A quick and dirty recording of the Squascillator VCO - the first 30 seconds are a simple sequence with the pulsewidth being modulated by hand (could also use an LFO or other modulation source), whereas the remainder is a constant frequency with PW modulation alone.

No effects or postprocessing other than removing periods of silence and adding the fade in/fade out sections.

Squascillator VCO

Quick and dirty recording of the DWS diode waveshaper - no post processing other than adding the fade in/out.  This is the output from the DWS on its own - mixing the 'clean' and 'folded' signals can yield some very interesting results.

Constant frequency sine from an AVR VCO followed by random knob-twiddling on the DWS. There's a bit of a learning curve involved, but there are a lot of timbral sweet spots if you're prepared to put the effort in.

The 'default' version of the DWS has 8 diode stages for fiddling with - there may be an 'instant gratification' version available with only 4 stages at some point in the future.

DWS waveshaper demo

The diode ladder VCF in action - nothing fancy; Behringer Neutron providing the sounds, with the pitch controlled by the S&H to keep things interesting. Sawtooth wave to begin with, changing to pulse train towards the end.

Random knob-twiddling - self-oscillation is easy to find.

Diode ladder VCF

The Lockhart wavefolder as popularised by Ken Stone with his CGS-52 module. 

With a difference (or two)

With this module, it's possible to control the amount of current running through the positive and negative arms of the wavefolding section, which can lead to some interesting results irrespective of whether you're fettling VCO or control voltages.

The 'main' output gives the folded waveform whilst the 'square' output will, under certain circumstances, give an arrhythmic pulse train which can be used either as a modulation source or a square-wave oscillator in its own right. Keep in mind, though, that the depending on the biasing of the transistors you may not get anything out of the square output despite there being a folded waveform present on the 'other' output.

Works best with sine or triangle-based waveforms but there's nothing to stop you putting, well, anything into it - altering the level of the input signal can lead to some very interesting filter-like effects. If you really want to fatten up a sound, run it through a low-pass filter (or any filter) before feeding it into the wavefolder. Works _really_ well on basslines if you use a resonant filter.

Finally, on a technical note, the input signal must be at least 1.4V p-p - this is due to the voltage drops created by the two transistors in the circuit; the practical upshot is that this module will not work with audio signals unless they're amplified (a lot!) whereas most VCOs and CV generators will work just fine.

Lockhart Wavefolder sample

Overqualified software developer and builder of Eurorack synthesiser modules.

Lockhart Wavefolder sample

York Modular

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