00:00Ableton Live's Wavetable device comes with a plethora of wavetables,
providing numerous variations of tone and timbre.
00:07Let's take a closer look on how to use and change the wavetables.
00:13A wavetable is simply a collection of short looping samples
that are arranged together.
00:18In this project, I've loaded a Spectrum device so that we can
have a look at the harmonic content of the wavetables
00:24and how it changes when we scan through the wavetable position.
00:28If you play a note with the oscillator
fixed to one of these samples in the Wavetable,
00:33you're going to produce a steady tone with a consistent timbre.
00:36The real power of Wavetable synthesis comes from moving between
the different samples within the Wavetable
00:43as the notes play, this results in a shifting and dramatic timbre.
00:49Wavetable comes with twelve categories of wavetables.
00:53This gives you the option of selecting more than
100 wavetables per oscillator.
00:58These range from classic hardware synths to acoustic instruments,
various types of noise, and many more.
01:09Let's start by taking a look
at the basic wave table shapes.
01:13Here we can move the wavetable position from a sine wave to
a triangle wave, to a saw wave, and finally to a square wave.
01:25So let's now see the Wavetable in action.
01:28I'll use an LFO modulation source to modulate the wavetable position,
which is creating the sound that you're hearing now
01:35as we're shifting between the different wave shapes,
01:40Let's now expand Wavetable's interface
and introduce the second oscillator.
01:45Here we can see all the movement happening
in the two oscillator wavetables.
01:54No filters are being applied to either of the oscillators,
this is purely the sound of the wavetable timbres as they're changing.
02:02Now let's take a look at creating an epic pad.
02:06So on track two, using another Wavetable device, I've selected
'Dubstep Organ' from the Complex category of Wavetable.
02:15This is a complex waveform, and as we scroll through the wavetables,
we can hear how the timbre changes gradually.
02:24Let's now open up Wavetable's interface and add the second oscillator.
02:28The second wavetable is from the Distortion category
and is called Malice.
02:32When we focus on listening to this wavetable,
02:35you can hear how the harsh sound of this particular wavetable
is reflected in its angular wavetable shape.
02:44Together, these two wavetables create a very lush sound.
02:49As mentioned earlier, the true power of Wavetable's synthesis
comes from modulation,
02:54so I'm going to add some global modulation, which will increase the
movement of both Wavetable positions as well as the filter frequencies.
03:13In track 3, I'm running an arpeggio with a wavetable
from the Formant category.
03:18This particular wavetable is named after all the vowel sounds,
03:23and as you can hear, it has a very strong vocal sounding characteristic.
03:29To create some movement, I'm using LFO 2 in Retrigger mode.
03:34This means that when a key is pressed, the LFO restarts.
03:38Let's now add a second oscillator to beef up this particular sound,
03:42I've chosen a wavetable from the Instrument category called Marimba.
03:50For this particular sound I've set up some modulation
in the Modulation Matrix.
03:55In this case the Pitch value affects the position of the wavetable.
03:59With a negative value, a higher pitch will result
in a lower position in the wavetable.
04:16As a last step I'm going to add the sub oscillator to this sound.
04:26You also have the possibility of adding
your own wavetables to the Wavetable device.
04:32This can be done in the User section.
04:37Have fun exploring the sonic capabilities of the Wavetable device.
