Sawtooth
Bitwig Platform
A pitch-tracked saw oscillator with continuous shape bending, hard-sync-style cycle multiplication, and phase modulation.
What it does
Sawtooth generates a ramp-like waveform from its internal phase. Shape curves that ramp toward different saw characters, while Sync fits additional waveform cycles inside the root cycle to move the harmonic structure independently of the played note.
Controls and ports
The wrapper provides Shape and Sync plus the common oscillator controls for pitch, pitch offset, ratio, trigger reset, phase modulation, stereo detune, and audio output.
Practical uses
- Use the neutral Shape setting as a harmonically rich source for subtractive synthesis.
- Modulate Shape for movement that changes the waveform curvature rather than simply filtering it.
- Sweep Sync for hard-sync-style leads and basses while the root pitch remains stable.
Things to know
- Shape is part of waveform generation and is not the same as a downstream waveshaper.
- Sync changes the number of internal traversals per root period and therefore moves discontinuities through the cycle.
- Phase In is additive phase modulation scaled by its amount control.
- Set Ratio to 0:1 and Phase In amount to 100 percent when an external phase signal should replace internal phase progression.
- The recovered implementation softens the wrap transition according to phase increment, but extreme settings can still alias.
Technical details
A high-confidence Nitro implementation candidate supports the technical summary, but the visible-module mapping remains inferred.
The mapped grid_saw4 implementation runs a two-lane phase accumulator at four-times processing resolution. It wraps a Sync-scaled phase, forms a ramp with a short increment-dependent transition, and applies the polynomial curve z = (1+s)z - (3-2z)z²s, where s = 4*(Shape-0.5), before mapping the result to bipolar output. Pitch, ratio, trigger reset, phase modulation, and optional opposite stereo detune share the same oscillator framework as the other geometric oscillators.
| 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 Shape and Sync parameter mappings, exact neutral Shape, and spectrum across extreme settings.
- Confirm reset ordering, stereo lane assignment, and the boundary transition at negative phase modulation.
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.
Related material
Return to Bitwig Grid Modules or the Grid Modules course lesson.
Also matches: Bitwig Sawtooth module, Bitwig Grid Sawtooth, Sawtooth Grid module