Onto the VCF, or Voltage Controlled Filter. Okay, so this section of the SYNTH screen is where you can really chisel your sounds out. Let's start with the square wave of VCO2, balance all the way to 2.
While holding down the B button, move the cutoff slider to the left. Notice how the wave seems to get chiseled until it transforms into a triangle wave and then goes silent. Set the cutoff to the right again and while sliding it left again, pay attention to the sound. As the cutoff goes left, the wave sounds like its getting lower in tone. This is because we are using the Low Pass Filter (LPF) which attenuates the higher frequencies, meaning it gets rid of them.
Switch to HPF, or High Pass Filter and listen again. You will notice that this filter works in the opposite way, but even all the way left it still has some attenuation. High Pass Filters are not as commonly used as Low Pass, but it has it's uses.
BPF stands for Band Pass Filter and attenuates a range that changes depending on where you set the cutoff. Go left and right with it and see if you can hear what's going on. By now, you can see we can create a wide range of sounds using a simple waveform and a filter, and we haven't even messed with Peak or the Envelope Generator Intensity!
EG INT we will save for another day, but let's talk about Peak. This is what is more commonly known as resonance, which amplifies the sound near the CUTOFF frequency. So let's go back to LPF, set CUTOFF and PEAK all the way to the right. Hold down the B button and slide your CUTOFF left. Whoa. Notice how if you leave the CUTOFF at a particular point and play B, it doesn't have the same tones as if you are sliding around your CUTOFF while the note is held. When you get to programming your sounds you can have cutoff sweeps by using an MG in the patch panel or setting a kaoss sequence (I hope I'm not getting too far ahead of myself here).
Try doing cutoff sweeps with the other filters, and also try filtering the other waves. Try to not change too many things at once, just go gradually from one to the other and hear the differences, it will help you understand how to really try the range of possible sounds. Filtering noise can do some cool things that you might not have expected this bleep bloopy synth to be capable of! In closing, I refer you to this for some more in depth info on what's going on with filters.
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