The table provides an overview of the tonal qualities of each basic waveform.
Waveform | Basic tone | Comments |
|---|---|---|
Rectangular | Nasal sounding | Great for reed instruments, synth blips, basses |
Square | Hollow and woody sounding | Useful for basses, clarinets, and oboes. The pulse width of (oscillator 2 and 3) square waveforms can be smoothly scaled between 50% and the thinnest of pulses. |
Sawtooth | Warm and even | Useful for strings, pads, bass, and brass sounds |
Triangle | Sweet sounding, softer than sawtooth | Useful for flutes, pads |
Sine | A pure tone | The sine wave of oscillator 1 can be frequency-modulated by oscillator 2. This kind of frequency modulation forms the basis of FM synthesis. |