FabFilter Twin 3 Help
Drag-and-drop modulation slots
Polyphony, unison and microtuning
Full Screen mode, resizing and scaling
In Twin 3, you can use up to four full-featured oscillators. Combined with our award-winning filters and the new FX section, this gives you an exceptional broad palette of sounds. The oscillators are vintage-sounding, and have built-in analog drift: there is a very subtle randomness in various parts of the synthesizer, like the oscillator tuning and phase.
To add an oscillator, click the + button at the bottom of the oscillators. To delete one, hover over the oscillator and click the small x button in the top-right corner.
Every oscillator can be easily customized and shows the produced waveform in the background. The following parameters are available:
Waveform
The Waveform button selects the waveform that the oscillator produces:
Enable
This will turn an oscillator on or off, so you can easily check the contribution of an
oscillator to the overall sound.
Pulse Width
The Pulse Width knob adjusts the pulse width of the square waveform, from an even square to
an infinitely thin pulse (which is actually inaudible). Pulse width is a modulation
target and is only available when the Square or Square Pure wave form is selected.
Detune
The Detune knob sets the detune for each oscillator. It has a range of +/- one
octave, and is extra sensitive around the 0 position. It is a modulation target as well. Like
any other knob, you can double-click it to enter a value directly using the keyboard. For
example, try '0.5 octaves' or '1 semitone' or '50 cents'. See Knobs
for more information.
Scale
Each oscillator can be transposed up to 3 octaves above and one octave below the
master tune.
Sync
The Sync knob adjusts the level of hard sync for its oscillator. When set to 1, the
oscillator works normally without hard sync. When set to a higher value, the oscillator will
'squeeze' more phases into one actual audible phase, which drastically changes the harmonics
in the sound with a metallic-sounding effect. Sync is a modulation target.
Phase Sync
Below the Sync knob, the Phase Sync button (with a MIDI icon) toggles oscillator
phase sync on and off. When oscillator phase sync is on, the oscillator resets its phase to
halfway the waveform on each note-on event. With short, percussive sounds, this works really
well to create a sharp and aggressive attack with every note. However, normally you should
turn it off because it sometimes introduces unwanted clicks.
Level/Pan
The volume and pan of each oscillator can be adjusted using the combined Level/Pan knobs. The
inner knob set the overall level and outer ring sets the panning. Both are modulation
targets.
You can enable ring modulation between two oscillators with the small * button between the sections for oscillator 1 and 2 or oscillator 3 and 4. Ring modulation multiplies two waveforms, and outputs the sum and difference of the frequencies present in each waveform. This produces a signal rich in overtones, suitable for producing bell-like or otherwise metallic sounds.
The Master Tune knob determines the global frequency offset of all oscillators. The Scale menu above the knob transposes the frequency by full octaves. The Master Tune knob is a modulation target so you can modulate the frequency of all oscillators at once.
The Portamento knob adjusts the amount of portamento or glide, which makes the oscillators slide from one note to another. A little portamento is great for smooth keyboard solos, or when playing large bass intervals. Good portamento is one of those things that give your play just that little bit extra: it's magic. So we have fine-tuned it until it was just perfect! The best thing is: we have created a unique portamento because it also works in polyphonic mode, so you can play sliding chords. Normally, portamento is always applied, but when the Portamento Legato button below the knob is active, gliding will not be applied for the first key pressed, only for the keys after that. Portamento is also a modulation target.
Tips
When you want to change any oscillator parameter for all oscillators at the same time, just hold down the Alt key (Shift key in Pro Tools) while turning a knob.
Next: Filters
See Also
Overview