Oscillator width control

[trippyz]

Noob here. I have been learning synth basics with VCV for a couple of months and bought a Minilab MK2 a couple of weeks ago.  Just bought Pigments. 

Could someone explain why on the analog engine the oscillator width is only changeable on the square and triangle waveforms?  Is this because the note value defines the width?  If so that would seem to apply to the other two oscillator types. I have done some research but can't figure it out.

[LBH]

Hi and welcome to Arturia forums.

Be careful not to take pitch as a waveform width in the sense we talk about here, as different pitches have different widths. What we talk about is the width or shape of a waveform in any pitch.

In the waveform display you can see the Width parameter for the triangle actually is controlling the shape of the waveform between a triangle and almost a ramp up saw. (I think the way it's pictured in the display indicate the reset phase of the waveform.)
For the Square the Width parameter create different Pulsewidths waveforms, and this is the original pulsewidth setting possibility.

As the Width parameter is applied to change the Triangle waveform, then i can't tell, why there is'nt this feature for the Saw and the Sine waveforms, as there could be. One can say that the Saw perhaps would be the opposite of how the Triangle Width works now going from a ramp down Saw to a Triangle. And the Sine could also get some kind of shape changes too. Perhaps there are technical reasons. Or Arturia may have decided that this is covered by the width settings you can set for the triangle and the Square waveforms.

If you modulate a Square waveform, then you get pulsewidth modulation.

More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation
There are much info out there about this.

Hope this helps.

[Halekx]

Hi guys,

In this case, how would you change the Pulse Width Rate?

[LBH]

Hi guys,

In this case, how would you change the Pulse Width Rate?

Hi and welcome to Arturia forums.

A Pulse is a waveform. In classic understanding a Pulse wave is rectangular.
A single notes Pulse Width (PW) is a width that does'nt change. So it does'nt have any rate.
You can modulate the Waveform/ Pulse Width with any modulator, like i wrote above. That modulator can both work manually or automaticly so to speek. A automatic modulator can in example be a LFO, and then the LFO's rate determine the speed of the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). The movement of the modulation depend on the modulators waveform.

So you can in example select a Square waveform in the Analog engine, and then modulate the waveforms Width parameter with a LFO that's set to a triangle to get a classic  PWM.