every time Tides comes up, I’m happy to sing its praises:
- I probably use it most as a VCO. it’s a lovely almost-full voice - tracks perfectly because it’s digital, Smoothness becomes an LPF to 12-o-clock and then a wave folder thereafter; I like it mainly as a triangle wave, but modulating Slope can lead to fun things. And it’s got a VCA on the Level output. So that’s handy. It really likes modulation and that can lead to great tri bass tones. (And you could use the square outs as a square oscillator too)
- PLL mode makes for fun VCO sounds, but also means you can use it as a tempo-synced LFO, which also means you can use the HIGH/LOW outs as clock division. And sometimes, when I really need another clock divider, that’s what I’ll use it for.
- it’s still a very handy LFO/envelope/function generator, and I’ll sometimes use it as a funky LFO (given all the modulation options). I almost never use it as an EG.
It’s Olivier’s take on a west-coast function generator (eg DUSG, Maths), basically, with a neat digital twist. Like its predecessors, it’s lots of fun at audio rates. But the most important thing is: things you learn at one rate apply to another; although for reasons the controls slightly modify their behaviour, they end up feeling the same. And that means something you discover in its LFO capabilities will have interesting applications at audio rate.
Tides digression over!
