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Pulse generators are used for various purposes:
Testing lab equipment and electrical circuits, or driving anything that needs a precise clock (lasers etc);
a class of generators which output high-voltage spikes are also used for food processing.
Pulse generators were often seen in early 1950's-70's Electronic Music studios (eg WDR Köln, 1951)
Today they are less common; while many synths feature pulse oscils, there are few dedicated pulse modules among the Eurorack or VST fauna.
How come?!
Well. No crime here: Frankly, pulse gens are kind of one-trick, musically they are quite limited
Not to be daunted by base impracticability or inconsequentiality, but fascinated with historical EAM, nevertheless GROWLER!
Growler generates bursts of pulses with slightly more variation than most lab units.
Each pulse can have more or less spacing, width, rounding, or up/down balance.
The parameters can vary over the course of each burst to create a sweeping spectral profile.
Rounding. Yep!
Growler adheres to a strict principle of never allowing aliasing or discontinuity into the signal stream.
Full rounding results in a sinewave. Minimal rounding produces pulses or a variable squarewave.
The minimal rounding ("edge") can be tweaked, and even, if you insist, be set to 0.0 samples, which creates the hard aliasing pulses you may recognize from some synths and classic albums. Shock and awe your loudspeakers and ears.
The Pen
Growler's waveform is drawn like a graphical pen line, using cosine sweeps and straight-line segments to create a smooth, rounded signal.
There are no analog emulation ripples or downfiltered grunge, just a clean smooth line.
This is useful to control other oscillators and envelopes.
Growler can be seen as a severe complication of the Squinewave saw-sine-square-pulse oscillator
(which you might want to try out - it sounds very clean and is great for FM or as a control signal).
We have included a very minimal set of 4-5 presets, to show you a few directions where it might go.
This set will be expanded shortly.
Growler is only available as a Bundle, so if we want to add something, or possibly create a new interface (because, as mentioned, a lot of params), this will be included.