PadSynth

PadSynth Harmonics Window PadSynth Envelopes Window

The PadSynth engine was designed by Paul Nasca and to the best of our knowledge there is no comparable type generally available. It starts with a waveform that is virtually identical to the one used by AddSynth. However, each harmonic of this waveform is then widened and shifted and blurred, by rendering it with a harmonic profile (Frequency Distribution). The resulting sound is similar to Granular Synthesis, but can be generated very efficiently from a set of perfectly looping wavetables. These wavetables need to be precomputed after a change, so none of the harmonic profile controls are real-time. Also, it is the wavetables that are called for actual sound generation after passing through the usual envelope controls (and this part of sound generation does work real-time).

There are two tabbed views in a single window. You will normally be shown the harmonic structure, the envelopes one (as it's name suggests) consisting mostly of envelope and LFO inserts.

Harmonic Structure

(left side)

The way some of these controls operate is rather obscure. The effect on the sound is often quite subtle, while making dramatic changes to the visual aspect of the harmonic profile. Generally speaking, when widening a harmonic profile, the corresponding sound starts to beat and fluctuate irregularly, like a swarm of bees hovering around common focal points.

Base Type Base shape used to widen and spread each harmonic: Gauss, Square or Double Explonential.

Width (spread) of a single peak within the profile.

Repeat Repeat the same base shape multiple times in the generated profile.

Str Modulate and spread the base shape, thereby creating several side bands with frequency shifted slightly above / below the centre — side bands create a chorus like quality.

Freq Increase the frequency of this modulation to increase the density of side bands.

Scale The profile as a whole can be stretched or squeezed by this parameter.
Note: when AutoScale is on (see below), the effect of this parameter is almost completely compensated.

Profile Which part of the profile to use: Full (default), or only the upper or lower half.

AmpMultiplier Apply a secondary modulation on top of the profile built thus far;
the modulating shape can be a bell function (Gauss), a Sine wave or just a plateau in the centre (Flat).

AmpMode The way this secondary modulation is worked into the profile. Par1 Squeeze or spread the secondary modulating shape.

Par2 Controls how the secondary modulation is faded or combined with the harmonic profile.

AutoScale Automatically stretches or squeezes the resulting profile, so that all the various profile shapes generate a similar blurring effect. What is taken as nominal bandwidth is indicated in the profile display by the vertical bars and the dark background. If AutoScale is disabled, this nominal bandwidth is fixed and thus reshaping the profile also increases or decreases the actual spread.

Bandwidth This is the most important control, and defines the effective Bandwidth of the harmonic profile in cents. By increasing this value, the sound transitions gradually from the precise waveform to a sonic cloud.

Bandwidth Scale How the Bandwidth is adjusted with the increasing frequency of each harmonic.

(right side)

PadSynth builds a series of wavetables to cover the most important middle octaves. Each tone is drawn from the closest wavetable starting at a random point (phase) and sampled up or down to the required note frequency. The quality of this resampling interpolation can be increased with the PadSynth Interpolation global setting. These quality settings (and the number of octaves) can be relevant for sharp and dense sounds, and for very high or low notes.

base The note value for the lowest wavetable generated.

smp/oct The number of wavetables generated within each octave.

no.oct The number of octaves to cover with dedicated wavetables.

Sample Size Size of the generated wavetable(s). A large wavetable captures more fine details of the harmonic profile and gives more time until the patterns repeat, but it costs more time to build and it takes up more memory.
Crossfade The time it takes to fade from the old wavetable to the new one (for Background and Auto-Apply modes).

Retrigger This button opens a window for Random regeneration of the wavetable.

There is a button to give access to an overall Resonance that can be applied to the engine. Below this is a Waveform button which gives access to a highly detailed waveshape editor, which is identical to the one available in AddSynth — with the exception of the phase control on individual partials; PadSynth ignores these and always picks completely random phases, whenever building a new wavetable. Note also that you can copy and paste the entire settings of this waveform editor between AddSynth and PadSynth; you may create a clear and pronounced sound with AddSynth and then take it into PadSynth to soften, spread and blur it, while retaining its character.

(bottom)

Spectrum Mode defines the way PadSynth generates the spectrum, which is then rendered into wavetables.
Overtones Position Since PadSynth re-renders the partials with high resolution, it is possible to shift overtones to non-harmonic positions, to create a wide array of metallic and noisy flavours. For Harmonic there is no control, so the other parameters are inactive. Similarly Par 2 does nothing for Shift so is disabled for that variation.
Par 1 spreads the harmonics according to the 'Overtones Position' type.
Par 2 provides a further variation on the harmonics spread, depending on type.

ForceH moves the shifted harmonics by a variable amount back towards the nearest actual multiple of the fundamental. This allows you to reduce and fine-tune the actual amount of noisiness


Note
Apply Changes: If any of the above controls for the harmonic profile are altered it will be necessary to rebuild the wavetables to hear the effect. Also, be aware that with a very big sample size and/or octave range and samples/octave this could take many seconds to complete. Yoshimi provides several modes to handle these PadSynth wavetable builds, which can be configured in the Global Settings

Envelopes and LFOs

Once again we have all the standard inserts. There are also the same local controls found in AddSynth and SubSynth. None of these affect the wavetable itself, so there is no need for the apply button here.

The Export button that appears at the bottom of both of these views takes you to a filer window for exporting a complete wavetable with the total number of samples you have currently set. These don't include any changes in the sound produced by controls in the envelopes window.

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