Saw wave actually reverse saw?
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I have an EE/DSP background, but don't know anything about practically using synthesizers.
As early as the first lesson, when the GUI shows the icon for a "SAW" wave, it shows a waveform that starts at 1 and gradually decreases to 0. But a "sawtooth wave" --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sawtooth_wave --- is the opposite... it starts at 0 and gradually increases to 1. The wave that starts at 1 and goes down is the "reverse sawtooth".
Is this a general difference between EE and synths? Do all synths say "SAW" when they mean what an engineer would call a "reverse sawtooth"? Is this just a weird detail/mistake that is just in Syntorial/Primer? Is the logo actually wrong and the waveform that is generate actually a sawtooth?
Jay McCarthy
2 weeks ago
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Good catch!
For practical purposes, in an oscillator, the saw and reverse saw sound identical so it doesn't matter which one a synth uses. I looked at a handful of synths. For the oscillator, some use saw, some use reverse saw.
Of course, as a slow modulation source, like in an LFO, it would matter a lot, as this would be the difference between hearing the destination ramp up vs ramp down.
As for the terminology, regardless of which one is used, I've only ever heard synthesists refer to it as a "saw", regardless if it's reverse or not, so that's the term we used. And we chose the downward ramping saw for the LFO as it's the more common use in that context, and so kept it the same for the oscillator to keep things simple. But yes, technically our oscillator uses a "reverse" saw.
0 2 weeks ago Reply
Excellent, I thought the same thing that it matters A LOT for the LFO and not so much for the listening experience. Thanks for the confirmation. Syntorial is amazing.
1 2 weeks ago Reply