Category: Supersaw

The oscillators.

The oscillator prefab is shown below. It consists of seven HD Oscillators (these are included in the community modules found at http://www.synthedit.com/modules/community_modules.zip)
In the lower half you can see some plugs with numbers against them. These refer to the “Offset” Voltages.
The HD Oscillators give a brighter sound than the original Oscillator modules, each one has its own offset voltage, these are our “Offset Frequencies” as SynthEdit voltages:
-0.11002313 V
-0.06288439 V
-0.01952356 V
0.0 V which is our centre frequency.
0.01991221 V
0.06216538 V
0.10745242 V
The ratio between these voltages is always constant, but they pass through an amplifier module which controls the gain equally on each offset, preserving the voltage ratios, but increasing the spacing between them to replicate the original “Offset” control on the Supersaw synthesizer. The Phase Mod plugs are fed by another module which generates a random voltage each time a MIDI trigger pulse is received, this recreates in part the sound of the original oscillator by ensuring that each module starts at a random point the the sawtooth cycle.

Oscillator Bank (Prefab).

Internal structure of the oscillator bank.
There are four Input IO Modules:
1) The main pitch input which connects to the Detuner and the MIDI input
2) The Offset, this carries the offset voltages for the oscillators
3) The Phase Input, which carries the random phase control signals for each oscillator.
4) The Level Controls for the Detune (Supersaw) Volume, and the Centre Volume.
There is only one IO Output module this carries the Centre Frequency audio output, and the Supersaw audio output

Detailed view of the Control Inputs for the Oscillators and connections.

Detailed view of the Audio Outputs, and Level Control inputs.

The next part of creating a super-saw oscillator
https://synthedit-help.co.uk/creating-a-supersaw-part-2/supersaw/

What is a super-saw oscillator?

First a little bit of history. The Roland JP-8000 synthesizer was released in the mid 1990’s as part of the first wave of virtual analogue modelling hardware synthesizers (or VA synths).
One of the types of oscillator was the so called “Supersaw Oscillator”.
This relied on one sawtooth oscillator which was fixed to the centre frequency of the note being played, say standard A or 440 Hz. There were six other oscillators which were all slightly de-tunable, however the frequency ratio between the oscillators was always a fixed proportion (except when used with no detuning or in the “unison” mode). These super-saw oscillators provided a “big” lush sound ideal for string sounds, big pads, and much loved by a lot of EDM artists.
There is no unfortunately no information easily available from Roland regarding the tuning ratios, however there have been attempts at “reverse engineering”, and there is a complex in-depth analysis on line at: Link to download Adam Szabo’s PDF analysis of how to emulate a super-saw oscillator

This is the SynthEdit “Supersaw” module we can create from what we know from this analysis:

It’s a complex beast so lets take this project stage by stage.
https://synthedit-help.co.uk/creating-a-supersaw-part-1/supersaw/

Putting it all together.

So this is the complete Supersaw module. The buffer modules are just Level Adj modules with the Input 2 plug fixed at 10 Volts.

High pass filtering to improve.

The Anti-Alias HPF in the output is there to cut-off any frequencies below the note(s) played on the keyboard. This is included because by its very nature the Supersaw out plug is carrying a lot of harmonics, which carry the risk of creating some nasty rasping sounds due to some of to some of them clashing and causing aliasing products, this just keeps the sound nice and clean and bright with no raspy LF rumbles.

Going Forward- making the synth your own.

How you construct your final Synth is down to your own preferences, such as adding an LFO, a second ADSR for the filter sweep, types of filter, whether you have another VCO to use as a Sub-Oscillator, or to give the option of a more standard VCO with the usual sine/saw/triangle/pulse choices…the list is endless. I deliberately haven’t shown any controls to keep the layout looking a bit easier to understand.
The things to remember are:
1) The Supersaw module needs the Trigger pulse to recreate the sound properly
2) The HPF tracking must be connected to the Pitch output of the MIDI-CV2.