Build a sound nobody ships

The Monosynth's value is not its list of controls. It is that the stages combine. A stage written for one model works with every model, so you can reach sounds that no instrument offers as a preset.

This page walks three of them. Each one names exact values, so you reach the sound first and explore afterwards.

Read Composable Monosynth first. It states what each control does in each model.

Before you start

1. Add a Monosynth to a track.
2. Set Osc 2 level and Osc 3 level to 0. You use one oscillator until the third patch.
3. Set Cutoff to about three quarters and Resonance to about a fifth.
4. Play a note. You must hear a plain tone.

If you hear nothing, check that Volume is not 0 and that the track is not muted.

Patch 1: a supersaw built from an additive oscillator

A supersaw is several detuned copies of one waveform. Every instrument makes one from sawtooths. This one makes it from a bank of harmonics, and the result is different: you choose how many harmonics the copies have, so the thickness and the brightness move apart.

1. Set Model to additive.
2. Set Timbre to about a third. This sets how many harmonics sound.
3. Set Detune to about a fifth. The copies spread apart.
4. Play a long note. You must hear a wide, slowly beating tone.
5. Turn Timbre up and down while the note sounds. The tone gets brighter and duller. The width does not change.
6. Turn Detune up and down. The width changes. The brightness does not.

On a normal supersaw those two move together, because more detune means more copies and more copies means more high-frequency beating. Here they are separate controls.

Set Shape to about a third to tilt the harmonics down. The sound becomes warmer without losing width.

Patch 2: a digital Hoover

A Hoover is a sweep. The classic one sweeps pulse width. This one sweeps the modulation index of an FM oscillator, so the sound gets brighter rather than wider. No instrument offers both a sweep envelope and an FM index in one place, so this patch does not exist as a preset anywhere.

1. Set Model to FM.
2. Set Shape to about a quarter. This selects a simple ratio.
3. Set Timbre to about a fifth. This is the modulation index.
4. Set Sweep destination to FM index.
5. Set Sweep depth to maximum.
6. Set the sweep's decay to about a third of a second.
7. Set Detune to about a fifth, so the copies spread.
8. Play a low note, around two octaves below middle C.

You must hear a bright attack that darkens quickly into a thick tone.

To hear what the sweep is doing, set Sweep depth to 0 and play again. The attack is gone and the tone is the same throughout.

To hear the difference from a classic Hoover, set Model to analog and Sweep destination to pulse width. The gesture is the same and the sound is not.

Patch 3: a feedback growl

The filter's output drives an oscillator's phase. That is a loop with gain, and it is meant to be. It is guarded so it cannot produce a damaged signal or stall, and within those guards it is allowed to misbehave.

1. Set Model to FM.
2. Set Timbre to about a fifth.
3. Set Topology to ladder.
4. Set Cutoff to about a third.
5. Set Resonance to maximum. The filter now sings on its own.
6. Play a note and listen. You hear the note and the filter's own tone together.
7. Raise Feedback slowly from 0.

The sound thickens and then breaks into a growl. Keep going and it screams.

To hear where the filter's own tone sits, release the note with Resonance still at maximum. The filter keeps sounding. Move Cutoff and the tone follows it.

Set Topology to diode and repeat. The filter sings a fifth higher than the Cutoff control says, because a three-pole filter whistles above its corner rather than at it.

What to try next

• Put Model on wavetable, turn Character up, and let the waveform scan by itself.
• Set Ring source to oscillator 1 times oscillator 2, set Osc 2 tune to a fifth, and turn Ring drive up. The two original pitches disappear and their sum and difference remain.
• Turn Analogify up on any patch. Each oscillator drifts independently, so the tone never sits still.
• Set two oscillators to the same pitch, invert one, and give each a slow vibrato at a different rate. They cancel, and the cancellation drifts.

If something sounds wrong

Gritty when the machine is busy. The instrument spends its remaining time budget on quality and gives up oversampling first. Drive / Fold and ring modulation are the two paths that need it. Close something else and the grit goes.

It screams. Turn Feedback or Resonance down. It is supposed to scream up there.

A chord does not work. The instrument plays one note at a time. Use one instance per note.