Ableton/Live/UG/31 Instrument Reference/09 Operator/02 Oscillator Section
31.9.2.1 Built-in Waveforms
- From the Wave chooser: pure Sine, the usual first choice for FM; Sine 4 Bit and Sine 8 Bit for a C64-style sound; Saw D and Square D digital shapes for bass; resynthesized square, triangle and saw whose number (e.g. Square 6) is the harmonic count, with lower numbers mellower and less prone to aliasing; Noise Looped, a noise loop; and Noise White, true random noise.
31.9.2.2 User Waveforms
- User, or any built-in wave, can be edited by drawing harmonic amplitudes with the pencil;
Shift locks to one harmonic. The status bar shows harmonic number and amplitude. - Edit the first 16, 32 or 64 harmonics. Repeat extends them upward with a fade: low values are brighter, high values roll off more and favor the fundamental; Off truncates.
- The context menu limits drawing to even or odd harmonics and toggles Normalize, which keeps level constant; with it off, output can get very loud.
- Export as Ableton/File/.ams to Samples/Waveforms in the User Library; drop .ams files back on an oscillator, or into Simpler or Sampler. The Osc Preview's context menu copies waves between oscillators.
31.9.2.3 More Oscillator Parameters
- Coarse and Fine set frequency relative to the note. Fixed ignores note pitch and uses Freq times Multi, down to 0.1 Hz; only the timbre changes across keys, as for drums.
- Osc < Vel shifts frequency with velocity; Q quantizes the shift to whole ratios, otherwise it detunes into inharmonic tones.
- Amplitude comes from Level and the oscillator's envelope, scaled by Vel and Key.
- Phase, and R to restart the phase per note or run free.
- When modulating, the modulator's level and the frequency ratio set the result. An oscillator nothing modulates can modulate itself with Feedback.
31.9.2.4 Aliasing
- Digital synthesis aliases at high frequencies, and FM, with its many harmonics, does so readily; complex waves like Saw 32 more than sines. A little can be useful; too much makes high notes fold to unrelated pitches.
- Antialias mode, on by default for new patches, reduces it. Tone in the global section also tames it, sometimes like a low-pass filter. To hear aliasing, turn Tone up and play very high notes.