Why do these two sounds function and sound totally differently?

Question

The top sound has an audio output regardless of the state of the trigger. (See image below.) The bottom sound is silent except when the triggered. Regardless of the state of the "reverse" checkbox, I cannot find (or make) another function that works like the top sound (i.e. soft output even when not triggered).

Answer 1

The exponential.aif file is a true exponential function in that it begins with a small non-zero value.  The exponrev.aif was intentionally designed or forced to end on a zero.  

If you'd like a FunctionGenerator amplitude envelope that always lets a little signal through, even when not triggered, you could use the WaveEditor to generate (or modify an existing) wavetable such that the final sample value is small but not zero. Alternatively, you can add a small DC offset to the signal flow using a ScaleAndOffset with the Scale set to 1 and the Offset set to the small DC offset value.

Since the resting state of the FunctionGenerator is on the last sample of its Wavetable, when you put it into the Product you are multiplying your input by its final sample during the "resting" phase (before you trigger it).

Comments

Thanks! I was guessing it *might* something along those lines. But I couldn't really see that in the sample editor. It just looked like the exponrev.aif had a slightly steeper decay curve.