Single cycle waveforms
I have been making and collecting one cycle waveforms for years. They have been one of my best weapons to use when making sounds. If you have a wavetable synthesizer that can load single cycle waveforms you might find them useful as well.
These waveforms took a great amount of time to sample and I would like to continue this and similar projects, if you want to make that easier for me please please consider making a small donation.
The collections
AKWF Waveforms (a massive collection of waveforms)
AKWF NewStandards (Clean new shapes. Coming up)
AKWF Nes (Waveforms from the Nintendo 8-bit console. Coming up)
Synths that can load waveforms / oscillator shapes
Hardware
Shruthi-1, Roland MC-909, Elektron Monomachine, Elektron Octatrack
Software
I have marked the ones I like with * but I don’t know all of them…
Sytrus*, Harmless*, 3xOSC, Native Instruments Absynth, Camel Audio Alchemy, MetaSynth, Dave Smith Evolver, Symbolic Sound Kyma, Native Instruments Reaktor, Elektron Monomachine*, Ableton Simpler, Akai S2000, Animoog, Expert Sleepers Disting EX etc.
Single cycle waveforms!?
If you are familiar with basic subtractive synthesizers you probably know the saw, square, sinus and triangle shape that are the most common shapes a oscillator can produce pretty well. Single cycle waveforms are tiny audio files (.wave) that a synthesizer can read to use as oscillator shapes. What it means is new sounds. Some kind of grey area between sampling and synthesis. A raw waveform is very rarely what makes a whole sound but you can see it as presets for oscillators. Happy sound designing!
This kind of technique is also called PCM wavetable synthesis.
70 responses
Hi mate, I wanna ask you for wave samples for my digitakt. Some analog and digital waves or from vintage gear…
I can donate via paypal mate…no problem
you might want to add “Expert Sleepers Disting EX” to your list of synths that can load these.. hell, they’re already being included on the default SD card library that ships with the Disting from module retailers.. sure, it’s a MODULE rather than a full-blown standalone synth, but with all the updates it’s gotten since its initial release, its hard to pass up for any eurorack enthusiast
It’s actually totally new wave forms for the Expert Sleepers Disting EX, but yes it should be added here I agree!
jelli
Hi,
I made a donation via pay pal, how do I download the single waveforms for digitakt, which part do I click?
cheers
Hello!
First, thank you for taking the time to sample all these waveforms. They are really nice.
Secondly, what is the license regarding these samples? I was interested in using some of them in a small scale commercial synthesizer I have been working on.
Thanks!
Hi Jason! They are in the public domain. You do not even have to leave a credit even though it’s nice 🙂
wave good
good wave
Thank You Very Much!
I can’t translate the PayPal page, or else I would have donated. I’m not sure if the comma marks the difference between dollars and cents!
Thank you so much for these! Two bits for your “Synths that can load waveforms / oscillator shapes” section.
Hardware: Digitakt loveloveloves AKWFs!
Software: NanoStudio 2 (iphone/ipad) loveloveloves AKWFs. Bonus: you can stack three at once.
No problem! Put them to good use! I will update the page. Maybe I should jump on the NanosStudio train. I kinda choose LSDJ for the game boy and never looked back.
Thanks for making this available, I use these on my full-on studio DAW software and on Caustic an awesome smartphone and tablet virtual synth rack and sequencer.
Cheers
Sounds fun!
Dear Adventure Kid,
First of all, thanks for sharing your work – much appreciated!
Scondly, I have a question that other single-cycle newbs might also run across, so I hope you’ll have time to enlighten me.
Having downloaded your collection, I am trying to use them in my Kurzweil K2000.
Loading works fine, and the waves sound awesome! However, the single cycle waves only stretch around 14 steps up before the K2000 seems to stop its pitch shifting. They also drop out of audible range when I go down around two octaves, but that I had expected. It is the weird non-shift when going upwards, that I’m puzzled by. Is this something particular to the K2000, or is it a ‘natural’ aspect of working with single cycle waves?
Any help will be received with gratitude.
Best
Rasmus, Copenhagen
Synthstrom Deluge handles SCW wonderfully, if you wanted more hardware to add to the list. 🙂
Most useful sample collection ever, to be honest. <3
Many thanks for this….you can use the AKWF wave in this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF8G_CFC5gs&t=
Thank you so much for your painstaking work and your generosity. There is enough to explore here to last a lifetime.
You could add to the list of samplers that can load single cycle waveforms Renoise Redux!
Two free VSTs can import them: Atlantis (the wav format) and Zebralette (Zebra h2p format).
This collection is very rich. Could it be smaller, like, the essential pack?
Most synths can effectively use much less of them.
Hey there — this collection is wonderful! I use the modular audio software Plogue Bidule. I created a FM wavetable synth to play the AKWF’s. Just thought you might like to know. Sounds great!
http://www.plogue.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7928
Cool I have to check it out – I love plouges plugins but haven’t really used bidule. Gonna check it out!
Hey I love the waveforms! I want to donate, but I was wondering if there was some sort of organizing to the folders without names?
Hello,
Any news about AKWF NewStandards waveform ?
These Waveforms can also be used in Nitrotracker on a Nintendo DS!!!!!!! I have every waveform you ever created on my R4 card and it glitches because there’s so many, but…. They are all usable! Awesome Sauce! I also use them in Fl Studio, they’re efficient, smart, Micro-sized Awesome!
I will Donate all of my albums that use these waveforms, K?
Email me so I can email you back!
Many thanks for sharing this, it works very well with my dsi evolver, more range of sounds !
Are the AKWF New Standards’ available yet?
Hi Fabien, I don’t have the time right now put it’s planned. I will try to keep in mind to update you when I put them up for download.
Dope! Thanks so much for sharing this.
Brilliant work! Makes me really tempted to get an Octatrack! Getting one this week so will be trying these out heavily! Are the ‘AKWF New Standards’ available yet? What waves are contained in AKWF_0001 – AKWF_0020 is each one a different synth or what as I’d like to relabel them. Definitely worth donating if I use these! Thanks
Hi sorry for late response! Many are from synthesizers but some are from random sources. Could be from anything, a broken television, a bird, a train, me whistling… It started out as a very chaotic collecting so I don’t really know =)
Thanks for sharing, really helpful !
Thanks for all the hard work in making this collection available. You can add the MC-909 to the list of machines that handle these. I play around with these waveforms for hours and I know I’ll never run out of new sounds. THANKS!
AK – Thanks so much for all the work on these and for making them available. It’s a really solid collection – I’ve only dipped into all the WAV sets, but am looking forward to trying some in Zebra and on my Blofeld – and taking some photos of fullscreen waveforms and importing into the new PPG iPad app!
I can’t wait to try the distorted pack. Thanks!
Hi ! How can I do this with my Monomachine? Thanks 🙂
Oops….A big thank you! I have DSS-1 that uses only these but the memory is broken. Anyone can fix it?
Digital Love Child by Synth Magic is a new Kontakt Instrument that uses these.
Waiting for the AKWF Nes. Any ETA on this?
Thank you very much for this amazing collection – really useful and high quality. I’ve used your wavesahpes for creating a reaktor instrument – an interesting wavetable synthesizer named “Aurora”. You can find it at the reaktor user library on the NI website(Synthesizers/Wavetable/Aurora). Your credit is there offcourse. You can also get it by contacting me.
Thanks again!!!
Absolutely fucking awesome. Thanks so much for making these available!
but you should put up those NES ones dood!
This is the shit! Thank you!
I will making a Puredata patch that uses this format of 44.1khrz/16bit 600 samples long D1 and extending it with waveforms 75 samples long at D-1. It will be a wavetable synth that borrows from ideas in LSDJ, Nanoloop and the PPG Wave. Thanks for the ideas! These waveforms are superb!
my evolver and blofeld will be very happy to load these
the waveforms are superb. i would really really like to see/hear the nes waveforms. are you still planning to make a nice set of those?
Thanks! Nice collection. The license?
Hey Adventure KID! I’m just getting into this wavetable stuff, great blog here you got. It’s sums up very well what single waveforms can do. Thanks. I’m v. excited. Software synths has come of age I think.
great stuff…but do you have them already grouped in sample maps?
Thanx so much … i’ve been looking for this stuff for a long time. Me and my monomachine love you. I love the sine waveforms. Just awsome! Youre karma just went thru the sky..
//Max
It’s a snap taken of Ear candy and then edited a bit in photoshop. Hope that helps.
Hi i am curious how you made this beautiful waveform graphic ?
An interesting collection… but AK-OCW_0008.ZIP gives me a 404. All the other files are fine.
Some of the files 404… But most seem to still work here. Pure isn’t a collection but a unique library.
These links are dead now… files not found!
Is “Pure” a compilation of “A Collection” + others in one archive?
Michael.
It’s nice to know there’s another person who has collected single cycle waveforms for a long time. You have much much more tho than I ever got collected, and your catagories are quite nice too. Such inspiring variety!! I just wish my life didn’t have so many other things going on in it through the past 8 years, so my collection would’ve grown into something like yours is showing.
This site is a very well put together collective, and am quite amazed how many there are, and ssssso useful a site!! 🙂 Many thanks for what you’re into.
Love, love, love the site! I have added it to my army of “killer sites”! Wish you had more posts…actually maybe not because then I wouldn’t be able to get any work done. :p