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Your Basic Waveforms

2007-12-17

According to Casio, there are 8 waves available. They document 5 basic waves, and 3 faux resonant waves.

In reality, there are 8 basic waves, and 0 resonant waves. The 3 faux resonant waves are achieved by passing one of the basic waves (110) through different window functions. The window function is explained on a subsequent page. This page just documents the 8 basic waves that are available.

Nomenclature

I have decided to call the waves by the bit values used to summon them. It's a series of three bits that specifies every wave, so there are only eight possibilites (23 = 8). The eight possibilities are: 000, 001, 010, 011, 100, 101, 110, and 111.

I think this is a better approach than numbering them (e.g. 1, 2, 3), because any numbering scheme would come into conflict with Casio's own numbering scheme and cause confusion. I also think naming them by their bit value is better than giving them descriptive names (SAW, PULSE, SQUARE, etc.) because it makes the naming more systematic and demonstrates their finite nature. I do include a descriptive name, along with the bit name, in the tables that follow.

Waveform Bits

binary data description
................ 16 bit data = 16 1s or 0s
000............. WAVE 1 - SAW
001............. WAVE 1 - SQUARE
010............. WAVE 1 - PULSE
011............. WAVE 1 - NULL
100............. WAVE 1 - SINE-PULSE
101............. WAVE 1 - SAW-PULSE
110............. WAVE 1 - MULTI-SINE
111............. WAVE 1 - PULSE2
...000.......... WAVE 2 - SAW
...001.......... WAVE 2 - SQUARE
...010.......... WAVE 2 - PULSE
...011.......... WAVE 2 - NULL
...100.......... WAVE 2 - SINE-PULSE
...101.......... WAVE 2 - SAW-PULSE
...110.......... WAVE 2 - MULTI-SINE
...111.......... WAVE 2 - PULSE2
......1......... Yes, there's a second wave
......0......... No, there's not a second wave

Notice that WAVE 2 is just a repeat of WAVE 1. There are only 8 waves, and they repeat. It is bitwise impossible for there to be more than 8 waves. Very tidy.

Key for this table

This option is only available through sysex.

Basic Waveform Demonstration

In the table below, the red diamonds show the start and end of a typical period for each wave.

WAVE 000
SAW		 ♫ WAVE 000 Available from the front panel, where it's called WAVE 1
More like a half-sine.
WAVE 001
SQUARE		 ♫ WAVE 001 Available from the front panel, where it's called WAVE 2
Basic square wave.
WAVE 010
PULSE		 ♫ WAVE 010 Available from the front panel, where it's called WAVE 3
The pulse is in the middle of the wave's period.
WAVE 011
NULL		 ♫ WAVE 011 Only available using sysex.
Has a bit of a percussive attack, but otherwise silent.
WAVE 100
SINE-PULSE		 ♫ WAVE 100 Available from the front panel, where it's called WAVE 4
The pulse is at the beginning of the wave's period.
WAVE 101
SAW-PULSE		 ♫ WAVE 101 Available from the front panel, where it's called WAVE 5
I guess this is supposed to be inbetween a saw and a pulse. In reality, this sounds very similar to the regular saw, WAVE 000 above.
WAVE 110
MULTI-SINE		 ♫ WAVE 110 The raw form of this wave is only available through sysex.
This basic wave is used in combination with the window functions to create the faux resonant waves. Every period of the wave is a barrage of little sine waves. There seem to always be about 15 sine waves in each period of a wave. So if f is the frequency of a wave, the frequency of the sine waves is about 15f.
WAVE 111
PULSE2		 ♫ WAVE 111 Only available using sysex.
Twice the frequency of the normal PULSE wave. Twice the frequency of the note played, for that matter. The pulses occur at the beginning and middle of the wave's period.

Key for this table

This option is available through the front panel.
This option is only available through sysex.
11809.74600