V. As I said before, the TRI, SQR and NOI waveforms seem to map OK since the software update. The SAW waveform now maps to 'Ramp' in the SQ 80 V. However, when I compare them, this sounds OK to me. And the manuals for both the ESQ-1 and SQ-80 describe SAW as a rising wave. I therefore think Arturia now have all LFO waveforms correct. I would be interested to know what others think.

In doing such close comparisons I did find that there are all sorts of little differences between the sounds of the hardware and the software synths, but these are subtle enough for me to live with.