Topics / Bitwig Studio / Bitwig Grid / Bitwig Grid Modules / Grid Oscillator Modules / Pulse

Pulse

Bitwig Platform

Pulse module panel in Bitwig Grid
Pulse in Bitwig Grid 6.0.6.

A pitch-tracked pulse oscillator with pulse-width control, hard-sync-style cycle multiplication, and phase modulation.

What it does

Pulse runs an internal phase accumulator at the incoming pitch and turns each cycle into a two-state waveform. Pulse Width changes the duty cycle, while Sync makes the root cycle contain additional pulse cycles for a brighter, hard-sync-like spectrum.

Controls and ports

Control Label Official description
pw Pw Percentage of each cycle that the pulse wave stays positive
sync Sync Semitone offset of the root waveform's pitch for a shift in timbre

Practical uses

  • Start near a square wave and modulate Pulse Width for classic PWM movement.
  • Raise Sync while holding pitch steady to sweep the harmonic structure without changing the played note.
  • Feed a phase signal into Phase In and raise its amount for phase distortion or audio-rate phase modulation.

Things to know

  • Pulse Width is the percentage of the cycle for which the oscillator stays positive; the recovered DSP clamps its internal value away from exact 0 and 1.
  • Sync multiplies the waveform read phase while the root oscillator still follows the played pitch.
  • The note-pitch and reset pre-cords normally make the oscillator playable without explicit pitch or trigger cables.
  • For external-only phase control, set Ratio to 0:1 and Phase In amount to 100 percent; otherwise the patched phase is added to the oscillator's internal phase.
  • Pulse edges create many harmonics, so extreme Sync and modulation can still produce aliasing despite the implementation's softened transition.

Technical details

A high-confidence Nitro implementation candidate supports the technical summary, but the visible-module mapping remains inferred.

The mapped grid_pulse4 implementation converts Grid pitch to frequency, applies ratio and optional opposite stereo detune, and advances two phase lanes at four-times processing resolution. Trigger resets phase to zero; Phase In is added as phaseMod * phaseIn. For sync factor S and clamped pulse width w, it wraps p = fract(S * phase) and forms a limited pulse from (abs(p - 0.5) - 0.5*w) * pulseGain. The transition gain depends inversely on phase increment and S, reducing an infinitely sharp discontinuity.

Nitro port Type
pitchValue InputAudioPortType
pitchOffset InputAudioPortType
numerator InputValuePortType
denominator InputValuePortType
triggerIn InputAudioPortType
phaseIn InputAudioPortType
phaseMod InputAudioPortType
stereo InputValuePortType
formant InputAudioPortType
wrap InputAudioPortType
detune InputAudioPortType
bipolar InputValuePortType
out OutputAudioPortType

Open questions

  • Measure the visible Sync semitone-to-factor conversion, reset ordering, and alias rejection across pitch and Pulse Width.
  • Confirm the exact polarity at the phase-zero boundary and stereo-detune lane assignment.

Version and sources

Checked against Bitwig Studio 6.0.6. This page combines Bitwig's module metadata, the existing Grid course and guides, and Nitro analysis where the mapping is strong enough to support a technical statement.

Return to Bitwig Grid Modules or the Grid Modules course lesson.

Also matches: Bitwig Pulse module, Bitwig Grid Pulse, Pulse Grid module