Expose wavetsble Nr to CV control

Description of feature (short and simple): in addition to X Y Z etc, please add CV control over the WT cycle points

How will this feature improve the workflow or experience for all SSP users (keep it short and focused):
There are lots of cool wave table manipulations that come from changing the cycle points of various wave table samples, why not let us control them over CV?

2 Likes

whilst my engineer brain likes the idea… wavetables are just data after all…

I think sonically, without a lot of processing it won’t sound good.
(good) wavetables are designed to not have discontinuities at wave boundaries, if you don’t have this they alias very badly , modulating nrWaves would immediately cause this.
in fact, I cannot remember seeing a wavetable synth that allows for modulation of number of waves, likely for this reason.

ofc, you can work around with things like windowing, as we do in granular, but this would also impart a certain ‘texture’ to the wave. but its possible.

all that said, I find WTO aliases quite a bit… so perhaps none of the matters, its already usually pretty noisy/gritty.

talking of granular, you can actually use granular as a (kind of) alternative to wavetable.
basically start position = wave selection, and grain size = ( file size / number of waves)
as we are in the digital domain, theoretically, you can get quite precise in these…

anyway… have to say, I don’t use WTO too much, mainly because we don’t have the tools to create properly structured 3d wavetables… everyone else uses 2d, and with a single NrWaves parameters these can’t really be made to ‘match’ … so you get the issues I described above.
(really, we need NrWavX nWavY, so that X = 1 will work with 2d wavetable)

perhaps, one day, I might create my own wavetable module as it is an interesting area.
(but you still won’t be able to modulate NrWaves :laughing: )


edit: just to be clear, Im not pooh-poohing the idea at all, really just broadening discussion a bit.
at the end of the day, its up to Bert to decide what features to pursue, and he already knows how to avoid issues like the ones I highlight.

rather, I just find it interesting talking about implications / considerations of changes, partly as it helps solidify my own ideas of what I might do… ideas I might try out. e.g. might be fun to try to use granular as a pseudo wavetable, as it has some other interesting properties.

I disagree about the sonic validity of this idea, I have been playing with a large bank of 150 different wavetable samples, and they sound amazing when I scan through them with this control manually. It doesn’t matter if they are 2D or 3D, wavetables are still cool, and tbh, I like the glitchy sound of the 3D factory sample when set to different (other than 64) settings. I use it for glitchy LFO signals too, not just audio rate.

1 Like

cool… we all have different tastes etc :slight_smile:
and as you say, for lfo wavetables, discontinuity is not an issue, so could see myself potentially using it for this.