[sdiy] Attempting the impossible?? Detuning waveforms?

[Richard Wentk]

At 02:57 11/07/2005, Jeff Farr wrote:
>Ok, I've got myself a kitten here (not the furry kind).  It has only
>one osc, But each waveform has a volume slider before being sent to
>the filter.  It's also got a sub osc, and a sub-sub osc.  I've already
>added the Op-Amp circuits to patch out the inputs to the filter and
>it's modulation sources, and added an individual out for each waveform
>(and sub).  I'm currently working on adding a VCLag to turn the
>normally square subs into triangles and other funky shapes, I prefer
>the more suble harmonics of a tri for subs and the sub-sub makes a
>cool 'harmonic' audio freq LFO.  Now, what would be MEGA cool is being
>able to detune each waveform slightly for a thicker string sound.
>Even better to detune the sub-sub as a LFO.  Is this even possible?

You can go down the PLL blah blah blah route, but it can be a nightmare to 
get working properly.

Two simpler ideas:

1. Take the saw out and create a couple of extra square outputs via a 
comparator driven by one or more LFOs. This is surprisingly similar to a 
natural detune effect because you're effectively adding phase modulation 
which translates to pitch modulation. Creating triangles from the 
pulse/square outputs would be a challenge though because the outputs 
wouldn't be square. There are ways round this, but that side of it gets a 
little twitchy.

2. Use a multi-delay chorus unit. :-)

Richard