Additive Synthesis

Additive synthesis must be cool, because it has a cool-sounding name, right? As discussed in the Oscillator and Harmonics Tuning section, the idea behind additive synthesis is that multiple sine waves are tuned to mathematical ratios and combined at various amplitudes to create more complex tunes - conceptually, like combining prime numbers to create a larger, fancier number.

The main limitation of this technique is that you need a lot of of sine waves to create really complex tones, but with that said, there are still interesting tones to be found mixing pure sine waves, and of course, we can select far richer waveforms. Let's begin with an initialized patch as in the previous example:

• Click the New button in the top left corner to create an initialized patch.

• Click on the orange text in Oscillator 1's Waveform selector, and select Basic Analog>Sine.

• Pull the Initial Level fader down to zero.

• Click the orange text in the Harmonics Preset window and select Harmonics Presets>Even Order. This configures the tuning of all eight harmonics to even multiples.

• Click the Harmonic Level Bar 1 at the bottom and drag it vertically to its max setting. Play some notes and behold One Boring Sine Wave.

• Experiment with raising the other Harmonic Level bars - notice how it creates interesting composite tones?

If the harmonics are set something like above, the tone will resemble, you guessed it, a sawtooth wave. It'll be a bit duller, because it's missing upper harmonics, but it's certainly in the ballpark.

• Try leaving the Harmonic Level bars at the their faux-sawtooth settings, and switch the waveform to Basic Analog>Square. This sounds even more like a sawtooth wave, and incidentally, this how many string machines and organs create saw-like waves using square-wave sound generation

Naturally, this stacking of static of waveforms isn't limited to basic waveforms - experiment with Harmonia's more complex looped waves. And also experiment with different Harmonics Presets. We recommend starting with Harmonics Presets>Harmonics 1-8, Even Order, and Odd Order.

Interesting sounds can often be created by raising Harmonic Level 1 and/or 2, then raising a one or more super high harmonics (feel free to twist the red tuning knobs on these to taste).