GAIA Exploring Sound (PDF) - Roland Corporation Australia

Section 7
TONES 2 and 3
In reality, we’d prefer you to go back and ask all those questions
again about TONES 2 & 3. However, by starting with the Global
Questions on pages 160 and 161 we can already rule out many
of those questions.
This is because we already established that TONES 2 and 3
appear to have started as copies of TONE 1. Indeed, the only
real differences appear to be in the Oscillators and LFOs.
So we’ll select just a few questions for now:
What Oscillator wave shape has been used?
Both TONES have used a variation of the Sawtooth waveform.
The programmer could have added more SuperSaw, but has
instead taken the more subtle approach. Since TONES 2 and 3
are panned left and right perhaps they are there just to add
“width” to the sound.
What can be learnt from the Pitch and
Detune settings?
Even though these two TONES are a subtle addition to the
overall Patch, they feature some unique decisions. Clearly the
programmer wanted to add more modulation, and this has been
enhanced by detuning these two TONES.
What LFO Shape has been used?
Both TONES 2 and 3 use the Random LFO waveform. As we
mentioned, this has added a “mosquito-like” quality to their
sound. Actually, it is almost as if these sounds come from very
badly made, or unstable, oscillators.
Traditional analog synthesizers had problems with stability, so by
adding some random LFO the programmer has successfully
recreated that type of sound.
This is a very interesting point; sometimes a sound can be
improved by recreating all that was unacceptable in the original.
You have already used this idea when creating the noisy release
of an electric piano back in Lesson 11.
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