See and hear how the shape of a sound wave shapes its texture.
220 Hz
Every waveform is really several sine waves (harmonics) stacked together. Slide the harmonics up to build your own wave from scratch.
A pure sine has only the fundamental (harmonic 1). Add the 2nd, 3rd and higher harmonics and the wave stops looking smooth and starts looking spiky — that's exactly what makes a sawtooth or square wave sound "buzzier" or "brighter" than a sine. This is how additive synthesis builds a timbre one harmonic at a time.
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Real synth pads rarely use just one oscillator. Layer several copies of the same wave, each tuned very slightly apart in pitch (a few "cents"), and the tiny mismatches beat against each other — that's what gives synth pads and EDM leads their thick, wide, "detuned" texture. Turn up the voices and detune to hear it build.