How to Emulate the Super Saw

Analysis of the Super Saw was done in order to provide a detailed understanding of this special oscillator found in the Roland JP-8000 and JP-8080. There are currently no software synthesizers available which have the Super Saw oscillator or any faithful recreations which could represent this special oscillator. With the results and findings in this thesis, it will be possible to emulate the Super Saw on different platforms with great accuracy. No source code or any other copyrighted techniques from the Roland synthesizers were used, therefore the recreation of the Super Saw is strictly an emulation. Samples of the Super Saw oscillator from the Roland JP-8000/JP-8080 synthesizer were recorded with various settings. The samples were recorded at 44100Hz, 32Bit Stereo, to provide a high quality analysis with the help of a spectrum analyzer and an oscilloscope. Four different aspects of the Super Saw were taken into account and analyzed: the detune control, mix control, shape of the oscillators, and phase of the oscillators. To emulate the Super Saw, the visual programming environment: Outsim SynthMaker was used, because if its ease of use and flexibility. Matlab was used to handle the data from the samples, and the curve fitting tool provided functions that represent the different behaviors of the Super Saw accurately. Analysis of different detune settings showed that the detune curve of the seven oscillators in the Super Saw is not linear and the detune values do not result in a proportional ratio of detune amount. An 11th order polynomial curve was derived from the acquired data, accurately reproducing the actual detune curve. The mix control that changes the amplitude of the six oscillators relative to the center oscillator turns out to be different than showed in the manual of the synthesizer. The center oscillator decreases in volume in a linear fashion, where as the six other oscillators increase with a shape of a parabola. The shape of the oscillators, are found to be actual sawtooth waveforms, however, there is a high pass filter at the fundamental harmonic of the waveforms which is “pitch tracked” that is, it follows the frequency of the first harmonic of the oscillator. To prevent the oscillators from aliasing at higher frequencies, the high pass filter removes the unwanted harmonics that are folded back into the audible spectrum below the set frequency. The phases of the oscillators are strictly random, meaning the oscillators are free running. Each note trigger produces a random value for the phase input of the oscillator, and assigns it for each note trigger. HUR MAN EMULERAR EN SUPER SAW