Z-Oscillator

What it does

Phase-distortion oscillator (Casio CZ flavour).

Wraps daisysp::ZOscillator — a sinewave multiplied by and sync’d to a carrier. SetFreq / SetFormantFreq / SetShape / SetMode update per sample. No native SetAmp, so the Amp port is a post-multiply VCA.

Parameters

• Formant (Hz)

  formantFreq
  Default 220Range 20 … 8000

  Frequency of the resonant peak the carrier is shaped against, in Hz. It does not change the perceived pitch — Freq does that — but it decides where the emphasis sits in the spectrum, so sweeping it produces the vocal, wah-like motion this oscillator exists for. Independent of pitch, so a formant left fixed while pitch moves is what makes a sound seem to have a body and a throat.

• Shape

  shape
  Default 0.5Range 0 … 1

  Bends the contour of the waveform between 0 and 1, from rounded to sharply peaked. It is a timbre control rather than a filter: higher values concentrate energy into the resonant part of the cycle and sound brighter and more pinched. Modulating it slowly is a cheap way to get movement without touching pitch or formant.

• Mode

  mode
  Default 0Range -1 … 1

  Blends between the two ways the carrier can be distorted, across −1 to 1. Below about a third of the way up the effect is pure phase shift; above two thirds it is pure offset; between the two you get a mixture of both. The two ends are audibly different characters rather than more or less of one thing, so this is worth sweeping to hear before settling on a value.

Ports

Audio Control

Inputs

Freq

Carrier pitch in Hz.

Formant

Formant oscillator frequency in Hz.

Shape

Waveform contour, 0 → 1.

Mode

Phase-shift ↔ offset blend, −1..1.

Amp

Output level (VCA). Defaults to 1.0.

Outputs

Audio Out

Phase-distorted output.